Trivia time: most hits in first 10 seasons, 1975-1995, by position
Posted by Andy on August 21, 2007
UPDATE: I made a mistake in explaining how the leaders were calculated. I have made the correction below, or just read this summary post for the explanation.
UPDATE: Here are the correct guesses so far:
C: GARY CARTER
1B: EDDIE MURRAY
2B: RYNE SANDBERG / STEVE SAX
3B: WADE BOGGS
SS: JULIO FRANCO
OF: KIRBY PUCKETT
OF: TONY GWYNN
OF: JIM RICE
P: DWIGHT GOODEN / FERNANDO VALENZUELA
DH: HAL McRAE
We got a strong response to the last trivia question that was posted, so I have cooked up another one for you:
Which players lead their respective defensive positions (including pitcher and DH) with the most hits in the first 10 years of their career, over the years 1975 to 1995?
A few points of explanation:
- It is the first ten years of each individual player's career, as long as they fall between 1975 and 1995. Any years that fall outside of that range are not considered. (So if a player started in 1973, then his hits from 1973 and 1974 are not counted, but 1975 and on are counted.
Note also that year 1973 and 1974 don't even count as part of his career, so if he played 10 more years from 1975 on, all 10 are counted.If a player started his career prior to 1975, those count against his years for this study. So for example a player beginning his career in 1973 can be considered for this study for only 8 seasons, from 1975 to 1982. Also, years 1996 and on are not counted.) - The hits are total for the player, regardless of what position they were playing at the time of the hit. Each player gets categorized by whichever position they played the most in the years 1975-1995.
So, the idea here is that the leaders are mainly the leaders from the 1980s, but by expanding the year brackets I am not penalizing players who didn't happen to have a career centered exactly on the 1980s. Many of the results are VERY surprising.
Please feel free to guess one player for each position, and up to three players in the outfield. (Or just make one or two guesses if you don't want to guess all positions.) I'm not sure that all the specific outfield defense data (LF vs CF vs RF) is available, so I'm going to group all outfielders together. I ask that you not use the PI to cheat, unless you wish to do that and keep the results to yourself.
Post a comment with your guesses! I'll post periodic updates with those that have been guessed correctly, and sometime afterwards, I'll make a new post with leaderboards for each position.
August 21st, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I looked at a lot of this a few weeks ago, so I'm gonna gvie it a try
C Carleton Fisk
1B Eddie Murray
2B Lou Whitaker
3B Wade Boggs
SS Ozzie Smith
OF Rickey Henderson
OF Dave Winfield
OF Tim Raines
I have my doubts about the OF, and I have some othere thoughts for C and 3B, but this is what I'm going with.
For the fun of it, I'll guess for pitchers and DH also.
P Steve Carleton
DH Don Baylor
Interestingly, both of these guys were on the 1987 Twins World Series team. Carleton threw 40 or so absolutely terrible innings after a mid-August trade, and Don Baylor was a late August deadline addition who did almost nothing, although he did have a game tying HR in game 6 against the Cardinals.
August 21st, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Dustin,
All are good guesses, but most are not correct. Some of them are surprisingly low--which I say not to put you down, but just to point out how hard this question is.
Fisk doesn't come close to qualifying because he didn't play enough games. From 1975 to 1984, he played more than 135 games just twice, and played fewer than 110 in 4 different seasons.
Winfield is a fine guess, but from 1975 to 1984, he topped a .300 batting average just 3 times. He's more valuable than a lot of guys ahead of him on the hit list, but he doesn't cut it for this particular category.
Don Baylor--this has pointed out to me a problem with the way I set up this question. I believe the PI counts each season when it looks at defense. So Baylor is penalized because he has some seasons where he counts as a DH and other seasons where he counts as an OF. So, everybody keep that in mind when guessing--you have to try to figure out who, in their first 10 seasons starting in 1975 had the most hits in seasons in which they played the most as a DH. It's difficult to figure out.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I'm going to guess that Tony Gwynn (OF) is on this list. I think Robin Yount (SS) will be as well.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:26 pm
my guess:
C: PUDGE
1B: EDDIE MURRAY
2B: ROBERTO ALOMAR
3B: WADE BOGGS
SS: BARRY LARKIN
OF: ANDRE DAWSON
OF: FRED LYNN
OF: Tony Gwynn
P: tom glavine
DH: edgar martinez
Am I close?
August 21st, 2007 at 3:28 pm
My pudge being IVAN RODRIGUEZ
August 21st, 2007 at 3:35 pm
To be perfectly honest, when I started throwing names out, I failed to remember it was their first 10 years in the window. I thought about Fisk or Winfield as guys who had impressive stats over the whole 20 year period, but failed to look at 75-85 for those guys. Thinking clearly now:
Gary Carter for C
Ryne Sandberg for 2B
Robin Yount for SS(stolen from above)
Kirby Puckett(embarassing as I'm a Twins fanatic, but I was focusing far too much on the 1975 part, and not nearly enough on the 1995 part)
Jim Rice
As for P and DH, I'm lost. I'm going to guess Steve Carleton, again, because I think its right, and I've got nothing better. And DH is a tough one, so many guys seem like they would miss qualifying because there 10 year window has them playing more games elsewhere(Paul Molitor for example, qualifies as a 3B during his first 10 seasons)
August 21st, 2007 at 3:36 pm
C: Gary Carter
1B: Eddie Murray
2B: Ryne Sandberg
3B: Wade Boggs
SS: Cal Ripken, Jr.
OF: Tony Gwynn
OF: Dale Murphy
OF: Kirby Puckett
Pitcher, DH: ughh... I'll let someone else try those.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Oh yeah, you guys did some good guessing there. I am particularly impressed with Gary Carter being guessed so quickly. It's easy to forget how productive he was earlier in his career, both because he played for Montreal and because he wasn't all that productive (as is typical for catchers) later on.
By the way, Puckett is the leader in the OF, followed by Gwynn and then Rice. And hey, look at that---we have a CF (Puckett), a RF (Gwynn) and a LF (Rice). How nice.
Steve Carlton is not the pitcher, and nobody has guessed the shortshop yet. I'll give you a clue, which is that not a guy you necessarily think of as a shortstop. Try instead to think about hits leaders for that era.
Also, on DH, it's almost ungettable because of the funky rules. Don Baylor should probably be the unofficial answer. Let's see if anybody can come up with the real one, going strictly by the criteria.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Ok, here are my guesses at the remaining positions:
SS Cal Ripken, Jr.
DH Paul Molitor
P Greg Maddux
August 21st, 2007 at 4:00 pm
My next guess for the shortstop, given the hint that he isn't someone we necessarily think of as a SS, is George Brett. How'd I do?
August 21st, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Nope, nope, and nope, although I'm surprised it took this long for someone to guess Ripken (see also, though, my hint above about SS.)
August 21st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Also nope, on Brett. He played only 11 career games at SS.
August 21st, 2007 at 4:09 pm
What's the minimum PA to qualify for a year/season? If there's no minimum, it looks like there's a tie at 2B.
August 21st, 2007 at 4:46 pm
My dad says the pitcher could be Dwight Gooden. He then added, "Fernando used to rake."
My dad is smart, but he's approaching this all wrong. It needs to be a guy who went deep into games, a true rubber arm who will usually get 3 or more PA's in a game. That got me thinking about knucklballers who had no trouble throwing all day.
2 jumped out at me: Phil Neikro and Charlie Hough. Hough spent the 80's in Texas, so I think it has to be Neikro, even though I'm pretty sure he went to the AL in 83 or 84.
August 21st, 2007 at 6:36 pm
gswitter is completely correct that there is a tie at 2B. Sandberg is one, and there is one other.
and Dustin...your dad is a smart guy because Gooden and Fernando are tied at #1.
August 21st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
How about Franco at SS?
August 21st, 2007 at 8:53 pm
...and the other 2B is Sax.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:35 am
gswitter got 2B...now since you noticed earlier that Sandberg and Sax were tied, I am suspicious that you figured that out on your own without looking at the PI.
As for Franco, that's also correct, and I'm surprised you got that too...
Can anybody out there get the DH? It's really tough, again, based on the rules of this search.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:00 am
How about Hal McRae or Harold Baines? They both had a lot of hits and played a lot of DH. McRae may had had too many years before the 1975.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:17 am
Hal McRae is the answer--remember that the years before 1975 don't count as hits, but also don't count as years against the 10.
I'll make a detailed post about this in the next couple of days showing all the leaders for various positions.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:46 am
I actually didn't use the PI. Sandberg was already listed at 2B when I saw the post, but I was curious about a few contemporaries. I only checked Sax (and Lopes) because I was living in LA during the period. After running a few totals with a calculator (ugh), I did switch to an old version of the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia for the addition.
The Franco guess came from your suggestion to check the all-time hits leaders. Until I saw his name there, I wouldn't have even considered him (forgot he had that many hits), but having had my baseball card collecting peak in the early eighties, I definitely remember him as an SS.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Well, you get a gold star. 🙂
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
I know you said you would put up a post with the individual leaderboards, but could you tell me the totals for Gooden/Valenzuela? Looking at their profile pages, Gooden only had 145 career hits, 142 of them coming from 1984-1993. Valenzuela had 1 AB in 1980 according to his profile page. His 1980-1989 hit total would have been 142 as well. I get it that that is a tie. I wanted to see how my 2 guesses did and found that, according to his B-R page, Phil Neikro had 150 hits from 1975-1983. As for Steve Carlton, his B-R page shows 191 hits between 1975-1984. Am I reading the question wrong or was my assertion that Carlton had to be the answer correct?
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Yup 142 for Doc and Fernando. Not sure why it's inconsistent with your findings...I need some time to look into it. It appears that both pitchers and DHs are screwy with this query for some reason.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Dustin, in case you are still wondering, the reason Carlton did not top the list is because, in fact, the search count years before 1975 against the search, and since Carlton played a full 10 years (1965-1974) before the period of interest, he gets a big fat zero for this particular list. Sorry about the mis-direction on my part.
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:05 am
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