Times-on-base streaks
Posted by Andy on November 16, 2007
As a reader asked for, here are the longest streaks for reaching base at least once per game, broken down by position.
All streaks are since 1957, and the player must have appeared at the given position in each game.
StreakStart Streak End Games AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SO BB SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Teams Position +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Victor Martinez 2005-09-17 2006-05-06 43 169 35 64 19 0 6 28 24 22 0 1 .379 .448 .598 1.046 CLE C Frank Thomas 1995-06-29 1996-05-31 90 334 83 115 24 0 28 86 51 72 2 1 .344 .453 .668 1.121 CHW 1B t- Eric Young 1995-08-17 1996-05-06 47 187 33 67 13 3 5 23 14 27 20 5 .358 .447 .540 .987 COL 2B t- Lou Whitaker 1991-05-31 1991-08-06 47 172 34 56 7 2 9 26 16 27 0 1 .326 .414 .547 .961 DET 2B George Brett 1980-05-22 1980-09-19 76 306 65 138 25 5 17 85 15 39 11 6 .451 .507 .732 1.239 KCR 3B Orlando Cabrera 2006-04-25 2006-07-06 63 251 45 76 18 1 3 32 19 27 10 1 .303 .372 .418 .790 LAA SS Barry Bonds 2003-06-27 2003-09-20 57 161 56 63 12 0 24 44 19 76 0 0 .391 .587 .913 1.500 SFG LF Jimmy Wynn 1969-06-04 1969-08-03 52 174 44 56 11 1 11 35 45 63 16 4 .322 .500 .586 1.086 HOU CF t- Shawn Green 2000-04-25 2000-06-23 53 195 39 67 18 2 9 45 42 38 11 2 .344 .458 .595 1.053 LAD RF t- Paul O'Neill 1996-04-09 1996-06-12 53 197 38 66 14 1 6 37 26 46 0 1 .335 .459 .508 .967 NYY RF Edgar Martinez 2001-04-20 2001-08-10 69 258 45 80 22 0 13 70 46 48 4 0 .310 .420 .547 .967 SEA DH Rick Rhoden 1984-07-20 1985-04-09 15 44 7 20 4 0 0 3 5 1 0 0 .455 .467 .545 1.012 PIT P t- Tim Teufel 1987-08-01 1987-09-01 9 15 3 8 1 0 0 4 3 2 0 0 .533 .588 .600 1.188 NYM PH t- Lloyd Moseby 1983-05-03 1984-08-30 9 15 3 8 2 0 0 3 1 3 1 0 .533 .611 .667 1.278 TOR PH t- Dave Philley 1958-09-09 1959-04-16 9 9 2 9 3 0 1 9 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 1.667 2.667 PHI PH
First of all, folks, that's why Frank Thomas is going to be a first-ballot HOFer one day. Ninety straight games getting on base! Whew!
Ties occurred where marked. Note that there is quite a lot of variation in the above list. Orlando Cabrera reached base in 63 straight games last year while managing an OPS of just .790. Mind you at least he had a nice .372 OBP during that period. Compare that with Brett, who scorched the ball to the tune of a 1.239 OPS over 76 games. That's got to be one of the highest all-time figures for any 70+ stretch of games.
Notice, too, that if you compare this list with the hit streak list from a few posts back, these streaks are all a lot more recent. I suppose that it's in large part because the walk rate is pretty high these days.
And now, longest streaks of not reaching base, also by position:
StreakStart Streak End Games AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SO BB SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Teams Position +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- t- Wil Nieves 2005-09-02 2007-05-06 15 31 1 0 0 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 NYY C t- Larry Haney 1969-08-08 1969-09-10 15 23 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 OAK C Dan Meyer 1983-05-27 1983-09-05 13 42 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 OAK 1B Al Weis 1966-06-06 1966-08-09 17 37 3 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 CHW 2B Tim Bogar 1994-04-04 1995-08-04 11 19 0 0 0 0 0 2 3 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 NYM 3B Al Pedrique 1988-08-24 1989-06-07 14 26 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 PIT-DET SS Mike Huff 1993-05-01 1993-09-27 12 16 1 0 0 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 CHW LF Mike Felder 1987-09-20 1989-05-07 10 16 1 0 0 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 MIL CF Mel Queen 1966-05-08 1966-08-22 11 16 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 CIN RF Willie Norwood 1979-08-31 1980-06-20 11 26 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 MIN DH John Wyatt 1962-08-20 1967-08-03 48 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 32 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 KCA-BOS P Gary Rajsich 1982-04-09 1982-09-03 32 32 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 NYM PH
These streaks have the same caveat as the hitless streaks from a few days ago: most of these players played many intervening games at other positions where they got on base plenty of times. To a certainly regard, many of these streaks are just odd freak things. Do we believe that Mike Felder hit a lot worse when playing CF than he did playing LF? I for one don't. Really, this isn't a lot more than a statistical oddity.
However, what in the heck were the Mets doing in 1982, continuing to let Gary Rajsich pinch hit? From the start of the season, he made 32 consecutive pinch-hitting appearances where he did not get on base. Why in the world did they do that? Mind you, for the rest of the season (not as a pinch-hitter), Rajsich hit over .300.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:27 am
How can Big Hurt have a 90 game on-base streak from 1995 to 1996 if his longest streak in 1995 was 29 games (6-29 to 7-29) and the one in 1996 was 52 games (3-31 to 5-31)? Oh, now I see. Dang, they never should had put him in as DH!
November 16th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Yeah...this kind of positional thing is definitely somewhat biased toward fluky behavior.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Ted Williams' record streak obviously isn't listed, because he did it before 1957.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Ted's streak is more impressive to me than Joe Dimaggio's. How many games was it exactly?
November 16th, 2007 at 10:17 am
We all know that Wynn doesn't hold the all time record in centerfield because of Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak in 1941. Joe D actually reached base in 74 consecutive games that season via either a walk or a hit.
Also I'm suprised to see that F. Thomas reached base 90 consecutive times. I always thought that Ted Williams held the record with 84 consecutive times in 1949. I know that Williams did it with only walks & hits. Did Thomas's streak include fielder's choices, catcher's interference or reach base on errors or did he simply break Williams record?
November 16th, 2007 at 10:26 am
As pointed out by comment #1 above, Thomas' streak was interrupted by appearances at DH where he didn't reach base. This streak considers only his appearances at 1B, and is one of the big reasons why so many people argued that he should never have been made a DH because he hit "so much better" as a 1B. We talked about this before, but Thomas has an OPS that's 170 points better as a 1B compared to DH, although it's tough to distinguish decrease in performance with increased age since he mainly played 1B early on and DHed later.
November 17th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Thomas probably was the DH more when he was having problems with injuries (even within a season), so it isn't too surprising that he did not hit as well then either.