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Part Time Bangers

Posted by Steve Lombardi on November 29, 2007

Today, I found myself looking at the seasons that Jim Spencer and Oscar Gamble had for the 1979 Yankees...and that got me wondering about which teams had the most batters with great offensive seasons where they had 300 or less PA that year. So, I went to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Season Finder and set it for "From 1901 to 2007, Played games at C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF, DH, and OF, (requiring OPSp>=150 and PA<=300), sorted by greatest number of players matching criteria" - and this is what I found:

 Year Lg Team                              Number Players Matching
 +----+--+---------------------------------+------+-----------------------------------------+
  1977 AL New York Yankees                       5 Cliff Johnson / Dave Kingman / Mickey Klutts / Gene Locklear / Marty Perez
  1975 AL Boston Red Sox                         5 Carlton Fisk / Tim McCarver / Deron Johnson / Kim Andrew / Andy Merchant
  2007 AL Seattle Mariners                       4 Charlton Jimerson / Mike Morse / Jeff Clement / Wladimir Balentien
  1999 NL Arizona Diamondbacks                   4 Erubiel Durazo / Turner Ward / Edwin Diaz / Danny Klassen
  1993 NL Atlanta Braves                         4 Fred McGriff / Ryan Klesko / Javy Lopez / Chipper Jones
  1967 AL New York Yankees                       4 Billy Bryan / Frank Tepedino / Tom Shopay / Lou Clinton
  1955 AL Chicago White Sox                      4 Clint Courtney / Ron Northey / Stan Jok / Ed White
  1935 NL Brooklyn Dodgers                       4 Babe Phelps / Vince Sherlock / Frank Skaff / Ralph Onis
  1934 AL St. Louis Browns                       4 Rogers Hornsby / Grover Hartley / Art Scharein / Charley O'Leary

There's some interesting names on these lists.  Enjoy.

6 Responses to “Part Time Bangers”

  1. David in Toledo Says:

    Great topic to show the capabilities of Play Index!

    A great bench year may help create a pennant winner. Walt Judnich had an ob% of .411 in 274 plate appearances for the 1948 Cleveland Indians.

    Gates Brown's OPS+ for the 1968 Tigers was 234, in a pitcher's year!

  2. MogulMan Says:

    How about having a minimum for PA?

  3. spartanbill Says:

    I would love to see this list with a minimum number of AB or PA as well. On the 77 Yankees, Cliff Johnson had 168 PA had 27,18,5, and 4 PA respectivly.

    As for the 75 Red Sox, I never heard of Kim Andrew and Andy Merchant; not a suprise since as Andrew's career spanned 2 games, while Merchant played a single game in 1975, and had a grand total of 3 in his career.

    I realize Steve's interest don't parallel mine, but I think if you lowered the qualifying OPS to 130 or so, and made sure eveyone had at least 75 or 100 PA

  4. OscarAzocar Says:

    What did you accomplish by setting the positions the way you did?

  5. OscarAzocar Says:

    Spartanbill you're criteria don't return anything all that interesting.
    PA between 100 and 300 and OPS+ yields 5 teams with 3 players from 1922 or before and the 1984 NL Philadelphia Phillies (Sixto Lezcano / Tim Corcoran / Jeff Stone)

    There are a slew of teams with 2 players.

    Lowering the minimum to 75 lets in some more modern teams with 3
    2006 NL Washington Nationals Daryle Ward / Ryan Church / Alex Escobar
    1996 AL Cleveland Indians Jeromy Burnitz / Brian Giles / Kevin Seitzer
    1984 NL Philadelphia Phillies Sixto Lezcano / Tim Corcoran / Jeff Stone
    1973 AL Texas Rangers Bill Sudakis / Tom Grieve / Bill Madlock
    1953 AL New York Yankees Don Bollweg / Bill Renna / Andy Carey
    as well as some more preWWII teams

    http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/468K

  6. spartanbill Says:

    Thanks for looking into thaty Oscar. I was expecting a more interesting list, but you are right it is kind of blah.