We've previously talked about Micah Owings' great season as a hitter (just search for his name in the search box,) but there was a specific question about whether he had the highest SLG for a pitcher with at least 30 total bases in a season. Here are the leaders for that set of criteria:

  Cnt Player             **SLG**   TB Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+---------+---+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Micah Owings         .683    41 2007  24 ARI NL  35  64  60   9  20  7  1  4  15   2   0  16   0   1   1   0   0  0  .333  .349 1.032 *1
    2 Don Newcombe         .632    74 1955  29 BRO NL  57 125 117  18  42  9  1  7  23   6   0  18   1   1   0   1   1  0  .359  .395 1.027 *1
    3 Carl Scheib          .623    33 1951  24 PHA AL  48  55  53   9  21  2  2  2   8   1   0   5   1   0   0   1   0  0  .396  .418 1.041 *1
    4 Wes Ferrell          .621    72 1931  23 CLE AL  48 128 116  24  37  6  1  9  30  10   0  21   0   2   0   0   0  0  .319  .373  .994 *1
    5 Brooks Kieschnick    .614    43 2003  31 MIL NL  70  76  70  12  21  1  0  7  12   6   0  13   0   0   0   2   0  0  .300  .355  .969 *1/D7
    6 Bob Lemon            .607    34 1947  26 CLE AL  47  64  56  11  18  4  3  2   5   6   0   9   0   2   0   0   0  0  .321  .387  .994 *1/89
    7 Don Drysdale         .591    39 1958  21 LAD NL  47  72  66   9  15  1  1  7  12   3   0  25   0   3   0   0   0  0  .227  .261  .852 *1
    8 Mike Hampton         .582    46 2001  28 COL NL  43  86  79  20  23  2  0  7  16   2   0  21   0   5   0   1   0  1  .291  .309  .891 *1
    9 Red Ruffing          .582    64 1930  25 TOT AL  58 117 110  17  40  8  2  4  22   7   0   8   0   0   0   0   0  0  .364  .402  .984 *1
   10 Walter Johnson       .577    56 1925  37 WSH AL  36 107  97  12  42  6  1  2  20   3   0   6   1   6   0   0   0  1  .433  .455 1.032 *1
   11 Babe Ruth            .576    53 1915  20 BOS AL  42 103  92  16  29 10  1  4  21   9   0  23   0   2   0   0   0  0  .315  .376  .952 *1
   12 Jack Bentley         .573    51 1923  28 NYG NL  52  94  89   9  38  6  2  1  14   3   0   4   0   2   0   0   0  0  .427  .446 1.019 *1
   13 Elam Vangilder       .559    52 1922  26 SLB AL  45 110  93  16  32 10  2  2  11   5   0  11   3   9   0   0   0  0  .344  .396  .955 *1
   14 Bob Lemon            .556    60 1949  28 CLE AL  46 123 108  17  29  6  2  7  19  10   0  20   0   5   0   1   0  0  .269  .331  .887 *1
   15 Jim Rooker           .544    31 1969  26 KCR AL  34  59  57   7  16  3  0  4   8   1   0  19   1   0   0   2   0  0  .281  .305  .849 *1
   16 Clint Hartung        .543    51 1947  24 NYG NL  34  97  94  13  29  4  3  4  13   3   0  21   0   0   0   2   0  0  .309  .330  .873 *1/7
   17 Brickyard Kennedy    .534    31 1903  35 PIT NL  23  62  58   7  21  4  3  0  10   2   0   0   0   2   0   0   0  0  .362  .383  .917 *1
   18 Wes Ferrell          .533    80 1935  27 BOS AL  75 179 150  25  52  5  1  7  32  21   0  16   0   8   0   0   0  0  .347  .427  .960 *1
   19 Sonny Siebert        .532    42 1971  34 BOS AL  32  90  79  10  21  3  0  6  15   1   0  20   2   7   1   2   0  0  .266  .289  .821 *1
   20 Claude Hendrix       .529    64 1912  23 PIT NL  46 126 121  25  39 10  6  1  15   3   0  18   0   2   0   0   1  0  .322  .339  .868 *1

Not only does Owings hold the record, but he holds it by a country mile. However, I'm inclined to say that Newcombe's 1955 performance and Ferrell's 1931 performance are more impressive, mainly because they had about double the number of plate appearances and maintained great stats. (Of course, who knows what Owings could do in 100, 200, or 400 PAs in a season. We'll probably never learn that.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 8:05 am and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.