10 Responses to “Pinky Whitney”

1. jaysan Says:
   May 3rd, 2010 at 10:20 pm

   Interesting. However, this list excludes players who had very few AB's in their first season.
   I ran your play index tweaking it to show total hits for years 2 through 6.

   My favourite player, Jim Rice came in at #17 with 958 total hits.

2. Gerry Says:
   May 3rd, 2010 at 11:35 pm

   If you look at hits through age 26, there are about 140 players ahead of Cano.

3. Fireworks Says:
   May 4th, 2010 at 1:07 am

   @Jaysan Today they talked about this during the television broadcast of the Yankees game after mentioning that Cano debuted 5 years ago to the day--May 3, as Dimaggio had debuted May 3, 1936, and that Cano trailed only Dimaggio in hits through their first five years (for Yankees), 995 to 911. Obviously Steve's numbers here are different, but the graphic from the broadcast obviously corrects for a player not debuting on Opening Day, kinda like your search.

   @Gerry I don't think hits through age 26 tells you much of anything about players who debut at 22 (like Cano) rather than at 20 (like a bunch of the Depression-era players). Except for Pujols at 21, the recent HOF players who are high on Steve's list, like Boggs, Puckett, and Ichiro, debuted at 24 or older.

4. RollingWave Says:
   May 4th, 2010 at 2:06 am

   still, there are plenty of good names up there that would get you quiet excited , especially if you only look at the post war guys. basically all hall of famers. (at least HOF stats, like Rose, and I'm fairly positive Ichiro will get voted in no matter what)

   His lack of walks remains a source of concern, but it seems like barring injury he should fall anywhere between very good career to borderline hall of fame.

5. Dan Franzen Says:
   May 4th, 2010 at 6:33 am

   I think walks are a concern only if you're not already getting on base. Ichiro's OBP is .377, and obviously he gets plenty of hits. Now, if he didn't walk much and had an OBP of around .330, there might be cause for concern.

6. DavidRF Says:
   May 4th, 2010 at 8:00 am

   @Fireworks
   The age-cutoff is just another reasonable way to account for the mid-season call-up issue. Many people do cite the "first X seasons" numbers, but those have a strong bias against the guys whose first season was a brief call-up. These guys are extremely common. Bench, Schmidt, McGwire, Jackson and most of the rookies of the year of the past two decades, Pedroia, Crosby, Berroa, Beltran, Garciaparra, Grieve, Jeter. Plus, the older guys on the list above because its likely that they were in the minors too long and were more ready from the get go. They didn't have to "learn on the job" like Alex Rodriguez.

   The May-3 cutoff that the Yankees broadcast mentioned. That's just a similar correction... probably designed explicitly to leapfrog Cano over Ben Chapman. Because being second to Dimaggio on a list is a lot more interesting than being 3rd behind Dimaggio and Chapman. 🙂

   Its not just depression-era sluggers who get called up young. That's why everyone is so excited about Jason Heyward this year.

   Lots of post-WWII names on the hits-by-age-26 list. Skipping all the pre-1946 guys there's Kaline, Pinson, Yount, ARodriguez, Aaron, Cepeda, Renteria, Cedeno, Mantle, Cabrera, Griffey, FRobinson, Alomar, Sierra, Pujols, IRodriguez, Ashburn, TSimmons, Staub, CCrawford, Santo, AJones, Beltre, Bench, Ripken, Brett, Maz, Clemente, Templeton, Mathews, Raines, Henderson, BBell, Yaz, Fregosi, Jeter, Ennis, Murray, Kuenn, Trammell, DWright, JRice, Torre, Baerga, Stennett, Flood, Jefferies, GBell, Luzinski, Snider, BRobinson, Versalles, CWashington, Fox, Callison, Moseby, Mattingly, Puhl, Au. Rodriguez, Baines, Rollins, WMays, Sandberg, WDavis, Molitor, Rose, Damon, JGonzalez, VGuerrero, Cano.

   But of course, that list won't be perfect either because it biases towards guys who get called up very young and then there's the arbitrariness of the June 30th age cutoff.

   Of course, I still appreciate the first X seasons list -- I grew up rooting for Kirby Puckett and those lists love him 🙂 -- but there's many ways to slice the data.

7. Brad Says:
   May 4th, 2010 at 10:38 am

   If you only do it for players who started their careers after 1950, Cano is 8th, and everyone ahead of him is in the Hall (Aaron, Puckett, Boggs, Cepeda), going (Ichiro, Pujols) or Pete Rose. Rounding out the top ten are Roberto Alomar and Juan Pierre.

8. TheGoof Says:
   May 4th, 2010 at 11:22 am

   Cano's walk total is very, very low, but he's getting much better with handling at bats. He swings more than most guys, but makes contact much more often. So if he's getting a hit or fouling the ball off and prolonging the count, it's useful. His strikeouts are much lower than I realized, and very low for a power hitter who swings a lot. With his power and contact ability, a slight improvement in his K/BB ratio would vault him from great hitter to elite. And of course, he's turned into a gold glove-caliber second baseman.

9. Philsphannj Says:
   May 4th, 2010 at 12:03 pm

   Hey! Be nice to Pinky. Nowhere fast? He played for more than a decade and consistenly averaged .298 and had 98 RBI per 162 games. His OPS+ shows he ended up being pretty much an average player. Not a HOFer but also not Steve Jeltz.

10. jjquinn Says:
    May 4th, 2010 at 9:34 pm

    Derek Jeter's first 5 seasons - 996 hits (1996-2000). Jeter appeared in 15 games in '95 most of which was as a mid season call up as an injury replacement from May 29-Jun 11. So by any standard his first season was 96 which you didn't account for in your list. Obviously this has been noted above by several other posters. 996 would put him 4th on the list above.