Most Seasons (Non-P) PA <= 25
Posted by Steve Lombardi on February 12, 2011
Which non-pitcher in baseball history, since 1901, has the most seasons (in a career) where they had 25 Plate Appearances or less?
Here's the leaderboard on this one -
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Congrats to Paul Hoover for setting this "record" last season. No shocker that a catcher would hold this mark. Here are just the backstops on this list:
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February 12th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
The name that jumped out at me was ol' Ee-Yay Jennings; I am assuming that most of his "qualifying" seasons came as the manager of the Detroit Tigers in the early 1900s
February 12th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
I saw that Ralph Houk had 6 seasons with fewer than 10 PA.
February 12th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Lou Klimchock is missing. He also had six seasons of 25 or fewer PA. He only PH in 1962 and 1966, but he never pitched.
February 12th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
I think the key is the search looked for players who appeared in 50% of games at a specific position during the season. As I understand it, this misses players who only pinch-hit or who appeared in, say, 3 games at 2B, 3 at SS, and 3 at 3B.
If you change it to players who appeared in at least one game at any non-pitcher position, you still miss the guys who only pinch-hit but you get a larger list: http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/OTmLf (note Klimchock is only given credit for four seasons, not six)
There is the risk of including actual pitchers who moonlighted in the field, but I can't imagine very many (if any) guys did so in four or more years.
February 12th, 2011 at 6:29 pm
That's right - Lou Klimchock didn't play a position in the field in 62 and 66. Good catch.
February 12th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
And, clearly, Lou Klimchock should be on the obscure player list!
February 12th, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Yep, I only know about him because I did a search for players with the longest careers and fewest hits. I think Larry Haney was high on that list.
February 12th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
@1
I expected to see more player-managers like Jennings. Hornsby had several years at the end but he played himself too much and went over the 25 PA barrier.
How come John McGraw 1903-1906 doesn't make the list? Something to do with the positional designation maybe?
February 12th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Dempsey and Hundley are surprises. Both had several cups-of-coffee seasons at the beginning (especially Dempsey - he did this 4 years out of 5 to start his career, and almost did it the fifth year too) and bench-warming at the end. Hundley also add one injury write-off year in the middle.
Similar story for Belliard.
DeJesus is a bit different - he had three cups-of-coffee seasons at the end of his career. That, I think, is quit unusual. I think most guys like DeJesus who have had extended time as everyday players (8 years in-a-row for DeJesus) would NOT finish off their careers kicking around the minors for 4 years.
What I'm getting from this list is you need to catch on pretty quick if you want to have any kind of big-league career. Once you've had 3 or 4 cups-of-coffee seasons, the chances of catching on and becoming an everyday player seem pretty slim.
February 13th, 2011 at 2:35 am
Herb Washington only played during 2 years, but he appeared in 105 games, all as a pinch runner I think, and Never had a Plate Appearance.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/washihe01.shtml
February 13th, 2011 at 6:39 am
If you raise the bar to PA at most 60, you find Charlie Silvera had 8 such seasons. He and Houk were teammates and back-ups to Yogi Berra.
February 13th, 2011 at 7:19 am
Quite cool to see that one of the eternal-cup-of-coffee players managed to win an MVP.
February 13th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
This query makes me think of Dennis Lewallyn, a pitcher who played in eight straight seasons, but never reached double digits in games or 20 innings in any of his seasons.
February 13th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
@10
Although stolen bases isn't the be-all-end-all of good baserunning, it is somewhat amusing that his stolen base percentage was pedestrian; especially considering he tried to steal almost half of the times he was on base.
February 13th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
@ 14 You are correct. Herb Washington had a lot of speed but had little experience playing baseball, and didn't really have any base running smarts.
Basically he was one of Charlie Finley's experiments.
I remember in the 1974 World Series when they put him in as a Pinch Runner in Game 2 at Dodger Stadium. Dodgers vs A's.
1 out in the top of 9th. Herb Washington pinch runs for Joe Rudi
Mike Marshall was on the mound.
The TV announcer in the game was Vin Scully, who ordinarily would never make a prediction, but noted immediately that Mike Marshall would pick him off.
2 seconds later Marshall did pick him off, and then struck out the last batter, pinch hitter Angel Mangual, for a 3-2 Dodger win.
The Dodgers eventually lost the series 4 game to 1.
February 13th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
@12 - I see a World Series MVP - Dempsey. But unless it was a long-ago player, I don't recognize any regular season MVPs. (I did check Hall-of-Famer Jennings, but he never won the MVP, which appears to have debuted in 1911 but was not given out regularly in both leagues until 1931.)
February 13th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Also, when I saw the name Kevin Brown in that #2 spot, my first thought was that this was supposed to be for non-pitchers! Well, that's one more name for my list of players with the same name who were active at or around the same time.
February 13th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Bob O'Farrell won the NL MVP in 1926. He was the backstop for the Cards when they reached the post season for the first time since 1888. It was a fairly weak year for NL stars, though. The only HOFer types in the top ten in voting that season were Hack Wilson (fourth) and Freddie Lindstrom (ninth). Contrast that with the AL- after winner George Burns and number two Johnny Mostil, #s 3-11 are guys named Herb Pennock, Sam Rice, Harry Heilman, Heinie Manush, Al Simmons, Lefty Grove, Goose Goslin, Lou Gehrig, and Tony Lazzeri.
February 14th, 2011 at 11:53 am
On the Lou Klimchock tangent:
It's a pity that he made about half his game appearances as a pinch-hitter, since he was presumably one of the worst pinch-hitters who ever served much time in that role. His PH line:
-- .131 BA (21 for 160), 1 HR, 2 doubles, .162 OBP, .163 SLG.
Meanwhile, he was a decent hitter when he got the chance to start:
-- 138 games, .258 BA, 12 HRs in 519 PAs.
Klimchock struck out more as a pinch-hitter (36 Ks in 167 PAs) than he did as a starter (35 Ks in 519 PAs).
February 14th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Re: Bob O'Farrell as 1926 NL MVP (@18):
Not only was it a weak year for NL stars, it was a weird MVP vote.
-- The top 3 position players in the MVP vote hit 12 HRs combined, 7 of them by O'Farrell.
-- Twenty-four different players got MVP votes, but Cards' 1B Sunny Jim Bottomley -- who led the league with 120 RBI and 305 Total Bases -- didn't get any. (The baseball fates made it up to Bottomley with the 1928 MVP and a ridiculous HOF election by the Veterans Committee in 1974 -- 12 years after he dropped off the BBWAA ballot without ever collecting more than 33% of the vote.)
-- After O'Farrell, the next-highest Cardinal was SS Tommy Thevenow, who placed 4th. Perhaps Thevenow was a gifted fielder, but he was an awful hitter, both in 1926 (59 OPS+) and throughout his career (51 OPS+). Among hitters with at least 3,000 PAs, only Bill Bergen and Hal Lanier had career OPS+ marks below Thevenow's.