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Jacoby Ellsbury is just killing it this year. He's already got 22 HR, 78 RBI, and 87 runs.

Here the only leadoff hitters (minimum 100 games out of the #1 spot) to reach the same totals as Ellsbury, along with a 130 OPS+:

Through 121 Red Sox games, Ellsbury is on pace for 116 runs, 104 RBI, and 29 HR. The only guy on the list to match those totals was Brady Anderson in 1996, and he had the benefit of 43 games batting second, 50 homers, and the possibility of a steroid boost.

Aside from Ellsbury, only Anderson, Puckett, and Sizemore played primarily center field.

He's also younger than the median age of the list above and will probably only get better.

-- Mike Stanton homered for the 4th straight game and is 2nd in the NL with 29 HRs, one behind Albert Pujols. The youngest modern player to lead either league in home runs was Tony Conigliaro in 1965, with 32 HRs at age 20. Eddie Mathews (21) was the youngest NL HR champ in the live-ball era, with 47 HRs in 1953; Stanton is about a month younger than Mathews was that year.

• With 51 career HRs, Stanton is 13th on the list of most HRs through age 21 (see table below); he needs 3 more to crack the top 10. He's the 7th player with 50+ HRs within his first 2 seasons through age 21.
• I've never heard this mentioned on TV: Stanton's defensive metrics are also excellent. He leads the NL with 1.7 defensive Wins Above Replacement this year, and was 10th with 1.4 dWAR last year; for more traditional stats, he's among the leaders in both range factor and assists. The two-way combination makes him 10th in NL position-player WAR. Read the rest of this entry »

Searching the Batting-Event Finder for game ending double or triple plays with no outs in the ninth inning or later yields 2 interesting lists. One is a list of game-ending triple plays ; the other is a list of plays in which the winning run scores on a double play. I'll separate the lists and combine the years to make the reading easier.

First the game-ending triple plays:

and the Walk-Off Double Plays

I already remarked on Bryan Petersen's 2-triple game, but two other guys also had two triples in a game yesterday:

When is that last time this happened?

It took a bit of digging, but the last time was in 1948:

It's a bit more common for two players to do it on the same day. That's happened as recently as September 16, 2006, when Aaron Miles and Bernie Castro both did it.

Bryan Petersen of the Marlins had two triples in last night's Marlins game, his 60th in the majors.

Here are the last 25 guys (before Petersen, whose game is not in the database yet this morning) to have 2 triples in a game among their first 60 career games:

So here's something a bit odd. Last night, Petersen batted 2nd and played LF, meaning that he and the most recent guy to do it before him (Logan Morrison) both did it for the Marlins, batting 2nd, and playing LF.

The full list)since 1919)  of guys to triple twice within their first 60 games is here. The last #4 hitter to do it was Elston Howard in 1955. The last catcher was Carlton Fisk in 1972. The last first baseman is a bit less well-known: Bud Zipfel in 1961.

A couple of readers wrote in about this, so here's the answer.

Curtis Granderson has a decent shot at leading the AL this year in both homers and triples. This was raised in the comments on a recent post. Thanks to reader Voomo Zanzibar who mentioned that Mickey Mantle (1955) , Willie Mays (also 1955), and Jim Rice (1978) all led the league in homers and triples in the same year.

In 1978, Rice led the AL in hits, triples, homers, RBI, SLG, OPS, and had 406 total bases. I guess that's why he won the MVP 🙂

I don't think too many people expected Jim Thome to reach 600 HRs last night, and most of us were surprised when he followed his 6th-inning homer with another in the 7th, vaulting right into the 600 HR club in just one plate appearances after reaching 599 career HRs.

This is the opposite of what we often see--Tony Gwynn recently described how the last 10 hits before 3,000 were so hard and the pressure in each plate appearance was immense.

When Derek Jeter ultimately reached 3,000 hits, he did it just like Thome--he got to 2,999 in the first inning and then homered in his next plate appearance in the 3rd inning.

What other players reached major milestones in the first possible plate appearance?

Tonight in Detroit, Jim Thome homered in the 6th and 7th innings to become the 8th player in MLB history with 600 HRs. His 5 RBI led the Twins to a 9-6 victory.

It's fitting that Thome reached this major milestone against the Tigers. He's hit 65 HRs in 211 games against Detroit, his most against any opponent and an average of 50 HRs per 162 games.

Thome has homered against all 30 teams and in 38 different MLB parks. Surprisingly, he has never homered in 10 games at Coors Field.

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An R.B.I. Leader, but Not an Elite Hitter - NYTimes.com.

My piece in the Times this week has caused some pushback from Phillies fans.  Some have pointed out that Howard is #3 in RBI perc, so it isn't just his # of opportunities.

But that ignore that Howard is an RBI hog.  Rather than just get on base he is up there flailing, so he drives in a higher percentage of runs, but costs his team runs in the long run.

Here are the top 46 batters (since 2006) in percentage of runners on base (for their PA) who eventually score either due to their RBI or due to a subsequent play.

There are some teammate effects here as the better the hitters behind you, they are going to pick up the slack for you. But I think Howard has had pretty good hitters behind him, so he probably benefits on net from the teammate effect.

So you would read this as Joe Mauer came up with 1982 runners on base. He drove in 356 and 824 scored at some point in the inning for 41.6% of all baserunners.

  Batter               PA    runners   RBI-HR  Rnrs who event. score  % of runners that event. score
| Joe Mauer         | 3148 |    1982 |    356 |               824 |                   41.6 | 
| Albert Pujols     | 3827 |    2530 |    448 |              1031 |                   40.8 | 
| Joey Votto        | 2405 |    1410 |    261 |               569 |                   40.4 | 
| Bobby Abreu       | 3877 |    2443 |    442 |               975 |                   39.9 | 
| Josh Hamilton     | 2346 |    1482 |    289 |               590 |                   39.8 | 
| Chase Utley       | 3558 |    2173 |    361 |               864 |                   39.8 | 
| Chipper Jones     | 2951 |    1941 |    318 |               771 |                   39.7 | 
| Michael Young     | 3973 |    2446 |    430 |               968 |                   39.6 | 
| Freddy Sanchez    | 3122 |    1728 |    287 |               679 |                   39.3 | 
| Todd Helton       | 3236 |    1936 |    311 |               757 |                   39.1 | 
| Mark Teixeira     | 3923 |    2697 |    453 |              1044 |                   38.7 | 
| Lance Berkman     | 3448 |    2192 |    383 |               845 |                   38.5 | 
| Ryan Braun        | 3005 |    1902 |    347 |               729 |                   38.3 | 
| Magglio Ordonez   | 3120 |    2170 |    380 |               829 |                   38.2 | 
| Dustin Pedroia    | 3014 |    1766 |    245 |               673 |                   38.1 | 
| Matt Holliday     | 3740 |    2531 |    449 |               960 |                   37.9 | 
| Jim Thome         | 2735 |    1744 |    296 |               660 |                   37.8 | 
| Carl Crawford     | 3481 |    2069 |    332 |               782 |                   37.8 | 
| Asdrubal Cabrera  | 2124 |    1290 |    199 |               486 |                   37.7 | 
| Derek Jeter       | 3994 |    2282 |    343 |               858 |                   37.6 | 
| David Ortiz       | 3541 |    2539 |    427 |               953 |                   37.5 | 
| Carlos Beltran    | 3036 |    1998 |    350 |               748 |                   37.4 | 
| Gary Sheffield    | 1553 |    1100 |    140 |               411 |                   37.4 | 
| Evan Longoria     | 2223 |    1543 |    267 |               573 |                   37.1 | 
| Vladimir Guerrero | 3384 |    2265 |    397 |               837 |                   37.0 | 
| Miguel Cabrera    | 3886 |    2588 |    472 |               954 |                   36.9 | 
| Jason Giambi      | 2140 |    1592 |    246 |               586 |                   36.8 | 
| Gary Matthews     | 2171 |    1279 |    199 |               471 |                   36.8 | 
| David Wright      | 3667 |    2428 |    421 |               893 |                   36.8 | 
| Victor Martinez   | 3224 |    2260 |    401 |               824 |                   36.5 | 
| Justin Morneau    | 3218 |    2295 |    407 |               838 |                   36.5 | 
| Placido Polanco   | 3426 |    1918 |    300 |               700 |                   36.5 | 
| J.D. Drew         | 2958 |    1994 |    285 |               726 |                   36.4 | 
| Derrek Lee        | 3176 |    2008 |    319 |               728 |                   36.3 | 
| Aramis Ramirez    | 3184 |    2177 |    399 |               789 |                   36.2 | 
| Hanley Ramirez    | 3755 |    1972 |    300 |               710 |                   36.0 | 
| Alex Rodriguez    | 3450 |    2599 |    460 |               936 |                   36.0 | 
| Conor Jackson     | 2342 |    1517 |    233 |               546 |                   36.0 | 
| Johnny Damon      | 3619 |    2047 |    303 |               734 |                   35.9 | 
| Angel Pagan       | 1842 |    1019 |    162 |               366 |                   35.9 | 
| Kevin Youkilis    | 3416 |    2337 |    383 |               838 |                   35.9 | 
| Nick Markakis     | 3897 |    2360 |    376 |               845 |                   35.8 | 
| Jeff Keppinger    | 2026 |    1145 |    166 |               410 |                   35.8 | 
| Jeff Kent         | 1509 |    1049 |    160 |               374 |                   35.7 | 
| Ryan Zimmerman    | 3435 |    2201 |    348 |               785 |                   35.7 | 
| Shin-Soo Choo     | 2214 |    1450 |    233 |               518 |                   35.7 | 
| Shane Victorino   | 3349 |    1783 |    250 |               636 |                   35.7 | 
| Carlos Guillen    | 2427 |    1659 |    258 |               592 |                   35.7 | 
| Ryan Howard       | 3886 |    2825 |    520 |              1007 |                   35.6 | 

Curtis Granderson has now played in 162 games since the switch in his batting style that has been largely cited for his vastly improved performance. His stats over those last 162 games:

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