Extreme Career BABIP

If you're unfamiliar with the acronym in the post title, it stands for Batting Average on Balls In Play. Basically it can be used to judge how lucky or unlucky a particular hitter or pitcher has been. You can read a very good overview of BABIP here, but suffice it to say that guys who hit a lot of line drives will have a higher BABIP and those who hit a lot of fly balls and pop ups will have a lower BABIP.

Now, I don't have information on batted-ball types for years and years of baseball history, so I can't speculate why some guys in the past have high or low BABIP's, but I'd guess it follows the same principle. The actual formula for BABIP looks like this,

,

but strikeouts have only been consistently recorded by all major leagues since 1913. Sacrifice flies have only been recorded by both leagues since 1954. Since there are a lot more strikeouts than sacrifice flies, I've looked at the numbers recorded after 1913. I don't believe sacrifice flies would make a big difference for players caught in the period 1913-1953, but consider this a disclaimer.

Here is a chart of BABIP in the majors since 1913. The vertical line midway through is the year SF's were first recorded.


(click to enlarge in new window)

With all of that in mind, I want to look at the guys who posted the highest and lowest career BABIP, just for kicks. I'm going to use a standard minimum for leaderboards: 3000 career plate appearances (after 1913; any stats from earlier are thrown out). I haven't included any 2008 numbers. I'm also going to list each player's BABIP out to four decimal places just to try and avoid ties due to rounding. Finally, I haven't adjusted any of the numbers to reflect league averages for each player's era so guys from the 1960's, especially from the AL, are at a disadvantage.

Highest Career BABIP, Minimum 3000 PA, 1913-2007

1. Ty Cobb, .3785
2. Rogers Hornsby, .3655
3. Derek Jeter, .3613
4. Rod Carew, .3585
5. Ichiro Suzuki, .3572
6. Miguel Cabrera, .3538
7. Harry Heilmann, .3511
   
8. Joe Jackson, .3507
9. Tris Speaker, .3503
   
10. Bill Terry, .3500
11. Bobby Abreu, .3489
12. Ron LeFlore, .3466
13. Riggs Stephenson, .3459
14. George Sisler, .3458
15. Kiki Cuyler, .3456
16. Ross Youngs, .3454
17. Wade Boggs, .3438
18. Roberto Clemente, .3429
19. Kirby Puckett, .3421
20. Tony Gwynn, .3414

Ty Cobb, Joe Jackson, and Tris Speaker all played before 1913, but like I said, I threw out their stats before that season. This bumped Cobb's BABIP up and Jackson and Speaker's down. There are an awful lot of good hitters on this list, but that's to be expected. Ron LeFlore had the lowest OBP of everyone on that list at a respectable .342.

Lowest Career BABIP, Minimum 3000 PA, 1913-2007

1. Wayne Gross, .2393
2. Dave Duncan, .2400
3. Jim King, .2403
4. Curt Blefary, .2430
5. Buck Martinez, .2434
6. Graig Nettles, .2454
7. Ossie Vitt, .2455
8. Eddie Miller, .2457
9. Bob Swift, .2481
10. Ed Herrmann, .2483
11. Del Crandall, .2486
12. Bobby Wine, .2489
13. Eddie Lake, .2496
14. Joe Pepitone, .2498
15. Darrell Evans, .2499
16. Ed Brinkman, .2500
17. Ron Hansen, .2501
18. Gorman Thomas, .2507
19. Clay Dalrymple, .2509
20. Gus Triandos, .2510

On this list, Ossie Vitt is the only player who had time in the majors before 1913 but over 3000 career PA after the start of the 1913 season. Graig Nettles and Darrell Evans both had over 2000 career hits. Granted they played in the 1970's and 1980's when league average BABIP's weren't very high but I wonder how many hits they would've had if they had upped their number to even .275 or so. Well, maybe it's possible to figure it out. Using the denominator of the BABIP formula, we can find out how many plate appearances resulted in a ball in play. For Evans, he had 7239 such PA and 1809 of them resulted in hits. If we bump up his BABIP to .275, which would still be below league average for his career but not as much, he winds up with 1991 hits in those plate appearances, or a new overall total of 2405. If we do the same for Nettles, raising his career BABIP to .275 as well, he would wind up at 2446 career hits. Of course this is all hypothetical and just for fun but what would baseball be without having fun with numbers?

Most Team Hits in a Loss

Reading the most recent "JoeChat" entry on Fire Joe Morgan, I was intrigued by this question: "When is the last time you saw a team get 18 hits (the Rays) and lose?" Well, it turns out the Rays are the only team to lose this year while collecting eighteen hits, but five teams pulled off the feat last season. In fact, a team has knocked out eighteen hits and lost 105 times since 1956. Looking all that up made me wonder what team holds the record for most hits in a loss. Again, this is a record that will be skewed by extra innings so I'll post separate lists for regular and extra-inning games.

Most Team Hits in a Loss (10+ innings), 1956-2008

Team	Opponent	Score	Date	Hits	Opp. Hits	Innings
Cleveland Indians	Philadelphia Athletics	17-18	7/10/1932	33	25	18
Chicago Cubs	Philadelphia Phillies	22-23	5/17/1979	26	24	10
Kansas City Athletics	New York Yankees	9-10	7/27/1956	26	16	14
Montreal Expos	San Diego Padres	8-11	5/21/1977	25	13	21
Boston Red Sox	Seattle Mariners	7-8	9/3/1981	23	24	20
San Francisco Giants	San Diego Padres	16-17	5/23/1970	23	21	15
St. Louis Cardinals	Cincinnati Redlegs	15-19	7/1/1956	23	20	10
Atlanta Braves	Houston Astros	11-12	8/2/2007	22	11	14
Detroit Tigers	Chicago White Sox	16-17	9/14/1998	22	19	12
Minnesota Twins	Tampa Bay Devil Rays	12-13	4/13/1998	22	19	14
Pittsburgh Pirates	Los Angeles Dodgers	10-11	8/12/1995	22	17	11
Texas Rangers	Baltimore Orioles	11-14	5/14/1983	22	19	11
Boston Red Sox	Toronto Blue Jays	6-7	10/4/1980	22	17	17
Baltimore Orioles	Chicago White Sox	10-11	8/21/1976	22	15	12
Cincinnati Reds	San Diego Padres	9-12	5/25/2008	21	18	18
Seattle Mariners	Detroit Tigers	10-11	8/21/2004	21	15	11
Baltimore Orioles	Seattle Mariners	4-6	9/5/2003	21	14	13
Minnesota Twins	Oakland Athletics	11-12	4/24/1997	21	19	11
Chicago Cubs	Colorado Rockies	13-14	5/4/1993	21	17	11
Texas Rangers	Oakland Athletics	12-13	7/1/1979	21	29	15
Oakland Athletics	Baltimore Orioles	5-6	4/26/1974	21	10	15
Philadelphia Phillies	Cincinnati Reds	11-12	6/1/1958	21	16	13

Most Team Hits in a Loss (≤9 innings), 1956-2008

Team	Opponent	Score	Date	Hits	Opp. Hits	Innings
Baltimore Orioles	Tampa Bay Devil Rays	12-13	7/22/2006	22	17	9
Chicago Cubs	Cincinnati Reds	12-15	9/12/2002	22	17	9
Oakland Athletics	Minnesota Twins	11-20	4/27/1980	22	20	9
Detroit Tigers	Chicago White Sox	9-13	4/13/2006	21	17	9
Chicago Cubs	Montreal Expos	15-16	5/14/2000	21	16	9
Colorado Rockies	Chicago Cubs	7-9	5/14/1998	21	15	9
Seattle Mariners	Baltimore Orioles	13-14	5/17/1996	21	21	9
Chicago Cubs	Los Angeles Dodgers	12-14	5/5/1976	21	16	9
Philadelphia Phillies	Cincinnati Reds	17-19	8/3/1969	21	25	9
Milwaukee Brewers	Pittsburgh Pirates	10-17	8/24/2002	20	16	9
Cleveland Indians	Toronto Blue Jays	10-11	5/5/2000	20	13	9
Montreal Expos	Colorado Rockies	10-11	4/19/1999	20	11	9
New York Mets	Colorado Rockies	11-12	5/6/1997	20	14	9
San Diego Padres	Colorado Rockies	12-14	8/4/1995	20	12	9
Atlanta Braves	Montreal Expos	14-16	7/15/1990	20	14	9
Minnesota Twins	Texas Rangers	10-14	6/10/1986	20	17	9
Chicago Cubs	Montreal Expos	15-17	9/24/1985	20	17	9
Seattle Mariners	Cleveland Indians	11-17	8/30/1981	20	16	9
Pittsburgh Pirates	San Francisco Giants	11-13	5/30/1970	20	15	9
New York Mets	Atlanta Braves	10-15	7/26/1964	20	19	9
Boston Red Sox	Washington Senators	10-11	4/24/1960	20	13	9

Team PA in a Game

So it's been a week again since I've posted. I'm going to try and get back to a more regular posting schedule soon. Today I want to look at the number of plate appearances by a team in a single game. Obviously extra-inning games will be atop the list (often both teams are next to each other on the list) so I've included the number of innings in each game. The date links to the box score. TOB means Times on Base, or H + BB + HBP + times reached on errors.

Most Team PA in a Game, 1956-2007

Team	Opponent	Date	PA	TOB	Innings
Chicago White Sox	Milwaukee Brewers	5/8/1984	104	32	25
New York Mets	St. Louis Cardinals	9/11/1974	103	29	25
St. Louis Cardinals	New York Mets	9/11/1974	99	29	25
New York Yankees	Detroit Tigers	6/24/1962	96	30	22
Detroit Tigers	New York Yankees	6/24/1962	95	33	22
Montreal Expos	San Diego Padres	5/21/1977	94	34	21
Milwaukee Brewers	Chicago White Sox	5/8/1984	94	31	25
San Francisco Giants	New York Mets	5/31/1964	93	28	23
Washington Senators	Cleveland Indians	9/14/1971	93	34	20
New York Mets	Atlanta Braves	7/4/1985	93	40	19
Minnesota Twins	Milwaukee Brewers	5/12/1972	92	30	22
New York Mets	San Francisco Giants	5/31/1964	91	26	23
Atlanta Braves	Philadelphia Phillies	5/4/1973	91	33	20
Seattle Mariners	Boston Red Sox	9/3/1981	90	33	20
New York Mets	Houston Astros	4/15/1968	88	16	24
Minnesota Twins	Seattle Pilots	7/19/1969	88	35	18
Los Angeles Dodgers	Houston Astros	6/3/1989	88	25	22
Houston Astros	Los Angeles Dodgers	6/3/1989	88	27	22
Houston Astros	New York Mets	4/15/1968	87	19	24
San Diego Padres	Montreal Expos	5/21/1977	87	28	21
Atlanta Braves	New York Mets	7/4/1985	87	32	19
Florida Marlins	St. Louis Cardinals	4/27/2003	87	31	20

2008 NL LOB Data, 1/4 of the Way In

The 2008 MLB season is a little over a quarter finished, with the average major league team having played 45 games to this point. I thought it'd be a good time to look at how all the teams are doing in terms of runners left on base and bringing runners in scoring position around to score.

For starters, I want to make clear what I consider baserunners. Baseball-Reference.com allows you to find the number of players to reach base in each game for each team (Times on Base), and I use that number minus the team's home runs hit to find the number of baserunners for that team. That way only players who actually spent time on the basepaths are included rather than rewarding teams that hit a lot of home runs (especially solo home runs). That's not to say hitting home runs are a bad thing (far from it), but I'm looking more at how teams bring players on the bases around to score. To that end, I've also only looked at the number of runs scored by those baserunners. I find this number by taking total runs scored minus home runs. Thus runs scored by players driven in by homers are counted, but not the run scored by the player who actually hit the home run. All this means I'm looking at how well each team has brought players who reached base around to score.

I haven't finished the American League numbers yet, but I have the National League numbers complete. First up is the list of National League teams sorted by the percentage of baserunners left on base. This is pretty easy to find. I simply add up the Left on Base number on Baseball-Reference.com for each team, and divide by the sum of the Times on Base for each game played by each team minus that team's home runs. It looks like this: LOB/(TOB-HR).

2008 NL LOB Data, Sorted by LOB%
Through 5/19/2008

• Los Angeles Dodgers, 54.96%
• Arizona Diamondbacks, 56.40%
• Houston Astros, 57.52%
• Pittsburgh Pirates, 57.84%
• New York Mets, 58.76%
• Chicago Cubs, 58.97%
• Atlanta Braves, 60.18%
• NL AVERAGE, 60.37%
• Washington Nationals, 60.66%
• Colorado Rockies, 60.85%
• San Francisco Giants, 61.13%
• Cincinnati Reds, 61.52%
• Florida Marlins, 62.04%
• Milwaukee Brewers, 62.40%
• Philadelphia Phillies, 63.04%
• St. Louis Cardinals, 63.07%
• San Diego Padres, 67.25%

San Diego is having a hard time bringing runners around to score, it seems. I do think it's interesting there's a pretty good mix of teams at or near the top of their division at the top of the list (Los Angeles, New York, etc.) and at the bottom of the list (Florida, Philadelphia, St. Louis).

It's my own theory that baseball fans don't tend to get very worked up about high numbers of runners left on first base at the end of an inning. What really gets fans mad is when a team can't seem to score runners from second and/or third. Fans, broadcasters, and journalists talking about leaving too many runners in scoring position is usually a good sign that a team is losing. With that in mind, I've looked at the percentage of runners who reach scoring position who actually score, no matter what way they do it.

2008 NL RISP Scored Data, Sorted by RISP Scored %
Through 5/19/2008

• Los Angeles Dodgers, 47.76%
• Pittsburgh Pirates, 47.40%
• Arizona Diamondbacks, 44.54%
• Chicago Cubs, 44.47%
• Houston Astros, 43.71%
• New York Mets, 43.66%
• NL AVERAGE, 40.99%
• Atlanta Braves, 40.42%
• Washington Nationals, 39.88%
• Milwaukee Brewers, 39.49%
• Cincinnati Reds, 39.48%
  
• Florida Marlins, 39.44%
• Colorado Rockies, 38.46%
• Philadelphia Phillies, 38.24%
• St. Louis Cardinals, 37.79%
• San Francisco Giants, 35.87%
• San Diego Padres, 33.90%

San Diego's numbers are ghastly in this category as well. Winning and losing teams are jumbled in this list as well, but the obvious conclusion that teams plating a higher number of runners in scoring position will win more seems to be borne out pretty well despite Pittsburgh's best efforts.

For the actual raw numbers that generate these percentages, click here to look at a spreadsheet I've put up on Google Docs with percentages for a variety of related categories, including RISP Scored split by outs. I'm going to try and keep that spreadsheet updated regularly throughout the season and I hope to add the American League numbers soon.

Don't Give Up Without a Swing

Yesterday I posted about Eddie Collins and Ray Chapman, two of the most prolific sacrifice bunters in baseball history. Today I want to look at the other side of the same topic: players who never had a single sacrifice hit. Unsurprisingly, many active players and guys who retired recently are on top of the list of most plate appearances without a sacrifice hit.

Most Career Plate Appearances with Zero Career Sacrifice Hits, 1895*-2008
(active players in red)

1. Frank Thomas, 9938
2. Harmon Killebrew, 9831
3. Carlos Delgado, 8021
4. Mike Piazza, 7745
5. Eric Karros, 7100
6. Tim Salmon, 7039
7. Vladimir Guerrero, 6991
8. George Bell, 6586
9. Mo Vaughn, 6410
10. Cecil Fielder, 5939
11. Sean Casey, 5491
12. Richie Sexson, 5413
13. Troy Glaus, 5372
14. Eric Chavez, 5156
15. Pat Burrell, 4913
16. Tony Clark, 4894
17. Aubrey Huff, 4349
18. Richard Hidalgo, 3927
19. Mark Teixeira, 3413
20. Terrence Long, 3325

* - Sacrifice Hits have been recorded since 1895

Simply by choosing a convenient year to end the search can change this list dramatically. I chose 1980 because it's a round number and only one member of the previous list appears on the new leaderboard. If a player got a sacrifice hit after 1980, however, I took him off the list. Not fair, perhaps, but that's okay, I'm cherry-picking anyway. :)

Most Career Plate Appearances with Zero Career Sacrifice Hits, 1895*-1980

1. Harmon Killebrew, 9831
2. Willie Aikens, 1171
3. Pancho Herrera, 1108
4. Brant Alyea, 982
5. Danny Walton, 881
6. Hawk Taylor, 766
7. Jim Beauchamp, 730
8. Jouett Meekin, 645*
9. Tim Harkness, 632
10. Bill McGhee, 583
11. Jerry Davanon, 574
12. Carlos Paula, 492
13. Larry Elliot, 486
14. Amos Rusie, 475*
15. Carmen Mauro, 456
16. Dave Schneck, 443
17. Charlie Manuel, 432
18. Heinz Becker, 412
19. Clint Hartung, 403
20. George Tebeau, 388*
21. Frank Baker, 384

*Meekin, Rusie, and Tebeau all played before 1895, so they could have had sacrifice hits that went unrecorded. Tebeau was a regular position player for five seasons prior to his final season in 1895 so I included the player below him on the list since I'm leery of assuming he actually had zero sacrifices. Meekin and Rusie had a number of seasons after 1895 in which they had zero sacrifices.

Sacrificial Lambs

I had intended to have a (hopefully) much more interesting post to explain not putting up anything new for a week, but I didn't quite get that done. Instead I've got a trip down baseball's memory lane.

People in sabermetrics circles have been decrying the tactic of bunting to advance runners for a long time. The argument goes that moving a runner from first with zero or one out to second with one or two outs often actually lowers the expectation of scoring and also winning the game. In a time when almost any major league hitter can hit a home run and games regularly feature five or more runs by each team, it's hard to argue against playing for more than one run. It wasn't always that way, however. In the early part of the twentieth century, sacrifice hits were extremely important. In games that often ended 3-2 or 2-1, every run was vitally important. The all-time leader in sacrifice hits, Hall of Fame second baseman Eddie Collins, played from 1906-1930 and topped 30 sacrifice hits six times. For comparison's sake, no one in the major leagues last season had more than five sacrifices.

Collins was by no means the most prodigious bunter of his day, however. Much like Hank Aaron, his record was not achieved by leading the league year after year, but rather through longevity. Collins never led the league in sacrifice hits but played for twenty-five years. Despite his long playing career, if not for an unfortunate pitch from Carl Mays it's possible Collins wouldn't hold the sacrifice hits record.

On August 16, 1920, the Cleveland Indians came to the Polo Grounds in New York to square off against the Yankees. Mired in a tight, three-way pennant race (for a visual display, see this cool site) along with the Chicago White Sox, the third-place Yankees saw the late-season series against the Indians as a crucial time to make up ground. Taking the mound for the New York club was ace Carl Mays who would end up with 26 wins for the season. Unfortunately, the game became known for much more than being a contest between two good teams. During the game, a pitch from Mays hit Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman in the head. Chapman lost consciousness soon after and died following emergency operations to remove pieces of his skull in an attempt to relieve pressure caused by brain swelling. As the New York Times reported,

The shock of the blow had lacerated the brain not only on the left side of the head where the ball struck but also on the right side where the shock of the blow had forced the brain against the skull, Dr. Merrigan said."

Though Mays protested the beaning wasn't intentional, many figured his prior reputation as a head-hunter meant hitting Chapman in the head was a planned incident. Whatever the case, Mays thereafter had to deal with harassment from the stands. Though his claims aren't necessarily backed up by his overall numbers (only 207 wins, to point out one example), Mays often claimed the fatal beaning was used to keep him out of the Hall of Fame. For much more on both the beaning and the whole baseball landscape in 1920, I suggest you read The Pitch That Killed by Mike Sowell.

The reason I bring up this unpleasant time in baseball history is because of the victim. Chapman was 29 when he died, with any number of years left to play in his career. He still has three of the top fifteen single-season marks for sacrifice hits, including the single-season record with an amazing 67 sac bunts in 1917. Though his playing career was so suddenly ended, he is now sixth on the list of most career sacrifice hits with 334. Though it's obviously hard to figure how the end of the deadball era after 1920 would have changed his numbers, it's not hard to see another few years in the league placing Chapman at the top of the career list. Five more years of his by then usual 40+ SH per year would have put him comfortably above Collins' eventual career mark of 512.

It's extremely unlikely anyone will ever again challenge Collins' mark or even Chapman's. The active career sacrifice hits leader, Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel, has 233 bunts. He's forty-one years old and still over one hundred bunts behind Chapman. Only six active players total, none less than 38, have more than one hundred career sacrifice hits. It just is another example of how some records are unbreakable, not because of a lack of skill on the part of others, but rather because of the changing strategy in the game.

Hitters' Performance in Team Wins and Losses

In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal's regularly updated baseball blog, beat writer Tom Haudricourt recently noted slugger Prince Fielder's performance seemed to be an integral part of the team's wins and losses (link). This idea was later put into a print article (web version). It fell to fellow slugger Ryan Braun to debunk the idea that Fielder was mostly responsible for the team winning and losing. Braun said,

"When you lose close games, you're facing better pitchers in the bullpen, the set-up guy, the closer," he said. "Whereas when you're squaring balls up and scoring runs, you might get the last guy in the bullpen.

"It would be almost impossible for it to be the other way around."

Indeed, it is rare to find a regular player who managed to hit better in team losses than he did in team wins. In fact, of the 280 players who had 300 or more plate appearances in 2007, only six had a higher OPS in team losses. Twenty-six players had a drop of .400 or more in their OPS from team wins to team losses.

If you look at all players who had at least 200 plate appearances in team wins, the composite hitter put up a .319/.392/.527 line, good for a .919 OPS. Pretty darn good when you consider that's about what David Wright has done in his career. Part of that can be explained by the .343 BABIP for those hitters (more on BABIP can be found here). Given that the MLB BABIP in 2007 was .303, this means hitters on teams that won games had hits fall in more often than usual. This makes sense - how many games can you recall turning on bloop hits here and there? Similarly, players with 200+ PA in team losses had worse luck: their BABIP was only .276. Those hitters put up a composite .242/.307/.373 line, good for a .681 OPS - about the same level of production as Endy Chavez.

So which players declined (or, in the case of the aforementioned six, improved) the most when going from team wins to team losses? Below is a table of the players with the twenty largest drops in OPS from wins to losses along with their corresponding BABIP. Beneath that table is another showing the twenty smallest declines in OPS from wins to losses (negative numbers correspond to OPS and BABIP increases).

20 Largest OPS Differences (Wins-Losses), 2007 Minimum 300 Plate Appearances
Name	Team	Total PA	OPS Diff.	BABIP Diff.
Miguel Cabrera	FLA	680	.599	.178
Matt Holliday	COL	713	.577	.137
Kenny Lofton	TEX/CLE	559	.521	.341
Xavier Nady	PIT	470	.497	.143
Matt Kemp	LAD	311	.482	.134
Chris Duncan	STL	432	.476	.057
Josh Willingham	FLA	604	.465	.169
Bobby Abreu	NYY	699	.462	.159
Hunter Pence	HOU	484	.451	.087
Magglio Ordonez	DET	679	.450	.128
Jack Cust	OAK	507	.449	.135
Mark Grudzielanek	KCR	486	.448	.130
Marlon Byrd	TEX	454	.448	.105
Brad Hawpe	COL	606	.447	.090
Jim Thome	CHW	536	.439	.097
Chase Utley	PHI	613	.429	.081
Gary Matthews Jr.	LAA	579	.425	.149
Vernon Wells	TOR	642	.423	.125
J.D. Drew	BOS	552	.421	.123
Travis Buck	OAK	334	.418	.094

Many of the players on that list are pretty good hitters overall. I think it's interesting to see guys like Marlon Byrd and Mark Grudzielanek up there, too, since they're not anyone's idea of great hitters. Nevertheless, they raked whenever the Rangers and Royals won.

I just want to note one final time that negative numbers in the table below actually indicate an increase in OPS or BABIP from team wins to team losses.

20 Smallest OPS Differences (Wins-Losses), 2007 Minimum 300 Plate Appearances
Name	Team	Total PA	OPS Diff.	BABIP Diff.
Miguel Olivo	FLA	469	-.068	-.028
Greg Dobbs	PHI	358	-.042	.030
Shawn Green	NYM	491	-.024	.027
Nate McLouth	PIT	382	-.013	-.009
Andre Ethier	LAD	507	-.008	-.073
Mike Jacobs	FLA	460	-.003	.030
Ryan Theriot	CHC	597	.006	.002
Jose Vidro	SEA	625	.022	-.015
Aaron Hill	TOR	657	.023	.064
Wily Mo Pena	BOS/WSN	317	.028	-.014
Lyle Overbay	TOR	476	.031	.028
Placido Polanco	DET	641	.033	.022
Ryan Garko	CLE	541	.042	-.041
Josh Bard	SDP	443	.044	-.003
Ron Belliard	WSN	557	.046	.029
Brian Giles	SDP	552	.051	.026
Dave Roberts	SFG	443	.055	.012
Melvin Mora	BAL	527	.057	.037
Casey Blake	CLE	662	.060	.038
Corey Patterson	BAL	503	.067	.032

Nothing seems to have fazed Nate McLouth or Ryan Theriot last season. They just kept on putting up their regular numbers regardless of whether the team won or lost. Dobbs, Green, and Jacobs are interesting because their OPS increased while their BABIP decreased. All in all, the second list doesn't seem as impressive as the first list in terms of hitter quality. It's kind of cool that Florida had the guys with the largest and smallest declines in OPS from team wins to team losses.

Most Extra Base Hits Allowed in a Season

Before the 2008 season began, I had two posts listing the most doubles allowed in a season and the most triples allowed in a season (both were written before the B-R Play Index included 1956 data). It's easy to find a list of the most home runs allowed in a season. For whatever reason, I never put all three together...until today. Here are the pitchers who have allowed the most extra base hits in a single season since 1956.

Most Extra Base Hits Allowed in a Season, 1956-2007

Name	Team	Year	XBH Allowed	IP
Robin Roberts	PHI	1956	117	297.1
Rick Helling	TEX	2001	116	215.2
Jose Lima	HOU	2000	108	196.1
Darrell May	KCR	2004	105	186.0
Eric Milton	CIN	2005	102	186.1
Brad Radke	MIN	1996	101	232.0
Rick Helling	TEX	2000	100	217.0
Bert Blyleven	MIN	1986	100	271.2
Mickey Lolich	DET	1973	99	308.2
Rick Helling	TEX	1999	98	219.1
Chris Capuano	MIL	2006	97	221.1
Phil Niekro	ATL	1979	97	342.0
Mickey Lolich	DET	1974	96	308.0
Robin Roberts	PHI	1957	96	249.2
Brett Tomko	STL	2003	95	202.2
Jeff Suppan	KCR	2000	95	217.0
Mike Mussina	BAL	1996	95	243.1
Jim Perry	MIN	1971	95	270.0
Jim Merritt	CIN	1970	95	234.0
Jim Merritt	CIN	1969	95	251.0

Career HR Leaders by State

A few weeks ago I put together a list of career home run leaders by height. Today I want to do the same for players born in each U.S. state and the District of Columbia.

State	Player	HR	Active Leader	HR
Alabama	Hank Aaron	755	Marlon Anderson	63
Alaska	Josh Phelps	64	Josh Phelps	64
Arizona	Shea Hillenbrand Jack Towell	108	Chris Duncan	46
Arkansas	Brooks Robinson	268	Pat Burrell	227
California	Barry Bonds	762	Jason Giambi	369
Colorado	Johnny Frederick	85	Mark Johnson	16
Connecticut	Mo Vaughn	328	Brad Ausmus	76
Delaware	John Mabry Randy Bush Dave May	96	Kevin Mench	89
District of Columbia	Don Money	176	Emmanuel Burriss	0
Florida	Fred McGriff	493	Gary Sheffield	482
Georgia	Frank Thomas	516	Frank Thomas	516
Hawaii	Mike Lum	90	Shane Victorino	20
Idaho	Harmon Killebrew	573	Jason Schmidt	7
Illinois	Jim Thome	513	Jim Thome	513
Indiana	Gil Hodges	370	Scott Rolen	262
Iowa	Hal Trosky	228	Casey Blake	109
Kansas	Tony Clark	244	Tony Clark	244
Kentucky	Jay Buhner	310	Brad Wilkerson	118
Louisiana	Mel Ott	511	Vernon Wells	161
Maine	Del Bissonette	66	Tim Stauffer	0
Maryland	Babe Ruth	714	Mark Teixeira	174
Massachusetts	Jeff Bagwell	449	Mark Sweeney	42
Michigan	Kirk Gibson John Mayberry	255	Jason Varitek	151
Minnesota	Dave Winfield	465	Dan Johnson	42
Mississippi	Ellis Burks	352	Dmitri Young	167
Missouri	Yogi Berra	358	Ryan Howard	135
Montana	John Lowenstein	116	Rob Johnson	0
Nebraska	Wade Boggs	118	Alex Gordon	18
Nevada	Marty Cordova	122	Justin Leone	6
New Hamphire	Phil Plantier	91	Sam Fuld	0
New Jersey	Eric Karros	284	Derek Jeter	195
New Mexico	Ralph Kiner	369	Cody Ross	27
New York	Alex Rodriguez	522	Alex Rodriguez	522
North Carolina	Ray Durham	187	Ray Durham	187
North Dakota	Travis Hafner	145	Travis Hafner	145
Ohio	Mike Schmidt	548	Aubrey Huff	161
Oklahoma	Mickey Mantle	536	Matt Holliday	107
Oregon	Dave Kingman	442	Richie Sexson	300
Pennsylvania	Ken Griffey Jr.	597	Ken Griffey Jr.	597
Rhode Island	Paul Konerko	281	Paul Konerko	281
South Carolina	Jim Rice	382	Orlando Hudson	63
South Dakota	Mark Ellis	60	Mark Ellis	60
Tennessee	Todd Helton	306	Todd Helton	306
Texas	Frank Robinson	586	Lance Berkman	268
Utah	Duke Sims	100	Chris Shelton	35
Vermont	Carlton Fisk	376	Chris Duffy	6
Virginia	Willie Horton	325	David Wright	102
Washington	Ron Santo	342	Geoff Jenkins	213
West Virginia	George Brett	317	J.R. House	3
Wisconsin	Al Simmons	307	Eric Hinske	91
Wyoming	Mike Devereaux	105	John Buck	55

A few things to note about the active list:

• The active leader for California could potentially change a number of times this year. Though Giambi currently has 369 home runs, Jeff Kent is right behind him at 368, and Jim Edmonds has 363.
• I listed the active leader for Colorado as Mark Johnson even though he hasn't been in the majors since 2004 because he's currently catching for AAA Memphis in the St. Louis Cardinals' farm system. See the quote under the site title above to see how much they think of him. The only other Colorado-born player to have played in the majors since 2004 with a home run is pitcher Brian Lawrence who now pitches for the Camden Riversharks of the Atlantic League.
• Only two people born in Maine have played in the majors and are still active: Tim Stauffer, on the list, is on the Padres' 60-day disabled list and Matt Kinney pitches for the Seibu Lions in Japan.
• Pitchers Brian Wilson, Chris Carpenter, and Chad Paronto are tied with Sam Fuld among active players born in New Hampshire. Lefthander Taylor Tankersley is tied with Rob Johnson among Montanans.
• Orlando Hudson is tops among active South Carolinians so long as Reggie Sanders and Preston Wilson stay unsigned.
• Daric Barton is right behind Chris Duffy among Vermonters with five home runs.