The Other 20/20 Club

When you hear about the 20/20 club in baseball, it generally refers to players with 20+ home runs and 20+ stolen bases in the same season. With less than a quarter of the season to go, talk about players who might be in the club by the end of the season starts becoming more and more prevalent. Since 2000, each season has seen between 4 (in 2003) and 15 (in 2001) members of the 20/20 club each year. Last season, fourteen players had 20+ HR and 20+ SB.

So far this season, Brandon Phillips (20 HR/22 SB), Hanley Ramirez (27/28), and Grady Sizemore (28/30) are already past the 20/20 mark. Carlos Beltran, Lance Berkman, Corey Hart, Matt Holliday, Matt Kemp, Ian Kinsler, and Alex Rodriguez are above fifteen in each category this year, so it's likely at least some more players will make it in the final six weeks of the year.

Now that the usual one is out of the way, I want to talk about another type of 20/20 club. I think of it as a kind of reverse 20/20 club, in a way. I'm talking about players with 20+ GIDP and 20+ errors in the same season. Grounding into a double play is kind of an anti-home run because not only are you costing the team yourself as a potential run-scorer, you are also taking away another potential run-scorer who was already on the bases. Similarly, an error is kind of like an anti-stolen base because rather than giving your team an extra base, you've given your opponent one.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to find all members of the other 20/20 club throughout baseball history. Errors have been recorded way back past 1901, but GIDP have only been recorded in the National League since 1933 and in the American League since 1939. Regardless, there has been a steadily growing membership (76 different players with 101 seasons through 2007) in the group. In the 75 seasons between 1933-2007, a full 25 had no new members of the GIDP & E club, 22 had one member join, 17 had two, 7 had three, 3 had four, and two seasons had six different players reach the 20/20 marks.

Getting to twenty GIDP in a year isn't easy, but it's also not really position-specific. Granted, a speedy, centerfielder type will be harder to double up, but most players with 500-600 plate appearances can potentially reach 20 GIDP. It's in the errors category that a lot of guys are weeded out. To reach twenty errors, you pretty much have to be an infielder. No regular outfielders are in the group, and only one regular catcher and two regular first basemen are in my 20/20 club. Some players may have had an error committed in the outfield or at first base help them reach 20 errors, but most of the time they played second, short, or third. This really isn't a surprise, since those positions get the most chances to make both fielding and throwing errors.

So who are the members of the dubious 20/20 club? I've listed them below alphabetically, with the season(s) they got into the club, as well as their team, the positions at which they committed errors (in order of errors made), and their GIDP and error totals.

20+ GIDP & 20+ E in the Same Season, 1933-2007

Name	Year	Team	Position(s)	GIDP	E
Dick Allen	1971	LAD	3B/LF/1B	23	21
Luis Aparicio	1949	CHW	SS	23	26
Tony Batista	2003	BAL	3B	20	20
Buddy Bell	1984 1985	TEX TEX/CIN	3B 3B	21 24	20 25
David Bell	2005	PHI	3B	24	21
Jimmy Bloodworth	1943	DET	2B	29	21
Lou Boudreau	1940	CLE	SS	23	24
Ken Boyer	1963 1964	STL STL	3B 3B	20 22	34 24
Ed Brinkman	1973	DET	SS	22	24
Hubie Brooks	1985	MON	SS	20	28
Rick Burleson	1980	BOS	SS	24	22
Ed Busch	1944	PHA	SS/2B	20	41
Jorge Cantu	2005	TBD	2B/3B	24	21
Vinny Castilla	1996	COL	3B	20	20
Ed Charles	1963	KCA	3B	21	25
Dick Cole	1954	PIT	SS/3B/2B	20	28
Dave Concepcion	1974 1985	CIN CIN	SS SS	20 23	30 24
Joe Cronin	1941	BOS	SS/3B	20	27
Babe Dahlgren	1944	PIT	1B	20	20
Sam Dente	1950	WSH	SS/2B	25	34
Bob Dillinger	1950	PHA/PIT	3B	20	20
Chico Fernandez	1957	PHI	SS	21	26
Julio Franco	1983 1984 1985	CLE CLE CLE	SS SS SS	21 23 26	28 36 35
Nomar Garciaparra	1998	BOS	SS	20	25
Mike Goliat	1950	PHI	2B	20	21
Joe Gordon	1942	NYY	2B	22	28
Dick Groat	1955 1958 1959 1961 1966	PIT PIT PIT PIT PHI	SS SS SS SS SS/3B	20 21 21 22 20	32 20 29 32 20
Granny Hamner	1949 1951 1957	PHI PHI PHI	SS SS 2B	20 20 23	32 31 21
Ron Hansen	1965	CHW	SS	21	26
Jim Ray Hart	1966	SFG	3B/LF	23	26
Charlie Hayes	1993	COL	3B	25	20
Billy Herman	1933 1939	CHC CHC	2B 2B	21 24	45 29
Pinky Higgins	1941 1942	DET DET	3B 3B	20 21	26 30
Billy Hitchcock	1950	PHA	2B/SS	30	22
Butch Hobson	1979	BOS	3B	23	25
Johnny Hudson	1938	BRO	2B	20	27
Randy Jackson	1951 1953	CHC CHC	3B 3B	21 20	24 22
Gregg Jefferies	1992	KCR	3B	24	26
Billy Johnson	1948	NYY	3B	22	20
Willie Jones	1949	PHI	3B	20	27
Billy Jurges	1938 1939	CHC NYG	SS SS	22 26	34 28
George Kell	1944	PHA	3B	28	20
Buddy Kerr	1950	BSN	SS	21	28
Harmon Killebrew	1970	MIN	3B/1B	28	20
Don Kolloway	1947	CHW	2B/3B/1B	22	27
Hal Lanier	1970	SFG	SS	20	22
Sam Leslie	1933	NYG/BRO	1B	20	21
Johnny Lipon	1950	DET	SS	20	33
Hector Lopez	1958	KCA	2B/3B	23	21
Frank Malzone	1958 1960	BOS BOS	3B 3B	21 20	27 26
Bill Mazeroski	1964	PIT	2B	21	23
Bill Melton	1973	CHW	3B	20	23
Cass Michaels	1949	CHW	2B	20	22
Willie Montanez	1976	SFG/ATL	1B	26	22
Jo-Jo Morrissey	1933	CIN	2B/SS/3B	21	40
Thurman Munson	1975	NYY	C	23	23
Marty Perez	1972	ATL	SS	21	27
Tony Perez	1969	CIN	3B	20	32
Aramis Ramirez	2003	PIT/CHC	3B	21	33
Rafael Ramirez	1985	ATL	SS	21	32
Pee Wee Reese	1954 1955	BRO BRO	SS SS	20 22	25 23
Cal Ripken, Jr.	1983 1985	BAL BAL	SS SS	24 32	25 26
Alex Rodriguez	2006	NYY	3B	22	24
Bill Russell	1977 1979	LAD LAD	SS SS	23 20	29 30
Ron Santo	1961 1969 1973	CHC CHC CHC	3B 3B 3B	25 21 27	31 27 20
George Scott	1977	BOS	1B	24	24
Vern Stephens	1948	BOS	SS	25	24
Dick Stuart	1961 1963	PIT BOS	1B 1B	22 24	21 29
Pete Suder	1941 1942	PHA PHA	3B/SS SS/3B/2B	23 20	21 22
Miguel Tejada	2004 2005	BAL BAL	SS SS	24 26	24 22
Felix Torres	1963	LAA	3B/1B	20	23
Gil Torres	1944	WSH	3B/1B/2B	20	24
John Valentin	1997	BOS	2B/3B	21	22
Mickey Witek	1943	NYG	2B	21	31
Todd Zeile	1999 2002	TEX COL	3B 3B	20 27	25 21
Ryan Zimmerman	2007	WSN	3B	26	23

So who's got a chance to join this list in 2008? So far, two players have reached the 20 error plateau: Arizona 3B Mark Reynolds and Florida SS Hanley Ramirez. However, Reynolds is at eight GIDP and Ramirez is at five, so it's all but impossible for them to make it. In fact, there is only one player this year with what I consider a realistic shot at making it onto the list. The Seattle shortstop has grounded into fifteen double plays and committed eighteen errors. He's the only 15/15 player so far this year.

Along with checking Daniel Cabrera's HBP total after every start, it might be worth looking to see what Betancourt's done lately for the rest of the year.