Three True Outcomes per Plate Appearance, 1913-2008

An update to my Three True Outcomes (TTO) post of January 2008. As mentioned there, batting strikeouts weren't consistently recorded until 1913, so I start counting TTO from there.

Most Career TTO/PA, 1913-2007, min. 3000 PA

Rank	Name	PA	SO	BB	HR	TTO/PA
1	Adam Dunn	4749	1256	797	278	.4908
2	Rob Deer	4512	1409	575	230	.4907
3	Jim Thome	9029	2190	1550	541	.4741
4	Mark McGwire	7660	1596	1317	583	.4564
5	Carlos Pena	3143	810	408	163	.4394
6	Mickey Tettleton	5745	1307	949	245	.4353
7	Pat Burrell	5388	1273	785	251	.4285
8	Jay Buhner	5927	1406	792	310	.4231
9	Gorman Thomas	5486	1339	697	268	.4200
10	Brad Wilkerson	3753	947	492	122	.4159
11	Danny Tartabull	5842	1362	768	262	.4094
12	Don Lock	3116	776	373	122	.4079
13	Jose Canseco	8129	1942	906	462	.4072
14	Troy Glaus	5840	1269	788	304	.4043
15	Mickey Mantle	9909	1710	1733	536	.4016
16	Reggie Jackson	11416	2597	1375	563	.3972
17	Darryl Strawberry	6326	1352	816	335	.3957
18	Gene Tenace	5525	998	984	201	.3951
19	Pete Incaviglia	4677	1277	360	206	.3941
20	Richie Sexson	5604	1313	588	306	.3938
21	Eric Davis	6147	1398	740	282	.3937
22	Jason Bay	3259	734	397	149	.3928
23	Jim Edmonds	7307	1669	974	382	.3924
24	Cecil Fielder	5939	1316	693	319	.3920
25	Ray Lankford	6674	1550	828	238	.3920

Adam Dunn finally edged Rob Deer out of the top spot.

I expanded the board to the top 25 for this post. Carlos Pena joined the top 20 this year, as did Richie Sexson. Eric Davis and Jim Edmonds fell out of the top 25, but stay in the top 25 with a new addition between them. Reggie Jackson remains the only member of the club with 10000 PA, though Jim Thome is getting close. Mike Schmidt narrowly missed joining him with his .3914 TTO/PA in 10062 PA.

In case you were wondering, the lowest career TTO% table didn't change. Here is a simple list of the bottom ten active players, minimum 3000 PA:

• Juan Pierre, .1128
• Placido Polanco, .1316
• Cesar Izturis, .1424
• David Eckstein, .1462
• Paul Lo Duca, .1490
• Bengie Molina, .1561
• Ichiro Suzuki, .1651
• Jason Kendall, .1684
• Orlando Cabrera, .1687
• Miguel Cairo, .1690
  

First Career Home Runs

Mark Buehrle hit his first career home run today. Later in the same game, he gave up Casey McGehee's first major league home run. I tried looking it up and I believe it's the first time since August 23, 2004 that a pitcher hit his first career home run and gave up another player's first career home run in the same game. That 2004 game featured John Van Benschoten hitting a homer and giving one up to Chris Snyder.

That'll Be Zero Home Runs, Thank You!

If you don't live near Milwaukee or possibly Cincinnati, you may have missed the ending to an impressive streak yesterday. Brewers lefthander Brian Shouse gave up a home run to the first batter he saw, Joey Votto, ending a string of 83 consecutive appearances without giving up a round-tripper. Shouse hadn't given up a home run since the 2006 season.

Furthermore, he had one of only twenty-two such streaks to go past eighty appearances since 1956. While being a lefthander typically required to face at most two or three batters per game makes it easier to string together a bunch of homer-less outings, it's still a pretty neat streak. On the list below, it's the guys who averaged more than one inning per appearance that really impress me.

Zero Home Runs in 80+ Consecutive Appearances, Since 1956

Name	Games	IP	Start	End
Greg Minton	178	269.0	06/01/1979	05/01/1982
Dale Murray	142	246.2	08/21/1974	08/18/1976
Chad Bradford	127	109.2	05/18/2006	09/20/2007
Dave Smith	105	115.1	07/20/1986	07/14/1988
Jonathan Broxton	94	96.2	07/26/2006	08/21/2007
Paul Quantrill	91	78.2	05/05/2002	05/12/2003
Joe Klink	90	65.0	07/26/1991	05/08/1996
Saul Rivera	89	98.2	04/27/2007	present
Larry Andersen	89	116.0	07/06/1990	07/10/1992
Fred Gladding	89	95.2	08/13/1970	07/23/1972
George Sherrill	88	50.0	09/19/2005	05/02/2007
Gregg Olson	85	114.2	04/18/1989	06/20/1990
Larry Anderson	84	128.0	06/18/1988	08/15/1989
Brian Shouse	83	54.1	09/28/2006	04/17/2008
Terry Forster	82	135.2	08/21/1971	05/11/1973
B.J. Ryan	81	87.1	06/04/2005	07/15/2006
B.J. Ryan	81	75.2	07/01/2003	07/17/2004
Jason Isringhausen	81	86.2	08/26/2001	06/28/2003
Mike Fetters	81	89.2	08/03/1993	08/17/1995
Ron Perranoski	81	124.0	07/21/1961	09/03/1962
Joey Eischen	80	64.2	06/02/2002	06/03/2003
Juan Agosto	80	90.2	07/04/1989	06/30/1990

As you can see, Nationals reliever Saul Rivera has the longest active streak. Amazingly, he's only halfway to the top spot. Twins lefty Dennys Reyes and Phillies lefty J.C. Romero are now tied for second on the active list at 53 games.

Consecutive Games with 1+ Home Run Allowed

Pitchers hate giving up home runs. Not only does it mean the score of the game changes and momentum swings to the other team, but it's also the only sure way to increase your ERA as opposed to someone else's (at least for relievers). The most home runs allowed in a single season is currently fifty by Bert Blyleven in 1986. In baseball history, only 404 pitchers have given up 30 or more home runs in one season.

I want to look at the most consecutive games giving up at least one home run. It's likely the higher numbers will be held by starting pitchers simply because they throw more innings than relievers and relievers face fewer batters in every game. As a result, I'll make two lists: one for starters and one for relievers. The lists only cover years since 1957 since that's how far back retrosheet's data (used in the Baseball-Reference Play Index) goes.


Most Consecutive Games with a Home Run Allowed by a Starting Pitcher

1. Bert Blyleven, 9/8/86 to 6/10/87, 20 games, 36 HR allowed during streak
   
2. Curt Young, 6/3/87 to 9/26/87, 19 games, 28 HR
3. Ramon Ortiz, 5/1/05 to 7/17/05, 15 games, 22 HR
4. Mark Leiter, 4/17/96 to 7/4/96, 15 games, 19 HR
5. John Thomson, 5/17/02 to 8/3/02, 14 games, 18 HR
6. Dennis Rasmussen, 7/10/86 to 9/29/86, 14 games, 18 HR
7. Dick Tidrow, 9/10/73 to 5/26/74, 14 games, 19 HR
8. Orlando Pena, 7/3/64 to 9/7/64, 14 games, 19 HR
9. Edgar Gonzalez, 8/29/04 to 4/28/07, 13 games, 18 HR
10. Runelvys Hernandez, 10/2/05 to 8/10/06, 13 games, 18 HR
11. Steve Parris, 7/31/02 to 5/6/03, 13 games, 21 HR
12. Steve Trachsel, 5/25/99 to 7/30/99, 13 games, 20 HR
13. Dave Johnson, 5/23/90 to 7/23/90, 13 games, 17 HR

Tidrow, Pena, and Gonzalez all made relief appearances between their starts, so they may not necessarily belong on the list. If you take them out you're left with a convenient top ten list.

Most Consecutive Games with a Home Run Allowed by a Relief Pitcher

1. Pete Smith, 5/21/95 to 5/19/97, 6 games, 7 HR
2. Jay Hook, 6/27/61 to 7/22/61, 6 games, 7 HR
3. Roman Colon, 5/19/06 to 6/12/06, 5 games, 5 HR
4. Ron Mahay, 5/9/02 to 5/23/02, 5 games, 6 HR
5. Jason Standridge, 8/22/01 to 05/16/02, 5 games, 6 HR
6. Mike Trombley, 7/11/99 to 7/21/99, 5 games, 5 HR
7. Dave Stevens, 7/12/96 to 8/12/96, 5 games, 5 HR
8. Eric Plunk, 7/31/91 to 9/3/91, 5 games, 5 HR
9. Mark Williamson, 7/25/90 to 8/4/90, 5 games, 5 HR
10. Pete Filson, 4/27/86 to 9/8/87, 5 games, 6 HR
11. Doug Corbett, 8/15/86 to 9/1/86, 5 games, 5 HR
12. Bob Stoddard, 8/9/83 to 8/22/83, 5 games, 6 HR
13. Tom Hall, 8/18/74 to 9/17/74, 5 games, 5 HR
14. Bob Heffner, 5/14/65 to 7/10/65, 5 games, 6 HR
15. Lee Strange, 6/22/64 to 7/17/64, 5 games, 5 HR
16. Julio Navarro, 5/3/64 to 5/21/64, 5 games, 6 HR
17. Luis Arroyo, 7/8/62 to 7/22/62, 5 games, 5 HR
18. Tom Gorman, 7/7/57 to 8/2/57, 5 games, 5 HR

The italicized players had starts between their relief appearances, so they might not belong on the list. It looks like 1986-1987 was a tough year for starters and relievers in the home run department.

The player with the longest active streak is Victor Santos who gave up home runs in seven straight appearances with Cincinnati and Baltimore. To break it up into the categories here, he has allowed at least one home run in his last four relief appearances and last three starts.

Here's looking at you, Seth McClung

The man mentioned in the title of this post has thrown all of 2 2/3 innings in the major leagues this season. Why is he special enough to merit being mentioned in the title of a random blog post? Simply for the fact he has yet to strike anyone out, walk a batter, or give up a home run. Since that struck me as odd, I decided to look up the all-time leaders for innings pitched in a season with zeros for each of those categories. As expected, the innings totals are very low (there's only been 260 such seasons since 1901), so here's the eight guys who managed to avoid strikeouts, walks and home runs. I guess you could call them zero true outcome pitchers.

1. Jesse Petty, 9.0 IP, 1921
2. Sam Mertes, 8.0 IP, 1902
3. Tom Grubbs, 5.0 IP, 1920
4. Bill Friel, 4.0 IP, 1902
5. Jim Merritt, 3.2 IP, 1975
6. Jack Savage, 3.1 IP, 1987
7. Craig Mitchell, 3.1 IP, 1976
8. Jim Pierce, 3.1 IP, 1955

Now McClung is sure to walk, strike out or give up a homer to the first hitter he faces next time out.