ERIK: A few weeks back, I wrote about how hard it is to get 200+ HITS in a season. The caveat for today is: Unless you’re Ichiro or Michael Young.
Among the three teams below, the Mariners have the fewest 200+ers (3), then Toronto (5), then Texas (8). But if you do it by number of seasons rather than number of players?
Mariners: 13
Texas: 13
Toronto: 5
Ichiro had 10 such seasons (tied for most in baseball history with Pete Rose), while Young had six. Toronto has had zero repeat offenders.
It took me forever to remember Michael Young’s name, by the way. I wound up sounding in my head like Homer Simpson describing Martin Prince:
You know, that sternly bland guy. The little wiener who’s always got his hands in his pockets.
For lower right, just like yesterday, I kept rejecting correct answers (John Olerud, Tony Fernandez) before pulling the trigger on the wrong one (Roberto Alomar). I figured Olerud walked too much (.395 lifetime OBP) but that .363 average in 1993 makes up for a lot: He got exactly 200 hits. Fernandez I rejected because I thought he’d already burned me on this, but I guess he burned me on something else. Silver Slugger? Because in ’86, 213 hits.
My columns are interesting: A’s caps for the A’s column, no KC caps for the KC column. Apologies, Kansas City! Though Dyson should totally be in a KC cap: 8 seasons there vs. the final one in Toronto. But BR’s got a thing for final seasons. Or, more likely, not bothering to fix anything after final seasons. (Cf., Nellie Cruz, yesterday.)
Have to say, it’s a good thing I wrote about Mariners 200+ guys for Grid 186, otherwise I might’ve gotten it wrong. I might’ve ignored the obvious (Ichiro) for someone like, I don’t know, Cano (200+ twice with the Yankees, never with the Mariners), or Griffey (185 in ’97). Maybe I would’ve gotten A-Rod? Doubt I would’ve gotten Boonie.
Nice thing about just three correct answers? If you get one of them and it’s not the No. 1 answer, you can guess the percentage so the third and have all three:
Ichiro: 79%
A-Rod: 13% (one assumes)
Boone: 8%
I still think they should factor in wrong answers for the percentages. Those are guesses, too.
TIM: 100% agree that wrong answers should be factored in. It would be a whole different info set.
That discussion on 200 hits a while back is the only reason I got Bret Boone today. And having done Boone and Jim Sundberg for TEX/KC I figured I could complete the theme you suggested the other day and present a starting lineup with each position represented.
Success!
Going with a theme prevented any screwups by being too fast ala Michael Schur, but it also meant spending probably too much time on this. :) Fortunately, I had about half and hour of sitting around waiting for my COVID booster this afternoon and used this exercise to pass the time. Some boxes were quick—Boone we’d discussed with M’s 200+ hitters, Sundberg is one of those guys I had a ton of baseball cards of. Then theme thinking took hold. I’d mentioned Willie Aikens and fellow cokehead John Mayberry being dealt from the Royals to Blue Jays before, and for some reason I don’t know Alfredo Griffin showed up in my mental rolodex for Jays/A’s. That gave me catcher, first, second, and short.
I was going to put Ryon Healy in for SEA/OAK, but realized TEX 200+ Hits would limit my positional flexibility and all I could think of for that square were in positions already used (Palmeiro 1B; Young 2B; Alex Rodriguez, inc. SS). So I needed an OF or a 3B there and took a chance on Buddy Bell that paid off (exactly 200 hits in 1979). So now I had OFs and pitcher left, with TOR/200 hits, SEA/OAK, SEA/KC, and OAK/TEX. Vince Coleman immediately came to mind for SEA/KC, but I’d used him a lot and opted for Aoki instead (also having considered Danny Tartabull, but he was a second baseman with the M’s).
Obviously, the pitcher would then have to go in one of the A’s boxes, so for A’s/M’s I came up with Arthur Rhodes, Matt Moore (or was it Mike Moore?), Matt Young, one of the Holmans (but which one?), Emilio Pagan (traded for Healy), Sean Doolittle, Rick Honeycutt—Honeycutt, also a Ranger. Put him in at OAK/TEX since M’s/anybody is easier than Rangers/anybody else. I then typed in Henderson, thinking Dave, for M’s/A’s, when I recalled the more obscure Steve Henderson from one of Jon Wells’ History of the Mariners pieces I edited way back when. Steve had a really good year for the M’s in the ’80s (1983, it turns out) but not so much the next year and it wasn’t enough for the team to keep him when he hit free agency.
That left an OF and Toronto 200 hits, and I thought the theme would fail. I came up with Olerud, having used him before; Fernandez, having used him before; and a solid guess at Paul Molitor; but no outfielders. I left it alone for awhile and came back later, running through Blue Jay outfielders in my head in the meantime. Devo White? Maybe (no, 181 in ’91). Shawn Green? Doubtful (no, but close: 190 in ’99). Bautista? Too many Ks. Teo? ditto. Stewart? Hmm. He was good a for a while…fuck it, try Stewart. DING! 202 hits in 2001. Vernon Wells, the most recent Blue Jay to do it, did not occur to me at all, I completely forgot about him.
So in the end I got my lineup:
Shannon Stewart, CF
Norichika Aoki, RF
Bret Boone, 2B
Willie Aikens, 1B
Buddy Bell, 3B
Steve Henderson, LF
Jim Sundberg, C
Alfredo Griffin, SS
Rick Honeycutt, P
Not bad, they’d put up some runs. Really good D, too, outside of first base and maybe left field.
I’m kind of surprised at a few of the top choices today. Like OAK/TOR, I figured Matt Chapman would be the guy. No, it’s another third baseman in Josh Donaldson Who is a Jerk and Nobody Likes Him. Also, Rickey for M’s/A’s? It’s probably PNW bias talking, but there are way more choices there that stuck around for each team a lot longer. I guess Rickey is the most famous, though. And does no one remember Dann Howitt? No? I guess that’s just us since he ended Nolan Ryan’s career in our presence. Oh, I see, Rickey makes more sense when I see that the overall success rate of that square is just 35%. Yeesh. And only 38% for SEA/KC. We really are isolated up here in the corner, aren’t we.
Nice work--particularly with the slim pickings from the 200+ hit season column.
WHO DESERVES A BETTER PHOTO: Rick Honeycutt, maybe? Or else that's the best photo. It's existential. He looks like he just realized he's wasted his life. Nice contrast with Sundberg and Bell gazing optimistically toward the future.
I too wondered over the difficulty of A's/M's. Were people guessing wrong or just not guessing? That'd be a fun stat: No. 1 wrong guess. "People thought Jose Canseco was an M?" or "People thought Jay Buhner wound up with the A's?"