Lies Damned Lies and Statistics – MLB – July 20, 2012

The pennant races are getting really hot. With two additional Wild Card teams being invited to the playoffs this season, there are very few teams already looking ahead to next year. There are some players on teams that will be involved in some important series with some factoids on their resumes that might surprise you.

Jamie Moyer is Major League Baseball’s active leader in career wins.

The 49 year old Colorado Rockies pitcher has been in the big leagues since before I was old enough for the “12 and over” doses of Tylenol. I’m in my late 30s. To my knowledge, he is the sole remaining active professional athlete in a major sports league who played when I was in elementary school.

In fact, for contrast, there are only six active NHL players, two NFL players (Jason Hanson of the Detroit Lions and John Kasay of the New Orleans Saints), and no remaining active NBA players who played when I was in high school. The college contemporaries are growing thin, too.

Moyer has always been a solid contributor to his teams’ starting rotation, but never a dominating pitcher for an extended period of years like several of the men just beneath him on this list. Nonetheless, Moyer, with 269 career wins, leads all other active major leaguers. Unfortunately, playing for the Rockies, he will not add to that total very much.

Moyer in 1986. With good health and a little luck, a man can pile up a lot of wins in a quarter century.

C.C. Sabathia is the fifth in career MLB wins among active players.

C.C. Sabathia is one of the best pitchers in the game; many would argue the best left hander. But at a position in which players can remain active less than a year before their 50th birthdays, the fact that C.C., who debuted in 2001 and turns 32 tomorrow, is among the top five active win leaders is a powerful statement about just how dominant he is.

To put this in perspective, the active career wins leader born after Sabathia is 31 year old Carlos Zambrano of the Miami Marlins. Zambrano is 18th among active pitchers with 130 wins. The active career wins leader among lefties who are C.C.’s junior? Twenty-eight year old Zack Greinke of the Milwaukee Brewers, tied for 49th in wins among active pitchers with Cole Hamels of the Philadelphia Phillies with just 85 career wins.

The big question is can C.C.'s career win total ever exceed his weight in pounds? 2

Albert Pujols is 10th in career runs scored among active players.

Again, the fact that arguably the game’s best player is in the top 10 for active career achievements sounds intuitive. He is the best complete hitter of his time, has average speed, and is a smart baserunner, so why wouldn’t he be high on the career run list? However, at age 32, a healthy baseball player like Pujols is not in the twilight of his career, as players in other sports would be; he’s in (the back end of) his career peak. This is what makes this statistic somewhat incredible.

Pujols has scored 1,341 runs in his career as of this morning. Comparing him similarly to Sabathia, the active career leader, younger than Pujols, in runs scored is 32 year old Mark Teixeira of the New York Yankees with 926. That ranks Teixeira 32nd among active players. In fact, Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies is the next-highest active career leader in runs scored after Pujols among players under the age of 35, ranked 18th with more than 200 fewer runs scored.

Pujols is no diva; he isn't afraid to bring it to the catcher at the plate. Sometimes that doesn't work out so well. 3

The active career leader in triples, Carl Crawford of the Boston Red Sox with 112, is not even in the top 100, all-time for career triples.

This stat is as big of an illustration as any showing how much the game of baseball has changed. The top three all-time leaders are Hall of Famers Sam Crawford, Ty Cobb, and Honus Wagner, all Dead Ball Era hitters. If Crawford left the game today, he would rank 118th all-time.

What has changed? What are the characteristics of a play resulting in a triple? Typically there are three elements: a very hard hit line drive (all the way into the outfield), an awkward bounce off of the right centerfield or right field wall, and a speedy baserunner. The majority of the time a triple is hit, it comes from a left handed hitter. Lefties, of course, are more likely to put the ball in right field, which is almost a necessity for a triple since the greatest distance from the outfield to third base is from right field.

In the Dead Ball Era, some outfield walls were often farther back than modern walls, sometimes upwards of 500 feet to centerfield, meaning that, in some parks, a righty could pull the ball to left, get a quirky bounce off the wall, and still reach third. Sports nutrition supplements did not exist. Endurance and strength conditioning were not in the lexicon of any major professional sports, let alone the one sport in which an out of shape person could thrive – baseball. Fielding was not as crisp and synchronized as today. Outfielders were not as fast, and baserunners were willing to take more risks because hitters were less able to bring them home during the Dead Ball Era than today. In short, it was easier to reach third.

Hall of Famer Sam Crawford is the MLB all-time leader in career triples. 5

No relation to Carl Crawford, sliding to third. 4

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1) Image from www.businessinsider.com
2) Image from www.cleveland.com
3) Image from www.usatoday.com
4) Image from www.flikr.com
5) Image from http://coquitlamlittleleague.ca