12/21/24
April 10, 2013
SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
Jose Bautista's One-Way War with Umpires
posted by justgary at 09:55 AM on April 10, 2013
I love excessively qualified statistical achievements: "Tepesch became the first pitcher to post a line of 7 1/3 innings, four hits or less, and a run or less in his major league debut on a date as early as April 9 since the Cincinnati Reds' Wayne Simpson did so on April 9, 1970 at Dodger Stadium."
posted by rcade at 01:48 PM on April 10, 2013
"Tepesch became the first pitcher to post a line of 7 1/3 innings, four hits or less, and a run or less in his major league debut on a date as early as April 9 since the Cincinnati Reds' Wayne Simpson did so on April 9, 1970 at Dodger Stadium."
Ha! Despite 5(!) fairly arbitrary conditions, he still doesn't get to claim to be the only person to do that. If only he had pitched Monday...
I hate gerrymandered stats, but this one is so ridiculous that the amount of time it must have taken to look this up deserves recognition.
posted by bender at 02:27 PM on April 10, 2013
After last night's annual Champions Dinner at the Masters, host Bubba "Huvva" Watson posted the dinner menu on Twitter, signed by the attendees.
The fare was evidently thought to be a bit pedestrian compared to past years' menus, judging from this response:
Three-time Masters champion Nick Faldo tweeted after the meal: "-@bubbawatson you had a year to decide on, grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, macaroni & cheese!!! #HappyMeal #PlayLikeaChampion"
posted by beaverboard at 03:17 PM on April 10, 2013
Whoops. The Detroit Free Press has some explaining to do.
posted by bender at 03:26 PM on April 10, 2013
Whoops. The Detroit Free Press has some explaining to do.
Wow, a glimpse into an alternate universe. I was wondering how Capt. Kirk and the Federation of the mirror universe turned evil.
posted by NerfballPro at 03:34 PM on April 10, 2013
And of course, there is an appropriately snarky review.
posted by Bonkers at 03:40 PM on April 10, 2013
My rule for selective endpoints is thus:
1) Count the various limitations. If it's more than 4, you're just pigeonholing for this specific person.
2) Run your searches by removing one of the limitations at a time, and see how many hits you get. If you get lots of hits for each search (where you remove only one limitation), then it really isn't that special.
Since 1970, there have been 8,997 starts by pitchers that met this requirement:
IP >= 7 1/3
H <= 4
R <= 1
Thirty-nine of them were career debuts.
Six of them did it on/before April 9th of their season (five in 1970, and Tepesch in 2013), and a total of twelve did it in the first 14 days of April of their season.
So the major limitations on this are the date (on/before April 9th), and the debut portion
posted by grum@work at 03:59 PM on April 10, 2013
Good work, Grum.
What database do you and the Tepesch-touting reporter have access to? I want to know how many left-handed pitchers struck out seven or more batters in June while lasting 6 or more innings and hitting at least one batter.
posted by rcade at 05:13 PM on April 10, 2013
I think grum uses baseball-reference.com's subscription tool, but you can always fall back to Lahman's database for data before the current year.
posted by yerfatma at 07:12 PM on April 10, 2013
I want to know how many left-handed pitchers struck out seven or more batters in June while lasting 6 or more innings and hitting at least one batter.
Last year?
It happened 9 times.
Jason Vargas
David Price
Scott Diamond
Jonathon Niese (twice)
Chris Sale
Clayton Kershaw
Travis Wood
Madison Baumgartner
In the last 20 seasons?
107 times.
posted by grum@work at 09:48 PM on April 10, 2013
So you're saying it's not that noteworthy then?
posted by bender at 09:59 PM on April 10, 2013
I think grum uses baseball-reference.com's subscription tool, but you can always fall back to Lahman's database for data before the current year.
I use baseball-reference.com's Play Index tool.
It allows you to search for individual game results (or streaks) like I did above.
For season/career totals with more complex criteria (not including the current year), then I use the Lahman database. It lets you do things like...
Top 10 Most Career Home Runs by a Left-handed Batter Who Has Never Made a Playoff Appearance:
Name HR
Adam Dunn 406
Jeromy Burnitz 315
Cy Williams 251
Hal Trosky 228
Johnny Callison 226
Leon Wagner 211
Jason Thompson 210
Ken Williams 196
Jeff Heath 194
Bobby Higginson 187
You need a database program (I use MS Access 2007) and some knowledge about writing database queries.
posted by grum@work at 10:14 PM on April 10, 2013
Probably already linked, but just in case:
Baseball Card Vandals