TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Monday, June 28, 2004

...and this is a footnote?!?

With all the hoopla over Junior getting to 500 HRs, and even over Jim Thome getting to 400 HRs, a far more significant milestone went nearly unnoticed Sunday. Barry Bonds scored his 2000th run -- only the seventh man in major league history to do so. He's now just 62 behind Willie Mays. If he plays two more years, he'll almost certainly pass Pete Rose (2165), and Aaron and Ruth (tied at 2174). Ty Cobb (2246) and Rickey Henderson (2295...and counting?) would require three years from Barry, and that's quite a bit more speculative. Bonds would have to be committed to passing Aaron and just a bit short at the end of the 2006 season to envision that coming about.

What's fairly remarkable about this is Bonds does not have a single season for runs scored in the all-time top 100. His career high is 129 (done three times). Then again, neither do Aaron (127) or Mays (130), although everybody else around the top is on the single-season top 100 someplace.

Still, just when you thought you'd seen all the amazing stats there were to see about Barry, chew on this one: Bonds has more runs scored (59) than hits (58) (thanks to those 109 walks).

Mark McGwire in 1998 had 130 runs scored and 152 hits. That's the closest season I can find from recent times.

That celebrated statistical outlier, the freakiest freak of lopsided stat lines ever, Rob Deer, came very close in 1991. He walked 89 times, got 80 hits (only 24 of them homers), struck out 175 times, hit .179, and scored 64 runs, a differential of only 16. I did an article back in 1993, which I can't find around anymore, about Deer's RBI to Hit ratio, which was threatening to approach 1 at several points. It was hit or miss with Rob, literally.

Tony Phillips came within 19 in 1995: 118 runs on 137 hits (and "only" 113 walks). Phillips was pesky as hell.

Ed "The Walking Man" Yost had 94 runs scored and 119 hits, the year he hit his career high in walks of 151 in 1956. Yost was my father's favorite player, a long-suffering Washington Senator who was viewed as light-hitting at the time when OBP wasn't very well appreciated. He managed a career OBP of .394 -- good enough to be 77th on the all-time career list, right behind none other than Big Mac -- with a career slugging percentage of only .374.

Eddie Joost (not to be confused with Eddie Yost) got within ten in 1949, with 128 runs scored on 138 hits (and 149 walks). Joost had a pretty mediocre career for some pretty lousy teams. I'd like one of the old-timers to explain to me how he finished 10th in the MVP voting in 1948 on the strength of a .250 BA, 16 HR, and 55 RBI. Remember, this was before the Cy Young award and pitchers got a lot more votes in the MVP back then.

Eddie Stanky (what is it about Eddies?) in 1945 came pretty close, with 128 runs scored in 143 hits (and 148 walks). Stanky's remembered mostly for his role on the 1951 Giants in their celebrated pennant race with the Dodgers. Stanky was the leadoff man for the Giants on the final playoff game against the Dodgers -- and went 0 for 4 with no runs scored.

Babe Ruth, who had an amazing number of high run-scoring seasons, and certainly walked a lot, never came within 30 differential between runs and hits, except for 1921. In his unreal 1921 season, he scored 177 runs (the modern era record) -- on 204 hits and 145 walks. The King of Swing, the Babe of the Base on Balls, had a differential of 27. They swang away back then.

Ever heard of Jimmy Sheckard? I sure as heck hadn't until just now. He scored 121 runs on 149 hits in 1911, aided by a then-record 147 walks. Sheckard turned 31 that season, and had 122 walks the season after, but previously in 11 major league seasons had relatively unremarkable walk totals ranging from 83 down to the low 40s for full seasons. I thought he might've been a, shall we say, height-challenged person who decided to stoop down in the strike zone a la Eddie Gaedel, but the reference works say he was 5' 9", a little short for a ballplayer of the era but an average height nevertheless. He did end with over 2000 hits, so I should've heard of him before. Another fact I gleaned from reading his line: he was apparently named after celebrated 1876 Presidential loser Samuel J. Tilden (Sheckard's full name was Samual James Tilden Scheckard). Having been born in 1878, to put this in perspective, I suppose this is about the rough equivalent of my naming my infant son Al Gore Crank. (I did not.) Tilden lost Pennsylvania, whence Sheckard came, so one can only surmise his parents were proud minority (or, as with the case of both Tilden and Gore, majority) voters. In any event, the deadball era was not known for walking, so Sheckard is the closest of his ilk to having had more runs scored than hits.

Going all the way back to the original leadoff man, Slidin' Billy Hamilton, who had five 100 walk seasons but was more typically in the 70s and 80s, he got within 17 on one occasion (his rookie year, 1889). In 1894, when he set the all-time record for runs scored with 192 (in 129 games!), he got 200 hits, 126 walks, batted .404 and had an OBP of .523 -- but a slugging percentage of "only" .528. Slidin' Billy had 44 extra base hits including 15 triples and 4 HRs -- all inside-the-parkers. If you're not familiar with Slidin' Billy, he's pretty much the only man with a legitimate case on Rickey Henderson as greatest leadoff man of all time.

But already we're getting so far back the statistical record is partial. Tom Brown of the 1891 Boston Reds scored (we think) 177 runs on 189 hits for a differential of 12. Brown's another guy who seems to have had a great career, ending in 1897, but I've only barely heard of him. Brown went the other route to get that high ratio: he lead the "major" leagues of the time in strikeouts five times (although his career high was 94, if you want to know how far contact has come in 100 years). Brown had a teammate, shortstop Paul Radford, who had 102 runs scored on 118 hits. In any event, we're not only in partial statistical records, we're back in years where the scoring rules changed, the mound was differing distances away, etc. so it's not going to be fruitful to look further back.

If anybody else has some good examples of high runs to hits ratios, please post them on the message board.

That's about all I can find for any player who played close to a full season. It seems likely that if Bonds continues this walk pace, he'll have an obscure record ratio of runs scored to hits, which may exceed 1.0.

Oh yeah, and he scored his 2000th run in 2004, too.

posted by The Crank 12:18 AM