200 Hits

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DOUGHBOYS
Posts: 13088
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

200 Hits

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Sun Nov 04, 2018 9:12 am

There is a lot of talk about Starters in pitchers throwing less innings. And they are.
During the regular season, pitch count rules supreme.
During the post-season, Managers seem to trust matchups more than Starters and are in a hurry to begin a bullpen parade.
Let's just say, Starters are less relevant than at any time in MLB history.
What about offensively?
Is there a statistic that is slowly fading away due to modern day strategies?
There is.

1930 may have been the greatest hitting year in baseball history.
Bill Terry hit .401
Five hitters hit above .380
And get this, 89 of a qualified 168 qualifying batters hit over .300!
That's right. Over half the league hit .300 and much more.
It was the year that Hack Wilson drove in 190 and hit 56 homers (which got him in the Hall of Fame alone)
The Babe hit 49.
Here is Chuck Klein's line from that year...Imagine this on your fantasy team....
.386/158/40/170/4
Only 154 game schedules were played, but 20 batters had 200 hits.

It is that 200 hit season that is fading from baseball.
There are many reasons....

1.For left handed batters, the shift is taking away hits.
2.Most ball players today are adjusting swings for power, not base hits.
3.Some players are looking to take a base on balls, rather than hit.
4.More players are platooned now than ever before.
5.And if not platooned, players are 'rested' now more than ever before.

Zero players had 200 hits in 2018.
Whit Merrifield's 192 hits was the lowest mark to lead the MLB in a season this century.
Hardly anybody noticed.
During the last six years, the 200 hit barrier has been broken 12 times.
Four of those times, it was the same player.
Jose Altuve.

In 1968, baseball had its 'Year of the Pitcher'.
Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA
Eight pitchers had an ERA under 2.00
50 pitchers had an era under 3.00
Still, there were two 200 hit players.
Pete Rose and Felipe Alou.

Speaking of Pete Rose, he had 10 200 hit seasons.
Incredibly, Rose is the last Cincinnati Reds player to have 200 hits.
Think about that. Bench, Morgan, Foster, Eric Davis, Larkin, and Joey Votto.
None, with 200 hits.
Larkin and Votto both topped out at 185 hits.

The last Minnesota Twin to have 200 hits in a season was in their dugout this past year.
And won't be this year.
No, his name is not Joe Mauer.
It was Paul Molitor.

The Tampa Bay Rays have NEVER had a player with 200 hits. And most likely, never will.

The last Dodgers player to have 200 hits?
Adrian Beltre.

The last Orioles player?
Miguel Tejada.

The last White Sox player?
Albert Belle.

No Washington Nationals player has had 200 hits.
But, Vladimir Guerrero was the last player in 'franchise' history to have 200 hits.
Other little known players like Freddy Sanchez of the Pirates, Rich Aurilia with the Giants, and Mark Loretta with the Padres were the last to have 200 hits for their teams.

It takes a certain kind of hitter to reach 200 hits in these times.
He can't be looking for home runs. The home run has to be the by-product of hitting the ball hard.
It also takes a hitter who is not too picky about balls and strikes.
Players are lauded (way too much today) for their batting eyes.
200- hit players like Altuve, Rose, Dee Gordon, and Ichiro were less picky about the pitches they were hitting.
Their mindset was that if the ball is a few inches off the plate, they can still do their magic. No drawback.
Players coming up through baseball now are having it pounded into them to lay off any pitch not in the zone.

The 200-hit hitter is doing a slow fade. It is true that throughout MLB seasons, the 200-hit player has appeared and disappeared.
But. with the money grab of home runs, shifts, platoons, 'resting' of players, and players being instructed to take more pitches, the mortality rate of 200-hit hitters is on the decline.
It's too bad.
Like 300 lifetime Wins and 20 Win seasons on the pitching side, It is an offensive round number that will be missed.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

DOUGHBOYS
Posts: 13088
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

Re: 200 Hits

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Fri Nov 09, 2018 10:20 am

Just some more data (trivia) about hits and a commentl.....

In 1985, Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Dave Concepcion, Buddy Bell, and Cesar Cedeno played for the Cincinnati Reds.
It was the first time in Major League history, that five players with 2,000 lifetime hits played on the same team.
The next year, Rose, Perez, Concepcion, Bell, and newly acquired Dave Parker became the only other team in the MLB with five 2,000 hit players.

In 1928, the Philadelphia Athletics put together an 'Old Folks Home' of a team.
Their leaders were Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Eddie Collins.
Three 3,000 hit club members and 11,017 hits between them.
Safe to say, that will never be matched again.

To show how our game has changed in just 10 years....
In 2018, only 47 players had just 150 hits.
In 2008, 87 players had 150 hits.
Think about that in a fantasy way....
An average of just three players per NFBC team will get even 150 hits for us!
It is not like 150 hits is a high water benchmark.
Now, get this.
Of the players with 150 hits or more, 13 had 30 home run seasons.
14 non-150 hitters, had 30 homer seasons.
Worse, this number was not cherry-picked.
If lowering the bar to 25 home runs....
17 150-hit players hit 25 homers
A whopping 31 players had 25 homers without 150 hits.
Certainly, the game has changed.


Just one last thing.
It isn't just baseball. Sports have changed.
Back in the day, for football, it was 'Three yards and a cloud of dust'.
For basketball, it was 'work the ball in and drive the lane'.
Even for Poker, it was 'know when to hold them, know when to fold them'.
Now, a lot of passes, especially long pass plays dominate football.
Basketball has become a game of shooting over the defense.
And Poker is 'ALL IN' at any stage of the game.
Sports now prefer the quick strike.
The home run, the long pass, the 3 pointer, are all a form of going 'ALL IN'.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

DOUGHBOYS
Posts: 13088
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

Re: 200 Hits

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Fri Dec 07, 2018 10:42 am

Some more....

Sabrs have gone out of control about OBP.
There are hardly any hitters in baseball 'trying' to draw a walk.
Yes, there are a few, Joey Votto, Carlos Santana, and Matt Carpenter heading the list.
For the most part though, walks are drawn through the intimidation factor of the hitter or pitchers not having the control desired.

So, let's salute an achievement that makes both Sabrs and I happy.
Hitters who have had both 200 hits and 100 walks in a season.
You may think that Votto may have accomplished this feat. Not even close.
Votto has never come close to 200 hits. He topped out at 185 hits.
Matt Carpenter had 199 hits in 2013.
Since then, he has become more of a three true outcome hitter and has only 162 hits in a season since for his best.

It really isn't fair to pick on Votto or Carpenter though.
You see, NOBODY from this generation of hitters has accomplished a 200 hit-100 walks season.
The greatest 'walker' of all time (sit down, Joey), Barry Bonds, only had more than 170 hits once in his career and came nowhere close to 200 hits.
However, Bonds is the only player in history to have a reverse of the accomplishment. A 200 walks-100 hit season.
Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, and Miguel Cabrera have come within sniffing distance of the 200-100.
It has only been accomplished by 25 times in baseball by only 12 players.
Lou Gehrig did it an extraordinary seven times.
Babe Ruth, three times.
At the height of Murderers Row in 1927, the Babe had an incredible 205 hits-170 Walks, The closest any player will get to 200-200.
And moving more towards our lifetime, Wade Boggs, amazingly, had four consecutive 200 hit-100 walk seasons.
The last player to have a 200 hit-100 walks season was Todd Helton. Helton did it twice, in 2000 and 2003.
It's possible we never see it again.
200 Hit seasons, themselves, being more rare.
Here is a list of players that have had 200 Hits- 100 Walks seasons...

Ty Cobb
Lou Gehrig (7)
Babe Ruth (3)
Woody English
Hack Wilson
Jimmy Foxx
Hank Greenberg
Stan Musial (2)
Wade Boggs (4)
John Olerud
Bernie Williams
Todd Helton (2)
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

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