The "UNQUALIFIERS"

“Know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It's 25 hits.  25 hits in 500 at bats is 50 points, okay? There's 6 months in a season, that's about 25 weeks. That means if you get just one extra flare a week - just one - a gorp... you get a groundball, you get a groundball with eyes... you get a dying quail, just one more dying quail a week... and you're in Yankee Stadium.”

-- Crash Davis (“Bull Durham”)

 

That’s one of the greatest lines that I’ve ever read about how to explain baseball.   Not only is the mathematics easy to understand, but it also summarizes the battle between hitter and pitcher, and as shown in the movie, the enigmatic ways in which one player can toil in the minors until he’s in his early thirties while another is able to break onto a Major League roster for over a decade.     I mean no disrespect to anyone who has ever made it as an MLB player, but when I think of a player who leapt out of the minors and had a long career on the edge of obscurity I think of Denny Hocking.    He played parts of 13 seasons, got over 2,500 plate appearances, was a career .251 hitter, and played every position on the field but pitcher and catcher.    As a minor leaguer, Hocking generally wasn’t much better, except for one season in which he hit .331 at Visalia, then the high-A level minor league team of the Minnesota Twins.    His career minor league record showed a .362 OBA and a .402 Slugging Pct batting line, for a total OPS of .764.   (I am a notorious hater of “OPS” as a statistic, but I will use it occasionally to make a simplistic point.)      Hocking, had a teammate in the minor leagues name Brad Raabe, another infielder who had a career minor league batting line of .311 / .378 / .429, with an OPS of .807.  Statistically superior to Hocking, but Raabe was about a year older than Hocking for the level they played, yet he had years in AAA in which hit .305, .351, and .352.   Not only that, Raabe was one of the best contact hitters I can ever remember seeing, as shown by his 1994-1997 seasons in which he had roughly 2,000 plate appearance and struck out a ridiculous 64 times… that’s 4 seasons of 16 K’s per year!!    In 1996 he hit 39 doubles, 18 homers and struck out 19 times.     Making this more ridiculous was that Brian Raabe was FROM Minnesota, went to High School at New Ulm (same high school as Terry Steinbach) and played college ball at the University of Minnesota.   

Brian Raabe only had 33 Major League plate appearances and is now the head coach at Bethel University in Minnesota, something very noble and to be proud of.   Denny Hocking made over $5 million dollars playing baseball and his twitter name is @bigleagueswings.    Ouch.

I’m sure there are very smart baseball men who can explain why one player played 10 years at the big league level, and one played the equivalent of a week.  “Age-to-Level” may explain a great deal of it, but Raul Ibanez didn’t get a chance to start a the Major League level until he was 27, and at 41 years old he is currently tied for 6^th in MLB for home runs this season.      But my piece isn’t about the possible imbalance of ‘fairness’ between one player given a shot and another being passed over year after year.   That’s just an example of how one player possibly got notoriety after one solid season which may have been the deciding factor on how his career turned out.   As baseball fans, we truly have zero input as to who gets a shot and who doesn’t, or who gets signed, or who plays or who sits in the minors.    It’s really quite an unusual anomaly that we as fans not only PAY the players, but we pay the folks who make the good and the bad decisions about who plays and who doesn’t.    Team management makes those decisions, and we are left to decide how to enjoy it, or not.   One of the best ways that we enjoy it is by basing our hero’s on the statistics that they produce.    I sometimes wonder what makes some players as revered as they are, and some are hardly considered as better than simply ‘solid’.   Take Placido Polanco as an example.   He has a career batting average of .297 over 17 seasons and in the last 10 years has had seasons in which he hit .331 and .341.   Even more impressive Polanco is the Major League career leader in defensive fielding position at TWO different positions, second base and third base.    Repeat, Placido Planco is the CAREER defensive leader at two different positions.    Yet Polanco has had only two all-star game appearances, and if he was an actor he’d have about the same ‘fame ranking’ as the guy who played Uncle Leo on Seinfeld.    Perhaps the reason is that Polanco never led a league in any major statistical category.   He probably would have led the AL in batting in 2005 had it not been for a mid-year trade to the Phillies for Ugi Urbina, (who pitched 27 innings for Detroit then proceeded to attack some people on his property with a Machete and spent 6 years in jail for that little temper tantrum.   Cue the music…….  ‘Cause you had a bad day, you’re taking one down…..’ ). 

The thing is, Polanco actually led the AL in batting in 2005, a few points higher than Michael Young, but because he was traded he didn’t have enough plate appearance.  In other words, he didn’t ‘qualify’ for the American League Batting title.   Would that have made the difference in his level of notoriety??   Could be.   Look what it did for Freddy Sanchez.   He was making $6M per year for 4 years after his National League batting crown, while Polanco was making $4.6M.  There are a lot of great players who just didn’t get the notoriety, or simply noticed (see Hocking vs. Raabe), and often it may be because their statistics fell short of qualifying as a league leader.   I call these players simply…. “The Unqualifiers”. 

The first one that always comes to mind is Oscar Gamble, who had two phenomenal seasons, that may have gone under the radar.   In 1977 Gamble played for the White Sox and was part of one of the best DH platoons in ML history.  He and fellow Alabama-born player Lamar Johnson murdered pitchers, Gamble from the left side, and Johnson from the right.   That year Gamble hit 30 home runs in 355 at bats vs. right-handers, while Johnson hit .342 vs. lefties, and combined they had a slugging percentage over .600 in their platoon.   Great for the White Sox, but no so great for Gamble as the 200 or so at bats that he didn’t have vs. lefties probably cost him a home run title (while Gamble was significantly better vs. right-handers in his career he still possessed some decent pop vs. lefties).   Jim Rice of Boston actually led the league in home runs in 1977, hitting 39 in approximately 650 at bats.  

Now the reason I said Gamble is the first player to come to mind when I think of “The Unqualifiers”, it wasn’t because he had one of those unheralded seasons, but it’s because he had two.    In 1979, Fred Lynn led the American League with a .333 average, the same year that Gamble hit .358, in a season in which he missed a month with injuries, and was also locked into yet another platoon situation.    But Gamble was fierce that season, as shown by his .477 batting average, .617 OBA and .862 slugging percentage with Runners in Scoring Position (RISP).    Think that’s not impressive??   The only 4 men in Major League History with 90 plate appearances with and a 1.400 RISP are Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Mickey Mantle.   Two guys on steroids, the Mick, and Oscar Gamble in 1979.     An amazing season, but ultimately, an “Unqualifier”.

Along the same lines, Dan Gladden rocketed onto the scene as a rookie with the SF Giants and hit .351 in 86 games, but fell 118 plate appearances short of the batting title, which he would have shared with Tony Gwynn who led the league with the identical .351 average.    Adding insult to injury was that Gladden hit .397 in a month or so of AAA ball that year, for a collective average of .370 in 1984.   All told, Gladden had 213 hits, 63 stolen bases, and 44 extra base hits that year, and didn’t lead either thing in anything, as he was clearly an “Unqualifier”.   But no tears for the “Dazzle Man”, as Gladden won two World Series with the Twins and one while playing in Japan, being only one of two players to win titles in Japan and the U.S. (Hideki Matsui being the other).   

While we are on 1984, another unqualifier for the NL Batting title was Terry Francona, who hit .346 for the Expos, but only in 223 plate appearances.   Honestly, that’s far too few plate appearances to be truly thought of an ‘unqualifier’.   However,   25 years earlier, his father Tito Francona who at that point was a career .255 hitter hit an astonishing .363 for the Indians, but unfortunately fell 31 plate appearances short of the batting crown.   Though he didn’t qualify for the batting title, he still managed to finish 5^th in the MVP voting in 1959, though 1-2-3 were all White Sox players; Nellie Fox, Luis Aparicio and Early Wynn.    

People can end up as “Unqualifiers” for all different reasons.   Could be because they were rookies as with Gladden, or perhaps platoon players like Gamble, or perhaps they just didn’t play every day early in the season or perhaps they were injured.   In the case of home run hitters or run producers, it’s not that they didn’t qualify as a league leader, because there are no requirements such as plate appearances.    Yet, the lack of plate appearances due to one of these many different factors could be the difference in a player being a league leader or not.   For example, in 2005 Tony Clark had 30 home runs for Arizona.   He didn’t platoon, he wasn’t hurt that season, he wasn’t traded mid-way during the year; he just didn’t play regularly.    That year, Andruw Jones had 51 home runs to lead the NL, but he had 672 plate appearances.    Tony Clark hit 30 in 393 plate appearances.   At the pace Clark had, if he had 672 plate appearances he would also have had 51 home runs that year.   Of course we will never know for sure if Clark would have ended up with 35 or 55, because he didn’t have enough plate appearances, for me that makes in an “unqualifer”.  

Rob Deer was a big home run hitter in the 80’s and 90’s who consistently unqualified himself with massive strikeout totals.    While regularly on pace for 35-40 home runs, his Milwaukee managers sat him down for about 100 plate appearances per year to keep him from breaking Bobby Bonds record of striking out 189 times in a season (which by the way has been shattered by Mark Reynolds).   But in the early 90’s, Deer was on Detroit, and manager Sparky Anderson was playing his powerful outfielder no matter what.  Proof was Deer ‘qualifying’ for the batting crown in 1991 with a .179 batting average.    Since 1920 do you know how many players hit below .180 and qualified for the batting title?? One, Rob Deer in 1991.  But in 1992 Deer improved his stroke and was hovering around .250, with an increase in power as well.    Unfortunately injuries derailed his season and he finished with 33 home runs in 110, well short of the league leader Juan Gonzalez who hit 43.   However, if Deer had not gotten injured in the summer, at his pace he would have finished between 45-48 home runs.   

Even the games greatest players are not immune to be ‘unqualified’.    For example, in 1973 Hank Aaron hit 40 home runs, but he played in only 120 games.   The NL Leader that year was Willie Stargell, who hit only 4 more home runs that Aaron, but with 150 more times at the plate.     And note that hitters aren’t the only ones we can consider to be unqualifiers.    There are many instances of pitchers who had tremendous seasons but simply didn’t pitch enough to qualify as a league leader.

Some people don’t know who Jim Nash is.    I didn’t know who Jim Nash was.   However, as a rookie in 1966, Nash came up mid-season and dominated with a 2.06 ERA in 127 innings, 27 short of qualifying.    In his last 8 games, Nash pitched 55 innings and gave up 8 earned runs.    If he would have continued that pace for 27 more innings he would have finished with an ERA of 1.95, barely beating out Gary Peters who lead the league that year.   Similarly, in 1973, Montreal Expos rookie starter Steve Rogers had a ridiculous 1.54 ERA in 134 innings.    What’s even more amazing was that Rogers ERA was 1.15 with two weeks to go in the season.    1.15!!   Yet, he finished 28 innings short, and though he had a fine career with the Expos, eventually leading the league in ERA some ten years later, his best season ended up as an “unqualifer”.

Fans of baseball, especially out in Oakland, are getting familiar with the breakout season that Josh Donaldson is having.   But back in 2008, the Cubs traded Donaldson to Oakland for the very talented but often injured Rich Harden.   Rather I should say the ‘rarely-healthy’ Rich Harden.   But in 2008 Harden was the best pitcher in baseball.  After having a 2.37 ERA in 77 innings for Oakland, he finished the season with a 1.77 ERA in 71 innings for the Cubs.    His total ERA for the season was 2.07, which would have far and away been the best in baseball that season.   However Harden was “doubly-unqualified” because he was traded from the American League to the National League, but also due this high injury risk he was limited to 5 innings in most of his starts.

One of my favorite things to do when reviewing historical statistics is to look for these ‘unqualifiers’, and wonder how different their careers may have been with just a few more innings, or plate appearances.   Could they have had a magical run which lasted a short-time, or could that have created more playing time, similar to good ole Mr. Hocking.     Consider the case of Red Witt, who in 1958 had a 9-2 record and a 1.61 ERA in 18 games and 106 innings for the Pirates as a rookie.    If that doesn’t impress you then note that Red Witt’s 1958 season is the 6th lowest season ERA for pitchers with 15 starts.   Pretty great way to kick off a career.    Yet in his other 5 seasons combined he had an ERA of 7.41.    Very few people may know the name Red Witt, but a lot know the name Atlee Hammaker, who actually did lead the league in ERA in 1983 (i.e. a “qualifier”), but who was about 1 start away from being added to the list of Unqualifiers.

Kal Daniels was another young player who fell short of qualifying for the batting title due to his being used in a platoon system by Pete Rose when he was the manager of Cincy.    Granted, Daniels was a far superior hitter vs. right-handers than he was vs. lefties, but he still lost about 75-100 plate appearances due to his platoon (and another 50 due to one of his many knee injuries).   Yet, as a 23 year old in 1987, Daniels hit .334, had a .429 OBA and a .617 slugging percentage.    You know how many players 23 or younger had a 1.040 OPS since 1940??   Six:   Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez… and Kal Daniels.     The kid was impressive, yet…. ultimately, an Unqualifer.

It’s also fun to look at how some well-known players had seasons in which they fell short of leading the league, or of simply adding to their career statistics for one reason or another.   For example,  how many home runs would 39 year old Jim Thome have hit in 2006 had the Twins allowed him to start 150 games rather than the 78 he started at DH.   As it was he hit 25 home runs in 276 at bats that year, the highest AB/HR Ratio in baseball.    Then there is Ellis Burks who had 96 RBI in back to back seasons for the Giants in 1999 and 2000 while getting less than 400 at bats each season.   Also I remember Carlos Lee having 100 RBI in 2008 while injured after 115 games.   Carlos Lee was one of the most consistent players in baseball; for 14 straight years he never got below 20 homers or 80 RBI, plus other than the one injury in 2008 he averaged 157 games played.   And though he ended up with over 350 home runs, close to 1,400 RBI and 2,300 hits, the only thing he ever led the league in was games played.   His 2008 injury made him an “unqualifier” and probably cost him his only chance to lead a league in a major statistical category.

 

So folks, when you are looking at statistics on ESPN or MLB.com, don’t just look at the leaders.  Flip onto the Non-Qualifiers link, and have some real fun.   Some of my other favorites in recent memory are:

Mike Ivie – 27 Home Runs in 402 at bats in for the Giants in 1979, but had 54 in about 2,300 other career plate appearances (far off the pace of Kingman who led the league with 48), but if he approached 40 home runs in the 70’s it would put him in rare company.

Wes Covington – Who similar to Kal Daniels was a LH batter who was much weaker vs. lefties, but managed a .330/.380/.622 line, including 24 home runs in 294 plate appearances for the Milwaukee Braves in 1958

John VanderWal – Generally remembered as a pinch-hitter, but knocked in 94 runs in just 384 at bats for the 2000 Pirates.

Deion Sanders – Yes that one.   He hit 14 triples for the Atlanta Braves in 325 plate appearances in 1992.   While that actually led the NL, that’s only half the story.   Only 7 players hit 20 or more triples since 1950, and they average 697 plate appearances in the seasons that they hit 20 triples.   Had Sanders had that many plate appearances he would have been on pace to have 30, which was achieved only once since 1901, and it would have been a Major League record other than once freak season by John “Chief Wilson” who had 36 in 1912 (should be noted that Wilson actually had 26 triples by game 85 of that season.  Wow.)  

And my favorite “Unqualifier”….

Jim Eisenriech  – Who overcame a horrendous anxiety disorder in which he would often run off the field in the middle of an inning, and ended up with 4 consecutive seasons in which he hit .300 or better, albeit in a platoon and 4^th outfielder role for the Phillies.   Yet at the end of that run, Eisenriech hit a career best .361 in 373 ‘unqualifying’ plate appearances in 1996.    As a fan, I don’t care that he was 129 plate appearances short of a batting crown…. .361 is .361.

“….. just one more dying quail a week... and you're in Yankee Stadium.”

 

ENJOY!!

 

SundayColonel@aol.com

 

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Description: Join Earl and the Colonel as they talk about baseball and all things baseball-related. We're mostly on Sunday nights at 9PM EST, but sometimes we prefer to do a post-Happy Hour show on Friday nights because normally we're idiots. But after a few cocktails we're geniuses. Until we listen to the show the next day. Sigh.

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