Elsewhere 100 years ago, a particularly impressive bit of insight about translating minor league stats. Regina Morning Leader, at the bottom of the page, one column to the right of the linked article:

"Any player who can hit .250 in the Southern League can hit better than that in a major league," says Bill Lindsay, Nap shortstop from New Orleans. "Zack Wheat never hit better than .240 for Mobile...Tris Speaker was just a .300 hitter in the Southern League."

Speaker hit .350 in the Southern League, but that's beside the point. I'm just impressed that people in 1911 were thinking about run environments, park factors, and (in a roundabout way) MLEs.

Rangers' deadline-acquired "lights-out" duo of Uehara & Adams, in toto: 3 IP, 2 ER, 2 HR, 6.00, 0-1; gave up 8th-inning homers yesterday and Tuesday that were the eventual margin of loss each day. Woo-hoo!

Anybody know what became of the translated statistics on the Baseball Prospectus player cards or if they'll be coming back? I've found no explanation through article searches and haven't gotten a reply to mail. It was the only part of the site I've cared to look at for the past several years, and I was bummed however-many months ago when I discovered they were missing, and after all my intermittent checks since.

Rangers' deadline-acquired "lights-out" duo of Uehara & Adams, in toto: 3 IP, 2 ER, 2 HR, 6.00, 0-1; gave up 8th-inning homers yesterday and Tuesday that were the eventual margin of loss each day. Woo-hoo!

It's like rain on your wedding day!

Is there a way to search historical team totals on BBRef PI? Like if I wanted to search for all Yankees teams that have stolen 100 bases as a club? Or the most home runs ever hit as a team by the Cardinals?

BDC, that's a drop of 33% in ERA from just yesterday. Prorate that out, you get 4.00, 2.67, 1.78, 1.19, heck it's gravy after that.

Actually it's going the other way, I forgot to include an initial perfect inning of Uehara's in yesterday's count. I shudder to extrapolate.

This day in baseball history: it's the 90th anniversary of Judge Landis banning the Black Sox for life.

Then comes a list of other events celebrating their anniversary or day-versary, including:

- the most famous mound charge in MLB history

- the last pitcher to surrender a homer to Ruth dies

- Dave Stieb has a near no-no.

- a pitcher wins #300 and a batter hits #3,000 on the same day. Not the same game, though.

- Dave Winfield kills

- Joel Youngblood's moment of fame

- Phil Niekro's knuckler works a little too well

- Lindy McDaniel has the longest relief stint by anyone since 1932

- a 15-inning minor league no-hitter

- Boston's all-time franchise record hits .500. It's been over .500 ever since

- the hungover Mantle pinch hit HR recounted in Ball Four

- Billy Martin's most infamous fight. Well, one of them anyway.

- Ernie Harwell's first game

- two long lasting managers debut 25 years apart

- a 16-inning 0-0 game with both pitchers going the distance, and one fanning 18 while allowing three hits.

Plus much, much more.

"Any player who can hit .250 in the Southern League can hit better than that in a major league," says Bill Lindsay, Nap shortstop from New Orleans. "Zack Wheat never hit better than .240 for Mobile...Tris Speaker was just a .300 hitter in the Southern League."

On the other hand, Paul Sentell hit .270 while playing on the same team as Wheat, and just .226 in the majors. And Kid Butler hit .265 and .248 in two seasons there, but hit just .220 in his lone go-round in the majors (granted, at age 19). Bob Coulson hit .236 in that league at age 22, then hit .236 in the majors.

Maybe it's not quite any player :)

-- MWE

It's always bothered me that Ryan punched Ventura with his pitching hand.

Speaking of the deadball era...

In 1912, there were three games in which the losing team scored at least 10 runs in an inning. (From 1940-2010 there were a *total* of three such games).

On May 3, the Highlanders played the Athletics in Philadelphia, trailed 18-5 going to the top of the 19th, but scored 10 runs to make it a respectable 18-15 loss.

On June 20, the Giants were in Boston, took a 21-2 lead to the bottom of the 9th only to see Boston come up with a 10-spot. Final score 21-12.

But the kicker was this game: September 26. Cincinnati at the Cubs. Chicago led 9-0 after eight, the Reds posted 10 runs in the top of the 9th to go up 10-9, only to see the Cubs answer with two in their half to take it 11-10. Not only that, but it was just the first game of a doubleheader - and the Cubs scored 10 runs in the first three innings of the second game, winning that one 10-0 (it was called after six due to darkness). Chicago's Larry Cheney won the first game in relief then started the second game and won that one as well. Rube Benton's wild pitch ended the first game, and Benton took the loss in game 2.

-- MWE

I miss the old divisional format and so I was seeing who the divisional winners would have been since '95 if they never adopted the Wild Card.

What is amazing to me is that if MLB never goes to the current three division format/wildcard, the Boston Red Sox would have never won an outright division title since 1990. The closest they come is 2007 where they had the same record as Cleveland. Now, things would be different had they kept balanced scheduling, but I still found it remarkable.

Also amazing is that the Braves still have an amazing run of division titles. I put them in the NL East as well as Cincy and Houston, and I moved CHI, STL and MIL to the NL West. Under that alignment, the Braves still win 10 of 11 division titles from 1995-2006, with Houston in 2001 being the only interruption.

Also interesting: 8 of the last 16 World Champions in real life would not even have made the playoffs ('96 Yanks, '97 Marlins, '00 Yanks, '01 DBacks, '02 Angels, '03 Marlins, '04 Red Sox, '06 Cards...also the '07 Red Sox if they lose a one-game playoff with Cleveland).

What is amazing to me is that if MLB never goes to the current three division format/wildcard, the Boston Red Sox would have never won an outright division title since 1990. The closest they come is 2007 where they had the same record as Cleveland. Now, things would be different had they kept balanced scheduling, but I still found it remarkable.

Well, they've only won two division titles in the wildcard era to begin with. And they would have finished equally close in 2005 when they had the same record as the Yankees.

It's also possible they might not have stopped trying at the end of 05 and 07 without a wildcard safety net.

Trivia question

SET UP: elsewhere on the site, someone noted that Jeremey Guthrie, who is currrently leading all MLB in losses, already led all MLB in losses once before.

THE QUESTION:
Who was the last pitcher to twice lead all MLB in losses?

Or, who was the last pitcher to merely lead his league in losses twice? (Not the same guy as the first question)

THE QUESTION:
Who was the last pitcher to twice lead all MLB in losses?

Phil Niekro?

Not Niekro. He led all MLB only once. He led the NL three times, but someone else more recent has led one league more than once.

Bert Blyleven?

Not Niekro. He led all MLB only once. He led the NL three times, but someone else more recent has led one league more than once.

He had the outright lead only once, but had at least a share of MLB honors in both of his 20-loss campaigns. And he had at least a share of NL honors four straight years.

Not Blyleven either. He only led hte league once.

Omar Daal?

Daal only led the league once.

Jose DeLeon led the NL twice and tied for the ML lead in both seasons.

-- MWE

and now when I go look at it I see someone even more recent than DeLeon led his league twice.

-- MWE

Is there a way to search historical team totals on BBRef PI? Like if I wanted to search for all Yankees teams that have stolen 100 bases as a club? Or the most home runs ever hit as a team by the Cardinals?

There's not a way to do it in the PI that I know of, but you can sort by team totals on the franchise batting history page, so for instance the Yankees ranked by # of stolen bases: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/batteam.shtml#franchise_years::16 and the Cardinals ranked by # of home runs: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/STL/batteam.shtml#franchise_years::14

Edited to make the links into links.

Thanks zempf!

Or, who was the last pitcher to merely lead his league in losses twice? (Not the same guy as the first question)

I think the other thread that inspired this question quickly revealed that this was Rodrigo Lopez.

Emeigh got the main question: Jose DeLeon.

Yeah, Lopez is the other. I missed it in that thread though. Shows how much attention I was paying. He narrowly edge Kip Wells.

Actually, the scoring-10-runs-in-an-inning-while-losing trick has happened only three times *total* since 1912 (at least according to Retrosheet's game logs, which don't have complete line scores for many games prior to 1918).

This game appears to be the only game since 1900 where both teams scored at least 10 runs in an inning.

-- MWE

And he had at least a share of NL honors four straight years.

Pedro Ramos led the AL four straight years all by his lonesome - mostly a function of being the best pitcher on a very bad team (he also led the AL in games started in two of those four seasons). Ramos is best remembered today for (a) challenging Mickey Mantle to a foot race, claiming he could beat the Mick, and (b) coming over to the Yankees after the September 1 cutoff date for postseason play and being absolutely dominant as the #1 reliever down the stretch. In 13 games with the Yanks he fanned 21 in 21 2/3 innings and issued *0* walks. New York was three games behind Chicago and two behind Baltimore when he was acquired on September 6, and he picked up one win and saved eight games as the Yanks went 21-7 after his acquisition to beat out the White Sox by a game and the Orioles by 2.

-- MWE

Anybody know what became of the translated statistics on the Baseball Prospectus player cards or if they'll be coming back? I've found no explanation through article searches and haven't gotten a reply to mail. It was the only part of the site I've cared to look at for the past several years, and I was bummed however-many months ago when I discovered they were missing, and after all my intermittent checks since.

Do you mean the Davenport Translations?

If so try http://claydavenport.com/