Notes and Essay, 7/31/26
N1: The articulate umpire award goes to Alex MacKay for his “Chicago has exhausted their challenges for the day.”
There was a lot of exhausting going on, with players having to eat crow oe five of six challenges, 6-for-19 Jazz Chisholm improbably submitting the successful redress (hey, 6 for 19 would make for a good batting average).
N2: I never noticed before that during his hitting streak, DiMaggio had 56 singles. To makes sure you’re not confused, 56 games of hits, 91 hits, 56 his that were singles. His isolated power was an impressive .309, but the 38.5 percent of extra-base hits from hits he had wasn’t much different than todays 34.9 average. DiMaggio also scored 56 runs during his streak, by the way.
N3: One cannot help appreciating the number of parameters that were maxed in Kody Clemens’ game-winning hit Thursday. This was a grand slam hit left-on-left with 2 outs, an 0-2 count, and the team down 3 runs.
By rating all of the parameters in a situation, can we quantify drama? There an infinite number of parameters, of course. I do think we can recognize when they were more or less fulfilled, which isn’t to say that there isn’t selectivity bias. But some cases still are clearly hollow and limited and drama, and it is not such easy to fool us. Contrast Clemens’ hit with a walk-off grand slam hit with the score tied and no one out.
N4: What might an acquiring team get at the plate from Ryan Jeffers? A rookie at 24 five years ago, he’s certainly developed remarkably. Since fewer than 200 plate appearances have gone into it, I don’t think a continuation of his .927 OPS and 159 OPS+ from this season is realistic. But the .203 he hit over 2021-2022 with a .661 OPS weighs down his career statistics. I would say his 2023-2026 composite of .259/.346/.446 (119 OPS+) serves rather as the right starting point, if it is probably a bit overly optimistic.
N5: Thursday was a day of pitching and defense, with just 63 runs scored in 10 games, or 3.15 a side. Particularly futile was the hitting with runners in scoring position, which was a composite .181. Very much doing their part were the 0-for-9 Giants and Nationals, the 0-for-8 Rangers, the 1-for-15 Yankees and Reds, and the 1-for-12 Cardinals. On the other side, the Dodgers (6 runs in a win) and the Athletics (lost 5-4) led the way with 4 RISP hits (as a team has an average of 8 RISP AB a game, 2 hits is standard). Non-RISP BA was .232. Total SLG across the games was .353.
N6: Dominic Canzone had 2 walks and 3 strikeouts yesterday. This century, the only player to have 3 walks and 3 strikeouts in a 9-inning game did it despite batting at the bottom of the order. This was Ty Blach1 on June 2, 2017.
The Giants won 10-0, and he shut out the Phillies on 7 hits. At the plate, Jerad Eickhoff walked him his first two times up, and then Mark Leiter Jr. walked him his third time up.
The Giants walked 10 times in all. The Phillies were a bad team, playing worse. The loss dropped them to 17-35.
The list for the most career games with 2+ BB and 2+ SO in the same game (extra-inning games included).
(1) Adam Dunn 51
(2) Jim Thome 43
(2) Aaron Judge 43
(4) Mike Trout 38
(5) Mickey Mantle 35
(5) Mark McGwire 35
(7) Reggie Jackson 32
(8) Jack Clark 30
(8) Jim Edmonds 30
(10) Bryce Harper 29
(11) Tony Phillips 28
(12) Pat Burrell 27
(12) Andrew McCutchen 27
(14) Joey Votto 26
(15) Mike Schmidt 25
(15) Rob Deer 25
(15) Bobby Abreu 25
(18) Harmon Killebrew 24
(18) Jim Wynn 24
(18) Barry Bonds 24
(18) Rickey Henderson 24
(18) Shin-Soo Choo 24
(18) Chris Davis 24
(18) Shohei Ohtani 24
(18) Kyle Schwarber 24
(26) Willie Mays 23
(26) Justin Upton 23
(26) Paul Goldschmidt 23
(26) Curtis Granderson 23
Dunn’s 51 do rather outpace the group, although Judge has quite a good chance to overtake him. The totals for Thome and Trout also stand out from the rest.
I would have expected a good group, but this group surpasses that. I thought one reason for that might be that the rendering taps career length. The more games you play, the more chances you have to do it. You also see something of a bias towards leadoff hitters, which does gives it a distinctive flavor, and makes it more interesting.
If I was right in my hypothesis that career length was key, then the single-season leaders would be less impressive. I found
(1) Aaron Judge, 2017, 11
(2) Aaron Judge, 2018, 9
(2) Willie Mays, 1971, 9
(2) Jack Clark, 1987, 9
(2) Mark McGwire, 1998, 9
(6) Rob Deer, 1991, 8
(7) Pat Burrell, 2002, 7
(7) Jim Thome, 2003, 7
(7) Adam Dunn, 2005, 7
(7) Adam Dunn, 2008, 7
(7) Adam Dunn, 2012, 7
(7) Aaron Judge, 2023, 7
(7) Shohei Ohtani, 2025, 7
There at least isn’t a dramatic drop-off in quality, if there is a drop-off. But another thing to consider is if these were by-and-large good seasons for the players, or off-seasons.
It is a mix. Judge 2017 and 2018 wasn’t the player he would be later, and his 2023 season was limited to 106 games, and isn’t one anyone will remember for its rates, either. Mays’s 1971 is thought of his attempt to compensate for reduced skills by turning himself into something of a leadoff hitter (even though he hit 3rd), and we learn his high career placing owes us a lot to the nine games this season.
But 1987 and 2002 were the career years for Jack Clark and Pat Burrell,2 respectively. And 1998 is of course McGwire’s historic 70-home run year. Adam Dunn was more at the top of his game than otherwise in his three seasons (average slash of .229/.369/.507).3
Blach is still active. Has made 9 starts with the Cubs at Iowa — 6.32 E.R.A. Also has a big league relief outing this year, which went well.
Without diving deep, I would regard Burrell as more random than not for his relatively high placing on the career and single-season lists. Many BB%/SO% combos would have been more logical than his career 14.3/24.0. He averaged 103 walks a season from 2005-2008, but only walked 89 times in the season that comes up, 2022.
I had retained only a rough memory of the end of Dunn’s career. After 10 years in which his OPS+ stood at 133, in 2011 he hit .159 with a .569 OPS and -2.9 bWAR in 122 games. In the 2012 represented here, he actually bounced back and hit 25 home runs before the All-Star break and sported an .859 OPS, but then he slumped in the second half. His .219, 56 HR and 110 OPS+ over 2013-2014 were really about where he projected to be with normal aging and show no real continuity with the 2011 collapse. Still, how much longer he could have played (or at least started) as a DH who hit like that is an open question, and he chose not to find out, opting to retire.
In his terrible 2011, Dunn did still walk. Not only did he have a 15.1 walk percentage, but there were 17 games in which he had 2 walks or more. However, in only two of them did he strike out twice or more.