N1: Given the artificial turf and dimensions at Royals Stadium, I wasn’t surprised to see that George Brett’s home batting average on balls in play topped his road BAbip, .320 to .293, while he hit 45 more road home runs than home home runs (181 to 136, with 2.0% more at-bats on the road). But I was surprised that Brett had 43.4% more strikeouts on the road than at home, 535 to 373. The explanation for that is harder to see.
If we analyze by plate appearance and throw out intentional walks, the difference is still +41.1% strikeouts on the road. We can also just think in terms of the sheer strikeout difference prorated per season, which comes out to 41.3 strikeouts per 625 plate appearances at home, 58.2 on the road.
There are still quite a few loose ends. First, was this normative? Was it not just about Brett, but I just noticed it in his case?
Answer, no. The American League rates over 1974-1993 were 82.3 strikeouts per 625 PA at home, 86.9 on the road. In terms of the percentage increase at home, it is less than a seventh of what Brett shows, and even in terms of number of strikeouts, the difference is barely a quarter as large.
A point is that if you look at SO/BB ratio instead of just SO, Brett’s relative home/road differential does come down a little. The average American Leaguer walked in 8.28% of his plate appearances at home, 7.67% on the road.1 Brett received unintentional home and road walks with almost exactly the same frequency, 7.61% and 7.62%, respectively. The suggestion is therefore that Brett probably took fewer strikes at home rather than that he just made better contact, or that he had umpires call fewer strikes against him. He seems to have had shorter plate appearances.
But first, I don’t always find that more walks do necessarily mean more strikeouts. I don’t always find that applying the ratio of the two things helps from a predictive standpoint. And second, Brett’s negative walk differential compared to the average guy, home vs road, doesn’t seem nearly large enough to explain his difference in home vs. road strikeouts compared to the averaged guy.
The explanation must exist, but that it is elusive is what makes interesting. This was a ubiquitous trend for Brett, so I don’t it’s a chance phenomenon, at least not for the whole 40%. He played 21 years and had a higher strikeout total on the road than at home in 18 of them.2
The consistency also goes a good way to eliminate the possibility that the difference only emerged once Brett became a mega-star. As a rookie, he had 24 road strikeouts, 14 home strikeouts — greater than his average career differential. The next year, Brett led the league in hits and triples, and in 1976, he won the batting title. So this window where he wasn’t a star was short
So I suppose this might be an explanation. Maybe the differential in favor of a lower home strikeout rate in 1974 was a fluke, and then after that, his outstanding performance led to special treatment from umpires,3 and this just persisted throughout his career, manifesting in the statistics.
A simple explanation would be that Brett just played better at home, that he was in a better frame of mind or maybe saw the ball better, and that again, this manifested in the strikeout column. This is how a layperson would interpret the data.
Belatedly, I also realize that what I used for the normative base was the home difference for strikeouts in general, while this can also vary by stadium, with Dodger Stadium most famous in this regard. The mechanism is harder to buy than something like the effect of altitude or cozy dimensions on home runs, but from my cursory knowledge, strikeout differences by stadium turn up in great enough size and number that they must be accepted. I am quite sure none approach Brett’s home field differential in size, but again, this could be a piece of the puzzle.
It may seem that I’m obsessing on offensive strikeouts, something that doesn’t really matter, anyway. But, as every strikeout is a missed chance for a hit, strikeouts do matter indirectly. His lower strikeout rate at home is one reason Brett not only had a 27-point BAbip batting average edge at home, but a 30-point overall batting average edge. With his lower home run rate at home, he was starting behind the curve for batting average, too. But he put far more extra balls in play than he needed to offset this.
N2: As I said, Brett’s 1975 performance stamped him as a somebody umpires might have known, but he did not make the All-Star team. Graig Nettles as the starter isn’t surprising, but Dave Chalk over Brett is.
Like Brett, Chalk was young, a first-round pick in 1972 out of the University of Texas. He had made the 1974 team as a shortstop despite just a .252 average and 17 extra-base hits in 133 games. He played regularly through 1978, but the 5 home runs he hit in 1974 would remain a career high.
The story ends with him and Jamie Quirk4 backing up Brett at third on the 1980 Royals. You know that Brett missed enough time with ailments to make it a question not only of whether he could hit .400, but whether he could get the requisite plate appearances. So backups were needed.
As a follow-up (I initially wrote this last night), although Chalk made the 1974 team as a shortstop, when he got into the game, it was as a third baseman. He had really transitioned to the position a couple of weeks earlier, and would go back and forth between there and short for the rest of the season. Getting him off short made eminent sense, as he made a league-leading 29 (!) errors there in 99 games.
Given his offense and defense, how on earth he made the All-Star team, I have no idea. He did hit a bit better in the first half (.268) than the second half (.220). The Angels were a 94-loss team, but didn’t need an All-Star, Frank Robinson filling the bill. A healthy Nolan Ryan, on his way to 22 wins and 367 strikeouts, was also passed over.5
N3: Albert Belle’s overall second half split (.944 OPS) doesn’t tower over his first half (.924), but he had a couple of epic post-All Star Game seasons. He played 76 in each. First, in 1995 with the Indians, he posted 36 home runs and 225 Total Bases. In 1998 with the White Sox, he finished with a .387 average, 31 home runs and 230 Total Bases.6
Since the period after an All-Star Game varies, and there wasn’t even an All-Star Game before 1933, I asked Stathead for totals after the 81st game of the season. The 242 Total Bases Belle had in 1998 is the record. Completing the top five are Sammy Sosa, 2001; Stan Musial, 1949; Ken Caminiti, 1996; and Don Mattingly, 1985.
Being at an eight-game disadvantage in a half season is much more harmful than over a full season, so that Musial could make this list for his 1949 is remarkable.7 He slashed .380/.464/.743 after a .299/.418/.510 start. In finishing that way, he was back to his 1948 form (and more!) of .376/.450/.702. 1948 is his iconic season, where he has his career highs in all three slash and all three triple crown categories.
Belle’s 61 extra-base hits over his final 82 games in 1998 is also a record.8 Musial’s 58 in 1949 is next for a total after game 81, followed by Belle’s 56 extra-base hits in the real second half of 1995.9 Nine guys had 54 extra-base hits in this period of a season. I’ll list them all to get some more great names out there.
Barry Bonds, 2001; Rafael Devers, 2019; Juan Gonzalez, 1996; Bryce Harper, 2021; Stan Musial, 1948; Albert Pujols, 2004; Babe Ruth, 1921; Sammy Sosa, 2001; Giancarlo Stanton, 2017.
Whether we use total bases or extra-base hits, it seems like a strikingly high number of MVPs. I don’t think that’s just the greatness of the seasons, and the MVP shine of these categories. I think it’s also an indication that if you finish huge, the MVP voters take special notice.
N4: Dave Chalk didn’t get in the 1975 All-Star Game, and he struck out in his only at-bat in 1974. So he never got a hit in an All-Star Game. He must have a lot of company in that, I thought, unlike the very small percentage of position players who play in the majors but don’t get a hit.10 The player with the most at-bats ever in All-Star Games without a hit is Terry Moore, the fine-fielding center fielder of the Cardinals. Moore was 0 for 10 in his appearances from 1939-1942.
Then, Francisco Lindor currently stands at 0 for 9, but Elston Howard is more interesting. Howard was also 0 for 9, but he struck out 7 times. That’s a shocker, as his career rate is 13.4%,11 and with six seaons of at least 120 games, he never struck out more than 76 times.
N5: Brewers last in MLB in home runs. Fun!
N6: We’re used to the confusion of the pitching Rogers brothers, but I have to say that Taylor and Trevor (he unrelated) pitching in the same game was almost the death of me as I tried to sort out Minnesota-Baltimore the box score….Then I’m always a little uncertain how to spell “Rogers,” what with Brendan and that added ‘d’, let alone Aaron.
N7: They still are last in MLB, but the Giants now have 311 walks. They are no longer any threat to the 1966 Cardinals’ all-time 162-game low of 345.
Bryce Eldrige (39 BB, 12.6%) has gone a ways toward taking care of that. There are a couple of other selective age-21-season players in Kevin McGonigle (73 BB, 515 PA, turns 22 in a week) and A.J. Ewing (30 BB, 325 PA, turned 22 yesterday). (Eldridge will be 22 in October.)
McGonigle figures to record the most walks by an age-21-season or younger player since Soto’s 108 in 2019. He is on pace for 100 even. Other than Soto, Trout, 2013, is the only age-21-season-or-younger player over the past 20 years to have 100 or more walks in a season (he had 110). The only other age-21-season-or-younger player over this span with 90+ walks is Jason Heyward’s 91 in 2010.
N8: So many of the Diamondbacks’ starters suck. I can take Michael Soroka (4 1/3 scoreless Monday).
N9: The Cubs have five of the 11 players this year who’ve hit with runners in scoring position the most often (Bregman #1, Busch #2, Happ #6, Hoerner #7, Suzuki #11). Milwaukee, though, tops them as a team, with 1365 plate appearances versus the Cubs 1360 with RISP. On the individual list, Milwaukee only has William Contreras in the top 20 in RISP PA.
I guess we are looking here at Chicago’s much more set lineup. Counsell may have come from Milwaukee, but the two teams are doing at least this very differently.
With that individual leaders’ list, I still might think that Chicago was far and away in front in runs scored (not that there isn’t a lot to be said for the greater efficiency of home runs, where no one gets in scoring position, and for getting your guys home from scoring position quickly, rather than accumulating plate appearances). But once I found that, in fact, Milwaukee is in front in RISP PA, all bets were off on the runs-scored-leading front. As you probably know, Washington (4th in RISP PA, 1st in HR) actually leads in runs scored, with the Cubs 2nd, and the Brewers 5th.
The cumulative American League statistics, for both walks and strikeouts, remove intentional walks, just as I did for Brett.
One of the years he didn’t? His great 1980. He had 12 strikeouts in 260 non-IBB PA at home, 10 in 239 non-IBB PA on the road.
These theories always do rely on the supposition that umpires’ fear of the superstar goes away completely when he isn’t at home, or, at the very least, that the umpire home edge is huge, elevating the superstar even from an already non-zero baseline that he receives on the road. If umpires really helped superstars so much back before their calls were graded with computer checking, you would think superstars would have had very abormal and favorable age curves. (Maybe they did, I don’t know, and it’s hard to assess, requiring some objective assessment of who is a superstar, and just when and why he became that, regarding the chicken and the egg).
Also a 1972 first-round pick, but the Royals’ pick, while Chalk was drafted for the Angels and made the All-Star teams for the Angels.
So Brett a year later really had nothing on him. Chalk over Brett really being the craziest aspect, more so than that the snub of Brett was like Hank Greenberg and his 100 RBI at the break in 1935.
By the way, the 100-RBI-at-the-break season was his 168-RBI season, not his 184-RBI season. Then Greenberg’s 58-HR season is a third season. These historic seasons were really in succession (1935, 1936 and 1938), as Greenberg missed almost all of 1937 with injury. The dude was amazing.
Looking at this, let’s make the whole of hitting in 1998 be about McGwire and Sosa!
Although three St. Louis ties did enable Musial to play 76 games after the 81st game of the season. The Cardinals played to game 157.
Belle also benefits here from a team tie, the White Sox playing 163 games. Belle participated in every one of them.
A complication here since 1995 started late because of a strike. The final 82 games of 1995 were actually 57% of the season.
I had this weird fantasy of the All-Star Game getting stopped multiple times a year when a player got his first All-Star Game hit and needed the ball. But as there are so few hits in All-Star Games anyway, this really wouldn’t slow things down much.
In calculating this, I had to exclude Howard’s 1948 with the Kansas City Monarchs, as strikeouts weren’t kept.