N1: To return to Ripken, and to include something here that I couldn’t work into my piece of a couple of days ago, I mentioned that Ripken had a low strikeout rate, and that this is one tell that he was not a classic home run hitter, something also illuminated by many other frameworks. We’ve gotten used to higher strikeout totals, so we do need context, but the bottom of Cal’s “Advanced Batting” table in Baseball Reference shows that he had a career 10.1% strikeout rate from plate appearances,1 compared to the MLB standard of 15.3%.
But what is perhaps more interesting is that Ripken’s worst strikeout years were basically his best overall years. I propose 1982-1986 as “peak Ripken,” with 1983-1984 (AL-leading 8.2 and 10.0 bWAR) as the peak within the peak. 1982 was Cal’s official rookie year, and his seasonal totals in strikeouts from the outset were 97. 95 and 89. After 1984, all of his totals were under 80.
Then, his MVP 1991 represents his very best strikeout rate, 6.4%. A great season, but from a different guy.
Speaking generically and not with the strength of study back-up (just based on what I have observed, and what I have read others say), this phenomenon is not uncommon. Walk/strikeout ratio has a different age curve than hitting per se, and it often improves while overall hitting declines (see Kirk Gibson for another example).
And the idea that this higher strikeout rate of Cal’s when he was a better hitter otherwise can’t be taken at face value, that it was an artifact of other things, doesn’t seem to stand up. First, it’s not that Ripken’s peak was fueled by greater power with compensations in average. 1983 and 1984 are two of his five .300 seasons (two of his three .300 seasons with 502 or more plate appearances). As his combined walk rate in 1983 and 1984 was 8.9%, just an eyelash over his career 8.8%, he doesn’t seem to have been running deeper counts, either.2
N2: I feel like Braxton Ashcraft is markedly better than his 3.88 E.R.A. indicates. I feel like he is more a 12-5 pitcher (his record) than a 3.88 pitcher. Perhaps this is some sort of strange bias, but in defense of my feeling, Ashcraft has had eight starts where he’s allowed 4 earned runs or more this season.3 He’s given up 41 earned runs in them. But his strikeout-to-walk ratio is still 43/10.
To complete the picture, in the remaining two-thirds of his starts, Ashcraft has struck out 112 and walked 23 in 100 1/3 innings. Better numbers, but not nearly in concert with the E.R.A. difference. It seems Ashcraft’s stuff always plays.
Home run rate (13 HR and 2.9/9 in bad starts, 7 and 0.6/9 in good starts) has certainly been key to his outcomes, and home runs have bitten him a bit. But his overall rate of 1.27/9 isn’t what I would call terrible — it is 12th-worst of the 56 162+ IP-trending pitchers.
N3: I wonder if the Twins or the Phillies would have gone the position-player-pitching route in the “Field of Dreams” game if the score had dictated? Probably — I guess we’re all under the pretense that it’s great fun and so it has never has to be pushed into the closet. But would think the place have even entered into the managers’ minds, I wonder? I know we’ve had position-player pitchers in the postseason,4 but to me, there should actually be more tolerance then, because winning the series should take precedence.
N4: The Dodgers held Milwaukee without an extra-base hit yesterday, but they still scored 5 runs, one more than they needed (as Donald Trump would say). There have been 261 regulation-length games this year where a side didn’t get an extra-base hit, meaning about two per every day of the schedulel they are common. So, from one standpoint, the Brewers run output of 5 actually has them in rare company in this category, even though seven other teams have scored 5 or more this year without an extra-base hit. With the 7 runs they scored beating the Nationals on July 4 without an extra-base hit, the Pirates top the heap. That is actually almost the best of the entire 2020-2026 period; the Cardinals, led by Paul Goldschmidt’s three singles and Tyler O’Neill’s two sacrifice flies, scored 8 on 4/28/22.
The Brewers’ single-minded performance stands out more when we look at most times on base in a regular-length game without an extra base. With 10 singles and 7 walks yesterday, they were on 17 times, which was the 2026 high. This distinction might be tenuous, as the Nationals had 18 men on without an extra-base hit on 4/13/25.5 Over the 2020-2026 period, the 5/6/21 Mets’ 20 men on without an extra-base hit (11 walks, 9 singles, 4 runs, winner winner chicken dinner) is the high.
He also has the bragging right of no 100-strikeout seasons.
Although it should be stated that this walk rate was 9.9% in 1984, 8.0% in 1983. The impression is that in 1983 he didn’t fully know what he was doing, and excelled on talent. He walked over 10% in 1987, 1988 and 1990, though (suggesting that a high relative walk rate in 1984 was not a big driver of his numbers).
As 8 is a lot, this certainly gets us away from “outlier” territory.
Stathead turns up Cliff Pennington in the fourth game of the 2015 ALCS for the Blue Jays against the Royals, and Austin Romine in the third game of the 2018 ALDS for the Yankees against the Red Sox, but I am quite sure there have been more recent.
The Marlins beat them anyway, 11-4.
Your comment about the Field of Dreams game made me think of the spat between the D-Backs and Guardians over Tawa’s bunt attempt during the Williams perfect game. Lovullo and Vogt said after the game that they’d agreed earlier that anything goes before the seventh inning, so both were cool with that bunt attempt. My thought was… wait, they talked about that??! The position player pitching thing feels like a discussion point, then, too, although getting a 27th player for the day theoretically erases any inkling to throw Kody Clemens on the mound.