Not only did Albert Pujols win three MVP awards this decade, he also can lay claim to the ‘00s Triple Crown according to ESPN’s Jayson Stark. He lead all National Leaguers in batting average, homeruns and rbis for the decade.
The last person to do that was Ted Williams in the 40s.
Tired of hearing about Albert Pujols’ prowess with the bat? Little exasperated with Albert Pujols leading the league in most meaningful offensive category in the NL?
Maybe this story will cheer you up (but probably won’t).
Today, Pujols set the National League record for assists for a firstbaseman with 181 passing Mark Grace’s record set in 1990.
In typical fashion, Pujols was quite humble, passing the credit on to his teammates:
"That’s good," Pujols said of the record. "That will tell you that our pitchers are keeping the ball down and keeping me busy at first."
…and a bit sheepish as well…
"I also made an error that cost us the game right there," Pujols said. "That’s part of the game. It just gave me a bad hop and that’s it."
Last night in a game against the Orioles, Derek Jeter passed Lou Gehrig on the all-time list. The fact that Gehrig was a revered Yankee player and that Jeter got his hit in front of 46,000+ fans added to the significance of the event in the eyes of the media.
That puts him #53 on the all-time list. With 2,722 hits, Jeter still needs a couple hundred more plus a few more if he wants to meet the goal of the magical 3000. At the age of 35, barring any major injury, he’ll most likely accomplish that goal.
Where does Jeter fall on the all-time lists in other offensive categories? Here is a quick breakdown:
| Batting Average | 65th | .316 |
|
At-bats |
89th | 8539 |
| Runs Scored | 50th | 1564 |
| Total Bases | 85th | 3945 |
| Doubles | 109th | 437 |
| Runs Created | 65th | 1572 |
| HBP | 22nd | 142 |
| Times on Base | 64th | 3738 |
| OBP | 118 | .387 |
Oh yeah, he’s 47th in singles with 2,005 but that seemed like kind of a back handed compliment.
These numbers are very good but they don’t really jump out at you. That said, Jeter’s hit total is second (behind Ken Griffey) among active players. The difference is that Jeter is only 35.
I’m sure there will be plenty out there who will be comparing Jeter’s hitting stats to others claiming East Coast bias and Jeter-hype. Those will no doubt be the same who will bring up the argument of Jeter’s reputation of mediocre defense (fair or unfair).
But let’s face it. Barring a major scandal, Jeter’s bid for the Hall is pretty much secure when the time comes, like it or not. The phenomenon of Derek Jeter, a player who played his whole career for the Yankees, became their team captain and helped them win in the postseason, counts for more than any stat or fact that you can analyze.
Seattle prospect Jamie McOwen has a hit streak going that’s starting to get national attention. McOwen, a rightfielder for the High Desert Mavericks in the Class A Advanced California League, has now hit in 45 straight games. For the season, McOwen is hitting a nifty .355, one point behind the Cal League batting leader.
The 45 games is not a record in the minors. Not by a longshot. Similar to the majors, the hit streak record seems to be the hardest to conquer. He has 24 games to go. You have to go back to 1919 when Joe Wilhoit from Wichita had a 69 game hit streak. That remains the record today.
By the way, if the name High Desert Mavericks sounds familiar to you, then you probably heard the news story about the incredible 51-run game between the Mavericks and the Lake Elsinore Storm a couple weeks ago. The Mavericks came out on the losing side on that 33-18 wild one. McOwen’s 2 for 6 performance in that game contributed to his streak.
Update: The streak is over at 45. Bus Leagues Baseball live-blogged what would have been the 46th game and McOwen came up short.
K-Rod: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K (SV)
Seattle was Francisco Rodriguez’ victim as he broke the all-time single season record for saves.
While I do, check out Baseball-Reference’s Progressive Leaders for saves (the answer’s there). B-R’s Progressive Leaders board is fun to look at for any stat. It lists 4 columns for EACH year going back to 1876; career leader, single-season leader, active player career leader, and yearly leader. It sounds rather mundane as I describe it but when you look at all four columns together, you get a sense of how the stat (in this case, saves) "progressed". Try other stats, too!
Oh, the answer is Dave Righetti with 46 saves in 1986.
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