I love collecting cool MLB stats...like the American League Record holder for lowest ERA by a left hander was Babe Ruth, until Ron Guidry eclipsed him by 1 point...1.74 vs 1.75 in 1978 Here's a new one I just discovered while comparing Kershaw to Koufax Sandy Koufax had twice as many Shut Outs as hit-batsmen in his career.
These stats are dated, but from a bit in Summer of '49 by David Halberstam: Reggie Jackson, ~4 strikeouts for every home run Hank Aaron, ~2 Ted Williams, struck out 709 times against 521 HRs Joe DiMaggio, only 369 Ks compared to 361 dingers
Johnny Damon has more hits than Ted Williams. Dan Quisenberry led the league in saves more times than Mariano Rivera. Tim Raines got on base more times than Tony Gwynn. Of the 76 players in baseball history who had as many plate appearances as Mickey Mantle, only two — Graig Nettles and Darrell Evans — had fewer doubles.
Hoyt Wilhelm hit a home run in his first career at-bat. His only one in his career. He is the only HOFer so far to hit a HR first career at bat. For those who don't recognize the name, he's arguable the best knuckleballer ever. Germany Schaefer is the only player to ever steal second base twice in the same inning. Yes, it happened.
Don't forget Wilbur Wood You have to go back before 1920 to find anyone who pitched more innings in one season. He also had a 22-13 W/L with 1.91 ERA one year.
During DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak he bat .408. Pretty remarkable, right? During that same period of games Spoiler Ted Williams batted .412
-Nolan Ryan allowed the fewest H/9 of any pitcher in history...Ryan also lost 24 no-hitters in the 7th inning or later, more than double Randy Johnson’s second-place mark (11). When Ryan had a good day, man, it was a really good day. He had 31 no-hitters through six innings; Unit is next with 13. -Probably no pitcher in history had as many great games as Ryan. He had a Game Score of at least 90 more than 30 times. This is another of those unbelievable records. Ryan had more 90+ Game Scores than Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling combined (26), more than Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale (26), more than Clemens and Pedro combined (25), more than the entire 1971 Orioles and 1997 Braves pitching rotations, all taken together for their whole careers (24). But... -Nolan Ryan has the lowest Clutch score of all time. His -8.21 ranks 476th among 476 pitchers with at least 1,000 IP. -With men on base, Ryan was a dramatically worse pitcher, about 11% worse. Again, I don’t believe Ryan was a choker. The available evidence doesn’t show that he was a choker. What it suggests, pretty clearly, is that Ryan was a less effective pitcher out of the stretch. -He committed the most errors (90) of any pitcher since Cy Young. Ryan’s .895 fielding percentage is the 2nd-lowest since Deadball (Ray Sadecki, .878). The average FP by a pitcher of Ryan’s era was .954. He’s three standard deviations below that. -Ryan yielded 757 stolen bases, light years more than 2nd-place Greg Maddux (547). Ryan allowed at least 40 steals (which is terrible) six times. -Ryan threw 277 wild pitches in the major leagues. That’s about one every 20 innings, which is terrible, and combined with Ryan’s long career, it gives him by far the most wild pitches of the last 100 years. http://www.fangraphs.com/community/is-nolan-ryan-overrated-by-fip/
rep for those stats, except I can't rep you again yet. When Ryan "had a good day" it meant his curve ball was on. You can't beat that, as all your stats detail. Johnson never had Ryan's curve ball.
