Unbreakable Records - Single Season Edition

The title of this one says it all. In honor of Andre Ethier hitting in 30 straight games, I wanted to look at the most unbreakable single season records and just how close anybody has gotten recently. As always, there are a few ground rules. First of all, I’m only going to be taking into account the bests of the Live Ball Era and my reasoning for that is quite simple. I have a very hard time comparing a league with 9 teams (where the best record was 52-14 and the worst 9-56) where the league wide ERA was 2.31 due to the fact that a whopping 60.4% of the runs scored that year were unearned…

Now that that rant is out of the way, I can get on to point number two. When I said that I wanted to see how close people had gotten to these records recently, I set that time frame as the past five full seasons (2006-2010). Again, the reasoning for this is simple. If I had expanded that time frame just a little to include the past ten seasons instead of five, it would have included the tail end of what some have dubbed the “Steroid Era”. Personally I hate the moniker but it’s there nonetheless so onward we plunge!

In a nutshell, what I’m going to do is introduce the (Live Ball) record and how close someone has come to that mark in the past five years. After that I’m going to include a random number between 0 and 100 that represents the percentage chance that I see this mark ever being bested.

BATTING


Hits
Record – 262 – Ichiro (2004)
Recent – 238 – Ichiro (2007)

Is this mark beatable? Yes, but it does require a very specific skill set. It should also be mentioned that Ichiro has the top three hits seasons in the last five years (coming in with 225 and 224 hits in two other seasons) so the best mark by someone not named Ichiro was Michael Young’s 217 hits in 2006.

So why do I think this mark is beatable? Mostly because of Ichiro. He is left-handed and fast, which is always a good start when it comes to racking up hits. Secondly, he doesn’t walk much. To put this in perspective, Ted Williams is widely considered one of the best hitters to have ever picked up a bat and in 9,791 career plate appearances, he walked an astonishing 2,021 times, or 20.6% of all of his trips to the batter’s box. This helped him to a career .482 on-base percentage, the best mark of all time. It also helped him “only” get to 2,654 career hits.

Closer to the other end of this spectrum is Pete Rose. He strolled to the batter’s box 15,861 times and walked 1,566 times (9.9%, less than half that of Williams). Because he was a relative free-swinger, he managed to knock out 4,256 hits, the most of any player ever.

All of that brings us back to Ichiro. In his ten (and a little bit) years in the US, he has come to the plate 7,504 times and has taken Ball 4 a grand total of 469 times, or just 6.3%. What he brings to any lineup he’s in is a relative impatience and free swinging attitude with the uncanny ability to hit the ball in such a way that with his speed, it’s nearly impossible to get him out.

Likelihood – 5/100. Just because it can happen doesn’t mean it will. George Sisler’s single season hits record stood for 84 years before Ichiro came along.


Runs

Record – 177 – Babe Ruth (1921)
Recent – 143 – Alex Rodriguez (2007)

Ruth was a transcendent talent way ahead of his time and he may not have even been the best hitter on his own team (the guy right behind him in the lineup was pretty good too). The odds of this ever happening again outside the Steroid Era are precisely nil. If it was going to happen, it would have ten years ago.

Likelihood – 0/100


Doubles

Record – 67 – Earl Webb (1931)
Recent – 56 – Brian Roberts (2009)

This is one I could actually see happening. There was some talk back in the 90’s of double man extraordinaire Edgar Martinez approaching this record. However, the closest he ever got was 52 in both 1995 and 1996.

I know that another 11 doubles is quite a lot when you’re already hitting over 50 but since the inglorious end of the Steroid Era, it is possible that we’ll see a new breed of hitter, one who aims for gaps instead of the bleachers…

I can dream, can’t I?

Likelihood – 15/100


Triples

Record – 26 – Kiki Cuyler (1925)
Recent – 23 – Curtis Granderson (2007)

This will happen someday. Granderson also hit 38 doubles and 23 home runs that season for a total of 84 extra base hits. There have always been guys who have that much speed but they have been suppressed for quite some time because you never wanted to make outs before the big slow guys who hit the ball so far that they don’t have to run fast. In the future, there may be a swing back towards the small ball days of the 70’s and 80’s when a good leadoff hitter was more critical to the lineup’s success than a big thumper in the middle of the order. The speed has always been there; it’s the will that’s been missing.

Likelihood – 30/100


Home Runs

Record – 73 – Barry Bonds (2001)
Recent – 58 – Ryan Howard (2006)

Does anybody know how this elephant got into the room? It’s not that big of a room…

This record will not fall and will forever be tainted because I don’t think it has been set by someone who played the game in a “clean” manner since Roger Maris in 1961. However, that does not mean that I subscribe to the nonsense that Maris is the real single season home run record holder. Bonds hit 73 home runs. I watched many of them live and highlights of nearly all of them. It was truly amazing to behold and in over twenty years of loving this sport (basically since I tried it out and found out it was pretty cool) I have never seen anything like it.

Likelihood – 0/100


Runs Batted In

Record – 191 – Hack Wilson (1930)
Recent – 156 – Alex Rodriguez (2007)

Since Wilson’s amazingly clutch season in 1930 (did he even make an out with a runner on base that year?) only three people have come within 20 RBI of his mark:

Lou Gehrig (1931) – 184
Hank Greenberg (1937) – 183
Jimmie Foxx (1938) – 175

Do you see something in common with those years? The closest anyone has gotten in the past six decades was when Manny Ramirez had 165 RBI in 1999; and he was still a solid month of games away from Hack Wilson.

Likelihood – 0/100


Batting Average

Record – 0.424 – Rogers Hornsby (1924)
Recent – 0.365 – Joe Mauer (2009)

This note should really emphasize just how good of a hitter Joe Mauer is. He’s a catcher and nobody has had a single season batting average higher than his in the past five years. it should also help emphasize how untouchable this mark is.

The number that many people associate with batting average is .406 and for very good reason. Ted Williams was the last player to hit .400 in 1941 and seventy years later, it looks like nobody will ever hit for that high an average ever again. In the past 70 years, only four players have even hit as high as .380. As long as teams carry this many pitchers on their rosters and as long as the pitchers are this good, hitting .400 will be impossible.

Likelihood – 0/100

For the next three metrics, I’m just going to lump them all together because the same guy holds all three records and he set them all with a severely engorged melon at the end of his neck… I’m just saying.

On-Base Percentage
Slugging Percentage
OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging)

On-Base
Record – 0.609 – Barry Bonds (2004)
Recent – 0.470 – Chipper Jones (2008)

Slugging
Record – 0.863 – Barry Bonds (2001)
Recent – 0.671 – Albert Pujols (2006)

OPS
Record – 1.422 – Barry Bonds (2004)
Recent – 1.114 – Albert Pujols (2008)

I honestly wish that I could see what Barry Bonds’ career could have been like had he never taken steroids. While he was very careful to say he never “knowingly” took steroids, it seems dead obvious that he was using steroids during his incredible four year run from 2001-04. I have never seen anyone look at 20 pitches in the course of a game, see 19 balls and hit the one strike 450 feet. It was a truly amazing run and it is unfortunate that it had to become tainted by his use of steroids and by his recent court conviction. Nevertheless, on the field, you won’t ever see it again.

Likelihood – 0/100


PITCHING

Wins

Record – 31 – Denny McLain (1968), Lefty Grove (1931), and Jim Bagby (1920)
Recent – 22 – Brandon Wood (2006) and Cliff Lee (2008)

I know that wins are a largely superficial statistic and considering my wholehearted (and statistically sound) defense of Felix Hernandez’s 2010 Cy Young case, this should not come as a surprise to anyone. However, given the requirements for a starting pitcher to get a win, it’s not a bad barometer to gauge a pitcher’s performance. Before you lay into me for that last comment, allow me to expound. Using wins as a barometer for a pitcher’s performance is kinda like gauging the temperature of water…. by looking at it.

In the last five years, only four pitchers have even stayed in games long enough to get 31 decisions. Their respective records were 21-10 (Roy Halladay, 2010), 20-11 (Adam Wainwright, 2010), 20-11 (Roy Halladay again, this time in 2008), and 18-13 (Carlos Zambrano, 2007). If you notice, nobody got more than 31 decisions so given these little tidbits and taking this huge leap in logic, a pitcher would have to go 31-0 to match this mark.

Likelihood – 0/100


Losses

Record – 26 – Paul Derringer (1926)
Recent – 18 – Daniel Cabrera (2007) and Rodrigo Lopez (2006)

This one won’t fall because teams aren’t that bad and a pitcher pitching that terribly won’t get 27 starts. Mike Maroth was the worst starting pitcher on the worst team in recent memory, the 2003 Tigers that only managed to win 43 games all year long. Maroth still pitched well enough to get 33 starts and he pitched well enough to win 9 games for a final record of 9-21.

Likelihood – 5/100 (maybe as a publicity stunt… and I’m tired of saying these records will never fall)


ERA

Record – 1.12 – Bob Gibson (1968)
Recent – 2.19 – Zach Greinke (2009)

This is the beauty of the advanced statistical metrics that have come along in the past few years. On the surface, it would appear that the difference between the two seasons mentioned above is so large that they don’t even belong in the same discussion. However, when you take into account things like the league average ERA, park factors, and the opposition, the gap is narrowed significantly. Gibson’s ERA+ in 1968 was 258 while Greinke’s in 2009 was 205. Was Gibson’s season better? Absolutely. Was Greinke’s season still very good? According to ERA+, it was the 33rd best season… ever.

However, to match Gibson’s ERA, Greinke would have had to allow 28 earned runs instead of the 55 he actually allowed. As long as offense is popular, this one will never go down.

Likelihood – 0/100


Innings Pitched

Record – 376.2 – Wilbur Wood (1972)
Recent – 253.0 – CC Sabathia (2008)

I’m not even going to say anything here.

Likelihood – 0/100 (I seriously flirted with the idea of negative likelihoods… still a possibility)


Walks

Record – 208 – Bob Feller (1938)
Recent – 115 – Carlos Zambrano (2006)

In a lot of ways, this record goes hand in hand with the losses record and the innings pitched record. Pitchers don’t throw 277.2 innings (as Feller did in 1938) and they don’t get anywhere near that number if they are walking 6.7 batters per 9 innings pitched (again, as Feller did in 1938).

Teams don’t allow pitchers that bad to pitch for that long.

Likelihood – 0/100


Strikeouts

Record – 383 – Nolan Ryan (1973)
Recent – 269 – Justin Verlander (2009)

This is yet another case of how pitchers aren’t allowed to throw that many innings and no pitcher in the past few years has been good enough to even get close. In fact, in baseball history, there have only been 33 seasons in which a pitcher struck out 300 batters, 14 before Nolan Ryan and 18 since. The only real threat to his seat atop this particular throne was during Randy Johnson’s great run from 1999-2001 with Arizona. He struck out 364, 347, and then 372 batters in those three seasons and averaged 12.7 strikeouts per 9 innings. During his record setting season, Nolan Ryan averaged only 10.6 strikeouts per 9 innings.

Granted, nobody has gotten within 30 strikeouts of 300 or within 100 of the record in the past five years but in the ten years before that, there were ten different seasons where a pitcher struck out 300 batters. This is a record that is somewhat vulnerable but it will take a once in a generation talent with a manager that is willing to let them pitch through jams to allow him to rack up the strike outs.

Likelihood – 20/100


STREAKS

There are two main streaks that I want to touch on here; hitting and consecutive scoreless innings pitched. In 1941, Joe Dimaggio had a hit in 56 consecutive games and in 1988, Orel Hershiser pitched 59 consecutive scoreless innings. In my opinion, both of these streaks are untouchable simply because of the logistics of breaking these records. In the case of Hershiser’s record, you’d have to throw six straight shutouts (which has only been done once in major league history) and then throw another six scoreless innings in your next start.

As for the hitting streak, given how frequently games are played in this day and age, you would have to get a hit in every game you play in for seven weeks. When Andre Ethier hit in thirty straight games, he was still 26 games away from tying Dimaggio’s streak. To put that in perspective, in Major League History only two players have had multiple hitting streaks of 28 games or more. Joe Dimaggio is the only who has managed to follow a 28 game hit streak with another 28 game hit streak without a hitless game in between.

Likelihood of either of these streaks being broken – 0/100

Likelihood that you have read every word of this post… let’s not go there.



Thanks for reading my ramblings… until next time!