Cause its JEE-TAH

TheFrank wrote:

phatj wrote:

Pittfan03 wrote:

stevelxa476 wrote:There are still two active players who played at least 1 game for the '92 Pirates.

Wakefield and who else?

Miguel Batista

He's had an almost 20 year career? Lolwut.

Even weirder. He was 27 in 1998. Up to then he had only pitched in 21 big league games and fewer than 50 IP. Like more than a few guys, he was a much better pitcher in his 30s than his 20s.

Easier to get a couple of singles vs 5 HR esp when the player needing the home runs is 40. I assume it will be a big deal when he's 1 or 2 away.

Jose Bautista is (probably) going to have back to back 50 HR seasons after accumulating 59 in the 6 years prior

for reference
Hank Aaron never had a 50 HR season
Babe Ruth had two sets of consecutive 50+ HR seasons
1920/21 54 and 59 HR
1927/28 60 and 54 HR
Mickey Mantle only had 2 50+ HR seasons, non consecutive
Schmidt never had a 50 HR season
Alex Rodriguez had 3 50+ HR seasons (2 in the steroid years, one in 2007)
Griffey did it once, 97/98 with 56 both years
Thome only had 50+ HR once
Willie Mays had 50+ twice, not in consecutive years.

So yea...amazing stuff

Bonds' only 50+ homer season was his record 73 in 2001.

I didn't even bother with the obvious cheaters

And Mark McGwire did it four years in a row.

[not sure what, if any, point I'm making]

edit: as did, of course, Sammy Sosa, missing by one HR in 2002 having 5 years in a row.

The 50-thing is confusing. It was so so rare in Baseball and then suddenly skinny CFers were doing it?

Maybe the ball was different or the pitching not as good. Or maybe PEDs are the whole story.

If Bautista is clean - then props to him. But very odd how there was no indication he'd be a thumper like this before last year?

Many great players with lots of HRs didn't reach 50 -- Hank Aaron being the biggest, but Killebrew, Frank Robinson, Michael Jack, and Pujols to name a few.

I think in the entire decade of the 70's the ONLY guy to reach 50 was George Foster of the Reds one time.

Seeing Ryan Howard do it was really exciting. I remember Schmidt had 30hrs at the AS break one year and I thought he'd get to 60 maybe but it never worked out. He'd get dinged and miss a few games or hit a slump. End up at 38-45 still great - I thought Matt Williams one year for SF was going to do it ...

We'll see if Bautista keeps it up all year. I suspect he's a lock for 44-48, but see if he can really go to 50+ let alone 60?!!

Fun stuff...

Right now, doesn't look like Ryan Howard we'll get to 40, I'd say he's tracking for 28-34hrs this year. Which is fine with me if he got 40 doubles and 5 triples -- but I don't think he's going to do that either... : (

i think ryan will end up with 40+ HRs barring injuries

some dude arguing with klaw on twitter about a-gon vs bautista

UNHWildCats Travis Liles
@keithlaw Bautista averages about 2 RBI per HR, A-Gon averages almost 5 RBI per HR. Bautista barely produces when not hitting a HR.

heh

Need Joe Table to translate that into the annoying Masshole dialect.

There are a lot of fake people on twitter just messing with people's heads and stuff, right?

smitty wrote:There are a lot of fake people on twitter just messing with people's heads and stuff, right?

fake sick people

Michael Bourn averages 27 RBI per HR. That's the kind of RBI consistency I'd like on my team.

SPEAKING OF Michael Bourn, the Astros are soooo bad. How long before Wadey gets fired?

what if the pirates make the playoffs?
then beat the phillies in four?
i don't even.

This is neither here nor there, but I thought Keri's The Extra 2% was really boring and poorly executed

z ipper wrote:what if the pirates make the playoffs?
then beat the phillies in four?
i don't even.

If you think baseballprospectus hate the Phillies, you should see how they feel about the Pirates. 4th place in 3rd order wins, and something like a 3% chance to make the playoffs.

Our old friend Juan Castro has retired.

A-Rod is having minor knee surgery. He'll be back before the season is over, but my man Bonds's home run record looks pretty safe for a long time.