Keeler v Sewell

For awhile I had been wondering who was the better "strikeout avoider" - Willie Keeler or Joe Sewell.

Sewell's numbers have been fairly well known in stat circles for awhile, 114 strikeouts over 13 seasons, including 9 straight seasons of under 10 k's - 2 with 3 (1930, 1932) and 3 with 4 (1925, 1929, 1933).

Willie Keeler has always had a reputation as a tough player to strike out and his up until recently partial totals gave an indication of that (6 in 1894 & 9 in 1896).  Now that all of Keeler's missing seasons have been added to B-R, we can now get a more complete picture of Keeler's ability to avoid the whiff.

First of all, one can go to B-R and look at the AB/K career leaders and see that Keeler & Sewell are neck and neck.

Keeler - 63.17
Sewell - 62.56

Career Leaders - At-bats per K

But this raises the inevitable dispute that Keeler hit in an era that had less strikeouts per ab anyways;  Afterall, Sewell played during the era of big hitters.

Well, I wanted to see which player was a better strikeout avoider relative to their eras.

I first went and calculated the K/AB ration for all of the seasons that Keeler and Sewell played in:

Sewell's ERA
			AB	K		k/AB
1920	AL		41,982	3,615		0.086
1921	AL		42,796	3,579		0.084
1922	AL		42,296	3,570		0.084
1923	AL		42,016	3,613		0.086
1924	AL		42,225	3,235		0.077
1925	AL		42,573	3,292		0.077
1926	AL		41,753	3,418		0.082
1927	AL		42,117	3,398		0.081
1928	AL		42,144	3,689		0.088
1929	AL		42,180	3,517		0.083
1930	AL		42,878	4,086		0.095
1931	AL		43,673	4,032		0.092
1932	AL		43,419	4,021		0.093
1933	AL		42,663	3,916		0.092
			594,715	50,981		0.086

Keeler's ERA
			AB	K		k/AB
1892	NL		63,876	5,972		0.093
1893	NL		56,898	3,341		0.059
1894	NL		57,578	3,333		0.058
1895	NL		56,788	3,621		0.064
1896	NL		55,577	3,523		0.063
1897	NL		56,663	3,730		0.066
1898	NL		62,661	4,237		0.068
1899	NL		62,846	3,852		0.061
1900	NL		39,132	2,691		0.069
1901	NL		38,967	4,249		0.109
1902	NL		38,273	3,921		0.102
1903	AL		37,434	4,196		0.112
1904	AL		41,479	5,028		0.121
1905	AL		40,622	5,099		0.126
1906	AL		40,412	4,579		0.113
1907	AL		40,967	4,490		0.110
1908	AL		40,602	4,939		0.122
1909	AL		39,975	4,916		0.123
1910	NL		40,615	4,415		0.109
			911,365	80,132		0.088

Some observations:

1. Despite playing in completely different eras, the overall league averages for Keeler's and Sewell's K/AB is nearly identical (0.86 vs. 0.88).

2.  While the league K/AB in Sewell was relatively stable (narrower variance), 0.77 to 0.96, Keeler's career is distinctly divided into 3 separate periods:  1892, 1893-1900, 1901-1910.

3.  1892 represented the last year of the 50 foot pitching box distance and had a 0.093 K/AB league average

4.  With the lengthening of the pitching distance to 60 ft 6 in in 1893, the league average for K/AB went down to 0.059 and averaged 0.063 through the period up through 1900.

5.  In 1901, the National League instituted the foul strike rule (1903 for the AL) and as a result, the K/AB jumped up from 0.069 in 1900 to 0.109 in 1901.  For the remainder of Keeler's career (1901-1910), his league averaged 0.115 K/AB.  This era actually had higher strikeout rates than any season during Sewell's era.

Because of the fluctation in K/AB in Keeler's career, I wanted to compare each to their league average by season and overall career.  In order to do that, I adapted the BK+ stat that I had used in my previous research from K/G relative to the league to K/AB relative to the league

Here is Sewell's numbers:

Sewell
Year	Age	Tm	Lg	G	AB	SO	k/ab	bk+(ab)
1920	21	CLE	AL	22	70	4	0.057	151
1921	22	CLE	AL	154	572	17	0.030	281
1922	23	CLE	AL	153	558	20	0.036	235
1923	24	CLE	AL	153	553	12	0.022	396
1924	25	CLE	AL	153	594	13	0.022	350
1925	26	CLE	AL	155	608	4	0.007	1175
1926	27	CLE	AL	154	578	6	0.010	789
1927	28	CLE	AL	153	569	7	0.012	656
1928	29	CLE	AL	155	588	9	0.015	572
1929	30	CLE	AL	152	578	4	0.007	1205
1930	31	CLE	AL	109	353	3	0.008	1121
1931	32	NYY	AL	130	484	8	0.017	559
1932	33	NYY	AL	125	503	3	0.006	1553
1933	34	NYY	AL	135	524	4	0.008	1202
			14 Seasons	1903	7132	114	0.0160	536

Here are Keeler's numbers:

Keeler
Year	Age	Tm	Lg	G	AB	SO	k/ab	bk+(ab)
1892	20	NYG	NL	14	53	3	0.057	165
1893	21	TOT	NL	27	104	5	0.048	122
1894	22	BLN	NL	129	590	6	0.010	569
1895	23	BLN	NL	131	565	12	0.021	300
1896	24	BLN	NL	126	544	9	0.017	383
1897	25	BLN	NL	129	564	5	0.009	743
1898	26	BLN	NL	129	561	4	0.007	948
1899	27	BRO	NL	141	570	2	0.004	1747
1900	28	BRO	NL	136	563	4	0.007	968
1901	29	BRO	NL	136	595	5	0.008	1298
1902	30	BRO	NL	133	559	13	0.023	441
1903	31	NYY	AL	132	512	12	0.023	478
1904	32	NYY	AL	143	543	12	0.022	549
1905	33	NYY	AL	149	560	13	0.023	541
1906	34	NYY	AL	152	592	4	0.007	1677
1907	35	NYY	AL	107	423	10	0.024	464
1908	36	NYY	AL	91	323	10	0.031	393
1909	37	NYY	AL	99	360	6	0.017	738
1910	38	NYG	NL	19	10	1	0.100	109
			19 Seasons	2123	8591	136	0.0158	555

Again, as stated before, their career K/AB are nearly identical.  What is interesting is their BK+ numbers.

1. Career-wise, Keeler holds the edge 555 to 536  (5.5 times better sitrkeout ratio than the league average).

2. Keeler has the 2 best BK+ seasons - 1747 in 1899 and 1677 in 1906.

3. Sewell has more BK+ seasons over 1000 - 5 (1925, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1933) versus "only" 3 for Keeler (1899, 1901, 1906).  Keeler did have 2 more seasons over 940 (1898, 1900).

4.  Keeler did play 6 more seasons than Sewell, but only 200 more games.

5.  If we only look at "core" seasons (120+ games) for each, the numbers tell us a slightly different story:

Keeler core, 1894-1906 - BK+ - 819
Sewell core, 1920-1929, 1930-1933 - BK+ - 748

These are arbitrary groupings of course, and either way, these two hitters were easily the best at avoiding the whiff.

The day the Tigers struck - May 18, 1912 - play-by-play

I wanted to kick off this edition of my blog with a recent scan that I did from the 1912 Detroit Times (a bit large, but wanted to make sure all could read it).  This is the play-by-play (all except the 9th inning) of the infamous May 18 game in which the entire Tigers starting lineup sat out in protest of Ty Cobb's recent suspension for going into the crowd to "quiet" a avid fan.

24-2 says it all.  There is a nice write-up on this game here:
http://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/2011/05/18/the-first-baseball-strike-%E2%80%93-may-18-1912/


Travers ended up being the only ballplayer to become an ordained priest (so I understand).


As to my recent progress, I am plugging my way through 1912 - as you can see above, I have been able to get a good deal of Detroit (home & away) play-by-play from the Detroit Times.  Thank goodness that the Library of Michigan has a microfilm scanner, making my job much easier.  I am currently looking through the scanned (tif) games and documenting the batter k's by player and inning.  Once that is done, I will enter this info in my 1912 AL season database.   I recently received Boston k info from Bob Richardson - no boxscore k's and scattered play-by-play from the Record.   Bob even found a couple of k's in the Boston Traveller (a new paper to me).  He does a nice thorough job going through each possible paper (including the Advertiser and Transcript).

Here is log of my progress since last post:

04/14/11	St. Louis	1902	Globe Democrat	4 more games from D Isgrig	93.2	NL
04/15/11	St. Louis	1902	Globe Democrat	4 more games from D Isgrig	93.3	NL
04/16/11	St. Louis	1906	Republic	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society -april - july 31 (AL)	81.7	AL
04/16/11	St. Louis	1906	Republic	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society -april - july 31 (AL)	89.8	NL
04/25/11	Boston	1910	Multiple	Misc road games from Bob Richardson	89.0	AL
04/27/11	St. Louis	1906	Republic	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society - aug & oct (AL)	81.9	AL
04/27/11	St. Louis	1906	Republic	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society - aug & oct (NL)	89.9	NL
05/01/11	St. Louis	1906	Republic	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society - sept (AL)	81.9	AL
05/01/11	St. Louis	1906	Republic	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society - (NL)	90	NL
05/02/11	St. Louis	1907	Republic	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society - apr (NL)	93.7	NL
05/11/11	Louisville	1899	Evening Post	Sept/Oct	92.3
05/17/11	Boston	1912	Multiple	Home games from Bob Richardson

I have started in on 1912 St. Louis as well - The Evening Star has scattered play-by-play as some of the "Sporting Extra" editions were fortunately scanned.  More is on its way from Mo. as I write.

I am up to around 70% on 1912, not counting the Detroit games, which I have not entered in yet.

Also, I have requests out to my UK contact for game account scans from 1897-1903, 1909 missing Cincinnati games from the Cincinnati Enquirer.   Going through the game accounts can be a bit tedious and eye-straining, but every time you find a "missing k", it makes it worth it.

That's all for today.  Hopefully I will be posted here a little sooner than next month, but no promises. :)

The New Phone Books are Here!!!!

Well, today I feel a bit like Navin Johnson of  "The Jerk" fame.

I found out today that my data is now in Baseball-Reference!!!!

This is so cool and am glad that it has finally "arrived" there.

I repeat my thanks to the libraries and individuals who have helped me along the way and again a special thanks to Pete Palmer, who encouraged, reviewed, and promoted my data to the proper folks.



As to my current status, since my last update, here is what I have been working on:

03/06/11	St. Louis	1909	Globe Democrat	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society - thru aug 7
03/13/11	New York	1910	Evening World	copies of scatter missing games from Cliff Blau
03/16/11	St. Louis	1909	Globe Democrat	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society - aug 8 to end of season
03/23/11	St. Louis	1910	Globe Democrat	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society - up to june 19
03/28/11	Detroit	1910	Times	very complete pbp scanned from L of Mich
03/30/11	Louisville	1899	Evening Post	pbp scans from Esta Day - Aug 1899
03/30/11	St. Louis	1910	Globe Democrat	scans from rolls sent from Mo. Hist Society - june 20 - july 31
04/03/11	Cleveland	1910	Leader	Sept home games from Rick Huhn

1909 NL is now at 91.9% complete
1909 AL is now at 91.2% complete
1910 AL is now at 88.8% complete

St. Louis, as always, The Roadblock for me! :(


In addition, I have started going through my available on-line sources (Proquest, Fultonhistory.com, GeneologyBank.com) to document the 1912 AL K's.  So far done are Chicago and Washington.  I have started in on New York on FultonHistory.com and "unofficial" Retrosheet play-by-play, which tends to go slow due to the speed of the pdf loads and lack of a decent index.  Rick Huhn has sent me the 1st few Cleveland home games from the Cleveland Leader and Ed Morton has sent over the April play-by-play from the Phil Evening Telegraph.

I got 1906 St. Louis Republic from the Mo. Hist Society (Apr-July).  So far, nothing new.  
Still would love to find someone with access to the Proquest Post Dispatch to help me out (no luck gaining access remotely).  The P-D is not a great resource from what I have seen, but for StL, I need to look at every paper I can.

Anyways, really excited tonight.

Yeah, the new phone books are cool!
:)

Quick update - 3.6.11

While I get my next season, 1901 NL set up for blog posting, I wanted to give a quick update on my progress.


I have gotten a big chunk of the 1910 AL completed.  Currently at 81.5% complete. 

Main areas that I am missing are Boston -  the on again/off again (see 1905/06) was off again, as I have only been able to get about 80% of the home game k's - thanks a good deal to the Boston Globe having decent play-by-play in their game write-ups.  Not true pbp, but a reasonable fascimile.

Washington - The Washington Post around July 2nd, decided to stop including the batter strikeouts in the box (actually in the box as a column).  This is a big disappointment as 1910 is the year that Walter Johnson had 310 strikeouts - which at the time was believed to be the record - in spite of the fact that Rube Waddell had struck out 349 ONLY 6 years earlier.   Apparently, the k's in 1904 were not tracked/documented accurately/correctly and the Waddell's 301 in 1903 was considered the record.  Only in 1946 or so, when Cliff Kachline was checking on Bob Feller setting the record, did Waddell's 349 truly come to light.   I still owe this blog his 1904 breakdown as I did with his 1903 season - hopefully sometime in the next couple of months.  Anyways, a bit of disappointment.  As a result, I currently only have 83% of the home game k's (a decent #, but still not where I would like it).

Detroit - I have already gone through the Free Press and gleaned a good chunk of home k's, but I am hoping that the Detroit Times had its Sporting Extra edition scanned as it was in 1909.   Hope to get up to Lansing in the next month or so, depending on work schedule and the weather to check at Library of Michigan.  Detroit home k's are currently at 76.7%.

St. Louis - Have not done anything here - I will explain what I will be doing here below.

New York - In addition, I am missing the whole month of August play-by-play for NY games as the NY Evening Telegram's scans found on FultonHistory.com reverted to the Night Edition for this month (from the Late or Baseball Extra edition). 

General note:  It is too bad that all of the editions of the papers I have been using did not get scanned - there would be a ton more stuff to pull.  For instance, in browsing a copy of the 1901 Evening Wisconsin sent to me by Dennis Pajot, I noticed that it refers to a "Sporting Extra Edition" available.   Not sure if there are any copies (microfilm or hardcopy) floating around.

1902 - Dwayne Ispring in St. Louis has been sending me scans of the Globe Democrat for games that I am missing info.   Have added a little, some is repeats of what I have already pulled from the Republic.

1899 - Louisville - Esta Day from U of Ky continues to assist me in scanning copies of the Louisville Times, now up to 1899.   She discovered that only a few of the dates in the Times were the "Extra" edition which had the pseudo play-by-play.   She was going to check w/ Louisville Public Library to see if they had any different editions there.  She did discover that the Evening Post had a similar pseudo play-by-play and will be running scans of this for me.

1909 - St. Louis - I had been using a researcher in St. Louis to run scans of the Globe Democrat for 1906, 1907.   She had gotten busy with some other stuff so I decided to check what other libraries carried the GD.
In my search, I discovered that I could get microfilm reels of St. Louis papers sent directly to my house (not ILL through the library) from the State Historical Society of Missouri for around $ 10 each way (+ $1 per reel) if I became a member at the $100 level.  Kind of expensive from a pure research standpoint, but since I can write-off the membership as a tax deduction, it will work well for me.   Plus, alot cheaper and quicker than having a paid researcher do it.  I have already received and reviewed my 1st set of 4 reels, April - August 1909 of the Globe Democrat.  For my next set of reels, I will finish out 1909 and start into 1910 w/ the GD.  After I am done with 1910, I plan on doubling back to 1906 and request the Republic for 1906,07, 09, 10.  Plan on using this service for the Star and Times for other various years.  Post Dispatch, I hope to find a way of accessing the info directly since it is a Proquest db.


That's about all for now.  Hope to get 1901 NL summary up in the next week or so.

Take care.

1900 - Batter Strikeouts Year in Review

Season Comments:

Over the fall/winter of 1899-1900, the National League contracted to 8 teams.   Most of Louisville’s players ended up with Pittsburgh, while players from Cleveland, Washington, and Baltimore scattered to the 4 winds (so to say), some ending up with other NL teams, some in the various minor leagues (including the recently renamed American League), and the rest gone forever.

As for 1900, there were a few highlights to the 8 team circuit:

       

                      

1. The number of games was scaled back to 140 (20 per opponent) from the 154 (14 per opponent) of the previous 2 seasons.
2. Brooklyn Superbas won their 2^nd straight pennant with an 82-54 record.  Pittsburgh, strengthened by the addition of Wagner, Clarke, Waddell, & Leach finished 2^nd, 4 ½ out.   The last place NY Giants, were only 23 games out – meaning a respite from the St. Louis Browns/Cleveland Spiders-type teams of the previous few seasons.
3. Rightfielder Honus Wagner won the 1^st of his 8 batting titles, with a .381 average.  With league leading 45 doubles and 22 triples, his OPS+ of 175 also led the circuit.
4. John McGraw, who landed in St. Louis after some early season holding out, ended with a .344 BA and a league leading .505 OBA (85 bb in 99 games).   After debuting as a manager for the Baltimore Orioles the previous season, McGraw would not manage, and it would be the last season that he would not manage until 1933.
5. Philadelphia’s Elmer Flick continued to blossom (.342 in 1899), finishing 2^nd in BA with a .367 average and a WAR with 6.7 (Wagner had 7.1).
6. Noodles Hahn won his 2^nd of 3 straight K titles with 132, in this last year before the institution of the foul strike rule(NL).
7. Pittsburgh’s Rube Waddell led the league with a 2.37 ERA and 5.6 K/9IP.
8. 33 year old Cy Young, in spite of a pedestrian looking 19-19, 3.00 (121 ERA+) record, led the league with a 6.5 WAR by pitchers.

Total Pct Completed:   98.7%

Hardest to Strike Out (BK+):

Team:

Brooklyn - 270 k’s

Individual:

1. Willie Keeler, Brook  - 4 k’s in 136 games  (814 BK+)
2. Lave Cross, St.L/Brook – 7 k’s in 133 g (454)
3. Claude Ritchey, Pitt  - 8 k’s in 123 g (376)
4. Napoleon Lajoie, Phil – 8 k’s in 102 g (310)
5. Jimmy Collins, Bos – 13 k’s in 142 g (270)

1900 would mark the only season (or part of a season) where the 1 & 2 BK+ leaders would come from the same team – the convergence of the 2 top “hardest to strikeout” players for part of the season, as Cross was purchased by Brooklyn from St. Louis in mid-May and would jump to the AL Philadelphia A’s for 1901.

 Keeler's 4 k's:

1. May 14 (at St.L, Jack Powell, 1st)
2. June 23 (at NY, Ed Doheny, 1st)
3. August 25 (at Bos, Vic Willis, 1st)
4. September 18 (vs. St.L, Cy Young, 1st)

Interestingly, all 4 of Keeler’s K’s occurred in the 1^st inning.

Most Strikeouts:

Team:

Cincinnati – 411 k’s

Individual:

1. Jimmy Barrett, Cin – 63
2. Bill Bradley, Chi –61
3. Roy Thomas, Phil – 52
4. Monte Cross, Phil – 51
5. Barry McCormick, Chi - 44

Most Strikeouts by a Pitcher:

Season:

Noodles Hahn - 132

Game:

June 19 – Rube Waddell, Pitt, 12 (at Chi –Green(3), Nichols(2), Griffith(2), Childs, Mertes, McCarthy, McCormick, Clingman)

October 11 – Rube Waddell, Pitt, 12 (vs. Chi – Strang(3), C Dolan(2), McCarthy(2), Green(2), Garvin(2), Bradley)

This marked the 2^nd straight year that Rube Waddell had the high K mark for a pitcher and was against the same opponent in all 3 occurrences.  Only Danny Green (7 k’s) appeared in all 3 games.

4 or more Strikeouts by Batter:

July 8 – Noodles Hahn, Cin (4) vs. Brook (Brickyard Kennedy/Frank Kitson)

August 1 – Bill Carrick, NY (4) vs. Chi (Jack W. Taylor)

Resources:

Brooklyn and New York home & away - New York Evening Telegram (play-by-play)

Boston home - Boston Globe

Cincinnati – Cincinnati Commercial-Tribune

Philadelphia home – Philadelphia Inquirer

Pittsburgh home – Pittsburgh Press & Post

Chicago home & away – Chicago Tribune

St. Louis home – St. Louis Globe Democrat

Help Wanted Section:

NONE!    This has been one of only 2 seasons during my research period (1897-1910, so far), in which I have found explicitly documented batter strikeouts in EVERY cities’ newspaper (1908 NL, the other).    1901 would proved to be an entirely different story, as you will find out.

Other Individual Player Comments:

-          The #6 & #7 leaders in most strikeouts were both pitchers.  Noodles Hahn, with 43 k’s in 40 games held down the #6 position, while the previous season’s #6, Bill Carrick, checked in with 38 k’s in 45 games for the 7^th most in the league.

-          Former K leaders

o   Tommy McCreery, Pit – 23 (in 42 games)

o   Billy Clingman, Lou – 18 (47 g)

-          Other “Future” Hall of Famers: 

o   Sam Crawford, Cin – 36

o   Ed Delahanty, Phil – 36

o   Jesse Burkett, St. L – 35

o   Elmer Flick, Phil – 30

o   Hughie Jennings, Brook – 29

o   George Davis, NY – 23

o   Billy Hamilton, Bos – 23

o   Wilbert Robinson, St.L – 20

o   Fred Clarke, Pitt – 20

o   Joe Kelley, Brook – 18

o   Jake Beckley, Cin – 18

o   Jack Chesbro, Pitt – 17

o   Joe McGinnity, Brook – 17

o   Bobby Wallace, St.L – 17

o   Honus Wagner, Pitt – 17

o   Rube Waddell, Pitt – 15

o   Frank Chance, Chi – 12

o   Vic Willis, Bos – 10

o   John McGraw, St.L – 9 (BK+ of 273 in 99 games)

o   Kid Nichols, Bos – 8

o   Clark Griffith, Chi – 7

o   Cy Young, St.L – 7

o   Hugh Duffy, Bos – 5

o   Christy Mathewson, NY – 2 (1^st season, 5 games)

o   Roger Bresnahan, Chi – 0 (2 games)