Friday, May 17, 2013

Frivolous Baseball Stats

Baseball staticians have way too much time on their hands.  Do you know how I know that?  Because I was watching Sportscenter the other day and looking at the Bottomline when I saw a really stupid stat.  The stat I saw was "The Reds' Shortstop and Third Baseman had multi-homer games for the first time in franchise history".  First off, who would even think to look that up?  Second, who would think that anyone else would care?  And third, how long would it take to even look this stat up in the first place?  Baseball teams play 162 games a year and the Reds have been around for over 120 years, so that's nearly 20,000 games someone would have to look through to make sure it was a first for the franchise.  That's insane.

In any case, I stumbled across a couple more pointless stats from the first few weeks of the season:
  • The Mets have hit a home run in their first six games of the season, a franchise record.  Good for the Mets, but call me when they break the franchise record for most consecutive games with a homer, not just to begin the season.
  • The Yankees turned the first 4-6-5-6-5-3-4 Triple Play in MLB History against the Orioles.  Considering the Triple Play is fairly rare, of course this was the first one that occurred in that manner in history.
  • The Braves have won 8 straight, their longest winning streak in April since 1982.  They went on to win 10 in a row, so this stat is irrelevant now, but stupid at the time nonetheless.  Just like the Mets stat above, let me know when they break the franchise record for most consecutive wins in a season and not just the month of April, then I will be impressed.
  • Manny Machado was the first Oriole under 21 years of age to homer in Fenway Park since the 80's. That doesn't seem that far-fetched when not that many players under 21 years old even play, but it also happened during a road game, so it's not like that many 21 year old Orioles have had the chance to pull of this feat.
That last stat reminded me of the movie Little Big League.  It was the movie where a kid manages the Twins, but that's not the point.  In that movie, the Twins' play-by-play announcer would occasionally throw out a stat that reminded me of that Manny Machado stat because they had so many factors in them that they made them hilarious.  So, with that said, I will leave you with those ridiculous stats:
  • "Last year though, he was 6th in the American League in hitting right-handers he was facing for the first time, after the seventh inning, at home."
  • "An interesting side note; that's the 14th one-run game for the Tigers already this season.  Tops for any team north of the Mason-Dixon Line, whose home games are not played in a dome.
  • "Lou has hit .416 lifetime versus Hanley in the month of September in even years."
"Who is her favorite team?  Who cares?  Am I right?"

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