August History Watch '15: L.A. aces, Trout, others eye MLB record books
— -- July is for trade rumors. August is for history.
That sounds like something Kennesaw Mountain Landis once said. Or, at the very least, Peter Gammons. But here's the truth. I made it up myself. And here's why:
I love trade talk. You love trade talk. Trade talk keeps our sites and networks in business. Trade talk keeps those talk-show lines humming. But then along comes August, when we look up and notice something just as important:
There's a tremendous baseball season still in progress. Full of real-life baseball players chasing real-life history. In front of our very eyes.
So that's why, every August, I volunteer to provide this valuable public service. It's another edition of the ever-popular August History Watch. And if all -- or any -- of this stuff happens, it'll be way more rewarding than your average trade rumor. I promise.
THE ZACK AND CLAYTON SHOW
Do Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw ever give up a run? It doesn't seem like it. And just so you know, tag teams like these two guys don't come along often. Like, well, ever.
As we speak, these two Dodgers starters have made 46 starts this season -- and 40 of them have been quality starts. That computes to 87 percent of them. And it was 90.4 before their unfortunate journey through the state of Pennsylvania last week. Still, even 87 is just ridiculous. Not to mention unprecedented.
Greinke is 21 of 23, which works out to 91 percent. Kershaw is 19 of 23, or 83 percent. And how many sets of teammates, in the entire live ball era, have piled up that good of a quality-start rate in the same season? That would be none. Zero.
Not Schilling/Johnson. Not Glavine/Maddux. Not Seaver/Koosman. Not a one. In fact, according to Baseball-Reference.com's handy-dandy Play Index, there has been only one season in all that time in which two teammates qualified for the ERA title and each even got to 80 percent or better in quality-start percentage: Sandy Koufax (85) and Claude Osteen (80) of the 1965 Dodgers. But that's it.
Then again, Greinke is angling for quality-start history all by himself, which undoubtedly is a dream come true. In the live ball era, only three other qualifying starters have gotten through a whole season throwing at least 90 percent quality starts:
Wow. Fun group. We're sure we'll be spending a lot of time over the next two months documenting where Greinke's season fits among the all-timers. But for sheer "quality" of life, he's well on his way toward places no one has ever gone.
IT'S TROUT SEASON AGAIN
I think I'm required by law, every time I write one of these columns, to include the historic feats of the one, the only, Michael N. Trout, because this guy isn't just a star. He's becoming a walking history museum unto himself.
Whaddaya know, he's hovering around the American League lead in runs scored. And if that sounds familiar, it's because he led the league last year. And the year before that. And the year before that.
So if you added up all those "year before thats" properly, you already know that the Troutster is now well within reach of leading his league in runs scored in four straight seasons. And who else has done that, you ask?
No one else has done that, we reply. Yes, you read that correctly. No one.
Just the list of men who have led the AL three years in a row is cool enough: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle. But even those guys never did it in four straight. Slackers. So in case you were looking for evidence that Mike Trout might turn out to be pretty good, well, I hope I helped!
FIELDS OF GOLDY
I don't know where Paul Goldschmidt fits on the list of Most Underrated Players in Our Solar System. But despite the best efforts of dastardly forces intent on keeping him buried on that underrated list, that's gotta change -- because this man is awesome at playing baseball.
I could easily just run out his projected stat line -- .341 AVG/.457 OBP/.584 SLG/1.041 OPS/32 HR/27 SB/195 H/128 BB -- and let you know that no player in history has ever matched it. I'm guessing that might get your attention.
But because I can't stop there, here's some other fun stuff I dug up:
? This man is on pace to reach base 324 times and hit 32 homers. The only right-handed hitters in history who did that? Oh, how about Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx and Jeff Bagwell. Whoever they are.
Close calls:
? Then there's this cool club of right-handed hitters who hit .330 or better and walked 110 times or more in the same season. Just Jimmie Foxx and Edgar Martinez hang out in that club room. And if we raise the bar to 120 walks, even those two never did that.
? But this nugget might be my favorite of all. Goldschmidt leads his league in walks, but he's also neck and neck with Dee Gordon for the league lead in hits. And think about the degree of difficulty of leading any league in walks and hits in the same season. It's so tough, it's been done only three times since 1900 -- by Rogers Hornsby in 1924, Richie Ashburn in 1958 and (who else?) Lenny Dykstra in 1993. So that's once in more than half a century if you're calculating along at home.
Paul Goldschmidt could do all of that this season, ladies and gentlemen. So -- is he off the All-Underrated team yet?
THE GRAND PRINCE OF ARLINGTON
Once upon a time, Prince Fielder was more than just a home run hitter. He was a 50-home-run hitter. Whomped 50 for the 2007 Brewers. You can look it up.
Well, nowadays, Prince still hits home runs. But mostly, he hits singles. Lots and lots and lots of singles. He hits so many singles, in fact, that he's threatening to lead the American League in singles. He's currently tied for first with Xander Bogaerts, who has never hit 50 home runs. In his entire career.
Heck, I don't know about you, but I find this amazing. When I think of guys who lead their league in singles, I think of Juan Pierre, or Rod Carew, or maybe Doug Glanville. I don't think of guys like Prince who are built like sumo wrestlers.
What I'd like to know is whether anybody has ever taken part in a Home Run Derby and led his league in singles in the same season. But that's more quirky than historic. So here's the real question:
How many players have ever led their league in home runs one year and led in singles another year?
Hey, of course I looked it up.
In the live ball era, that answer would be: not a soul. But since 1900? I found three men who did it. And it's quite a list.
There's Ty Cobb. Led in singles six times. Led in homers only once. That was in 1909 -- when he hit exactly nine of them.
There's Nap Lajoie. Led in singles once, in 1910. Led in homers once, too. In 1901 -- with 14.
And finally, there's Dave Robertson, who, contrary to popular belief, is not the guy who also nearly led the league in saves last season. He's an old dead ball era outfielder for the New York Giants who led his league in singles and homers in the same year, in 1916. Thumped a mighty 12 home runs that season. So he has a lot in common with Prince, who, in the year he bopped 50, hit more than that in a month.
There's way more history in the making than that, naturally. But I wouldn't want to roll out all the historic stuff in one column. Then you'd have nothing to look forward to. So you'll have to get by with this for now. You can thank me later.