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Twice as many games as innings pitched

Posted by Andy
Many of us saw this developing as the year went along, but 2011 saw two additions to a very small club: appearing in at least twice as many games as innings pitched on the season (minimum 20 IP):

Rk Player Year G IP Age Tm SV H R ER BB SO ERA ERA+ BF
1 Randy Choate 2011 54 24.2 35 FLA 0 13 7 5 13 31 1.82 217 103
2 Trever Miller 2011 48 21.1 38 TOT 1 25 9 9 12 12 3.80 106 101
3 Mike Myers 2006 62 30.2 37 NYY 0 29 14 11 10 22 3.23 142 132
4 Jesse Orosco 2002 56 27.0 45 LAD 1 24 10 9 12 22 3.00 128 119
5 Jesse Orosco 1999 65 32.0 42 BAL 1 28 21 19 20 35 5.34 88 144
6 Tony Fossas 1992 60 29.2 34 BOS 2 31 9 8 14 19 2.43 176 129
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/3/2011.

These are the only guys to do it as far back as 1901, even though there are no entrants prior to 1992.

Mike Myers is the only pitcher in history (minimum 100 career IP) to appear in 50% more games than innings pitched (i.e. G is at least 1.5 times career IP).

If we lower the bar to 40% more games than innings, we get these 7 guys:

Rk Player Year G IP From To Age SV H R ER BB SO ERA ERA+ BF
1 Randy Choate 2011 396 270.2 2000 2011 24-35 5 239 139 125 128 228 4.16 107 1176
2 Doug Slaten 2011 206 137.2 2006 2011 26-31 0 147 68 55 59 104 3.60 124 619
3 Taylor Tankersley 2010 168 118.0 2006 2010 23-27 4 109 63 60 70 115 4.58 96 524
4 Ray King 2008 593 411.0 1999 2008 25-34 2 376 178 158 181 278 3.46 126 1747
5 Mike Myers 2007 883 541.2 1995 2007 26-38 14 525 278 258 256 429 4.29 112 2385
6 Mike Holtz 2006 353 240.0 1996 2006 23-33 3 245 146 127 131 223 4.76 99 1091
7 Kelly Wunsch 2005 257 177.0 2000 2005 27-32 1 136 78 74 97 145 3.76 126 775
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/3/2011.

Choate, for one, seems destined to stay in the group unless he starts getting used differently.
at 3:00 PM

14 comments:

  1. Bobby AguileraNovember 3, 2011 at 3:10 PM

    Loving this new blog. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. John AutinNovember 3, 2011 at 3:14 PM

    Add Randy Flores to the "40% more games than innings" list -- 350 games, 250 IP, exactly 40% more.

    (The P-I's ratio criterion only allows greater-than, less-than or equal-to. To find those with at least 1.4 times as many games as IP, I used "Games greater than 1.39999 IP.")

    ReplyDelete
  3. John AutinNovember 3, 2011 at 3:34 PM

    The LOOGY phenomenon may well have peaked. Using a looser threshold of at least 25% more games than IP (and at least 20 IP), here are the numbers by year since it first occurred:

    Year - #
    1992 - 3
    1993 - 3
    1994 - 1
    1995 - 3
    1996 - 9
    1997 - 11
    1998 - 6
    1999 - 7
    2000 - 10
    2001 - 7
    2002 - 5
    2003 - 12
    2004 - 14
    2005 - 11
    2006 - 13
    2007 - 20
    2008 - 16
    2009 - 9
    2010 - 12
    2011 - 7

    After a high of 20 such pitchers in 2007, there were just 7 this year. The average was 14 from 2003-08, but 9 over the last 3 years.

    (A few of these are righties, but 92% are lefties.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. solaceNovember 3, 2011 at 3:46 PM

    I remember checking out Trever Miller when he was traded to the Jays. Quite a few of his outing for LaRussa were of the 0.0 IP variety.

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  5. AndyNovember 3, 2011 at 5:53 PM

    Thanks for the Flores correction at #2, JA. I usually do the 1.3999 trick but I didn't think anybody could happen to be exactly at 40%...stupid me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. hRosenNovember 3, 2011 at 5:59 PM

    Mostly wastes of roster spots.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousNovember 3, 2011 at 6:41 PM

    I kind of forgot that Orosco played for the Dodgers in '02.

    ReplyDelete
  8. HartvigNovember 3, 2011 at 7:59 PM

    "Choate, for one, seems destined to stay in the group unless he starts getting used differently."

    Since even last year, when he had his best season by far, right handers managed to reach base almost half of the time against him I can't imagine that he would have any value used any other way.

    Not that I think he's worth much being used this way either.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Cory AtchasonNovember 3, 2011 at 10:57 PM

    My favorite lefty specialist of all time doesn't show up on the list because he spent such a long career as a starter. But from 1991-1997 Rich Honeycutt pitched in 358 games and only pitched 284 innings. He may have had a late start as a reliever, but he was very effective. I always thought that Tony LaRussa's use of him in this way helped usher in the trend.

    ReplyDelete
  10. eornsNovember 4, 2011 at 3:10 PM

    Choate is also among the first to average fewer than 2 batters faced per game. His ratio of 1.91 BF/G is the all-time lowest, accomplishing this in by far the most games (54). Only once all season did Choate start an inning after getting the last out of the previous one. Here's his batters faced distribution:

    1: 31
    2: 9
    3: 7
    4: 5
    5: 1
    6+: 1

    After facing 8 batters in his season debut on April 3, it looks like Florida decided put him in this extreme role, facing only 95 batters in his remaining 53 games.

    ReplyDelete
  11. John AutinNovember 4, 2011 at 3:21 PM

    @9, Cory -- FWIW, I think the correct numbers for Honeycutt in 1991-97 are 306 games, 238.1 IP (plus 10 games and 8.2 IP in the postseason).

    Did you perchance copy and paste into Excel to do the sums? I just did that and realized that it winds up double-counting his 1995 stats, when he pitched for Oakland and NYY -- because B-R lists the year total as well as the total for each team. (The same thing would happen if you added them manually, unless you made sure to skip over the redundant split.)

    BTW, you can get B-R to calculate totals for adjacent years. Click somewhere in the first year you want to tally (but not on a link); the row should become highlighted. Then click in the last row. A totals window should pop up in a moment.

    ReplyDelete
  12. John AutinNovember 4, 2011 at 3:25 PM

    Randy Choate's first name is spelled with an "o" as the last vowel, "Randol." He's the only MLB player ever with that spelling ... but there are currently two in the minors with that same first name, and another with "Randoll."

    ReplyDelete
  13. John AutinNovember 4, 2011 at 3:57 PM

    Notes on 1-batter appearances:

    In 2011, the number of 1-batter appearances reached an all-time high of 41 per team.

    Looking at the history of 1-batter appearances (per 162 team games):

    -- From the start of the live-ball era through the end of WWII, the average number of 1-BF appearances slowly crept forward from 1 (1919) to 6 (1945).

    -- By 1948, the average was up to 10, but it slid back for a few years and didn’t get back to 10 until 1953.

    -- From 1953, the average slowly grew to a local peak of 21 in 1970. Then it slid back again, and didn’t get back to 21 until 1987.

    -- From 1989-92, it shot from 20 to 30, and by ’94 it reached 35. But it didn’t advance beyond 35 until 2006.

    Another development in 1-BF appearances: Into the 1950s, the majority of such appearances came while finishing the game, and as late as 1980, GF accounted for half of all 1-BF appearances. Starting in 1981, that percentage shrank all the way down to a low of 16% in 2007, whence it has crept back up to this year’s 22%.

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  14. StevenNovember 5, 2011 at 2:35 AM

    #6: You're right. A waste of roster spots. That's one of those jobs where you can throw your last pitch and go directly to collecting your first Social Security check.

    ReplyDelete

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