Since They Became An Official Stat

[DrungoHazewood]

""Since 1969 (when saves became an official stat), there have been two AL position players to earn a win or a save in a game, and both were @Orioles:

05/06/2012, Chris Davis win at Bos
07/25/2019, Stevie Wilkerson save at LAA#Birdland"

Stealing this Tweet/quote from @bobmc in another thread.

A little rant here...  I cannot stand when MLB uses the bolded disclaimer.  They do that fairly often.  For example, RBI weren't an official stat until 1920.  So according to MLB nobody had an official RBI until 1920.  They don't count RBI records before 1920.  By MLB orthodoxy Ty Cobb didn't lead the league with 127 RBI in 1911, because there were no RBI.

Same thing here.  Nobody had a save until 1969.  Except that Jerome Holtzman invented saves in 1959.  And the original Baseball Encyclopedia retroactively figured saves for essentially every single game going back to 1871.  But as far as Major League Baseball's official records go Hoyt Wilhelm had 30 career saves, not 228.

I mentioned in the Stevie Wilkerson thread that Jimmy Dykes had a game in late 1927 where he started in the field, then pitched the 9th inning of a 3-2 win.  On bb-ref he has a save. In The Baseball Encyclopedia he has a save.  on Fangraphs he has a save.  On the Baseball Cube he has a save.  But MLB and Stats Inc can Tweet with a straight face that this kind of thing never happened before last night.

It's awesome that Wilkerson got a save in a game where he played center field.  But it's happened before.

[jabba72]

Still remember the Chris Davis Win, almost like it was yesterday. 

[DrungoHazewood]

It's funny, Hoyt Wilhelm's plaque in the Hall in Cooperstown says he had 227 saves (modern sources say 228).  Even though all but 30 of them were before saves were official, and MLB says they don't really count.

[TonySoprano]

Good post.  I remember the articles about when "Pujols passed Babe Ruth on the RBI list" earlier this year.   https://www.mlb.com/news/albert-pujols-passes-babe-ruth-in-rbis   Pujols is actually 173 behind Ruth.  https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/RBI_career.shtml

[HowAboutThat]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

""Since 1969 (when saves became an official stat), there have been two AL position players to earn a win or a save in a game, and both were @Orioles:

05/06/2012, Chris Davis win at Bos
07/25/2019, Stevie Wilkerson save at LAA#Birdland"

Stealing this Tweet/quote from @bobmc in another thread.

A little rant here...  I cannot stand when MLB uses the bolded disclaimer.  They do that fairly often.  For example, RBI weren't an official stat until 1920.  So according to MLB nobody had an official RBI until 1920.  They don't count RBI records before 1920.  By MLB orthodoxy Ty Cobb didn't lead the league with 127 RBI in 1911, because there were no RBI.

Same thing here.  Nobody had a save until 1969.  Except that Jerome Holtzman invented saves in 1959.  And the original Baseball Encyclopedia retroactively figured saves for essentially every single game going back to 1871.  But as far as Major League Baseball's official records go Hoyt Wilhelm had 30 career saves, not 228.

I mentioned in the Stevie Wilkerson thread that Jimmy Dykes had a game in late 1927 where he started in the field, then pitched the 9th inning of a 3-2 win.  On bb-ref he has a save. In The Baseball Encyclopedia he has a save.  on Fangraphs he has a save.  On the Baseball Cube he has a save.  But MLB and Stats Inc can Tweet with a straight face that this kind of thing never happened before last night.

It's awesome that Wilkerson got a save in a game where he played center field.  But it's happened before.

Excellent post, and it continues today, when Manfred says, with a straight face, that they aren’t manipulating the baseballs.

[DrungoHazewood]

 

29 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

Good post.  I remember the articles about when "Pujols passed Babe Ruth on the RBI list" earlier this year.   https://www.mlb.com/news/albert-pujols-passes-babe-ruth-in-rbis   Pujols is actually 173 behind Ruth.  https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/RBI_career.shtml

By MLB.com Babe Ruth has 2213 RBI.  By bb-ref he has 2214.  By bb-ref Pujols has 2041.  By MLB.com Pujols has 2041.

They're not even internally consistent.

[BRobinsonfan]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

""Since 1969 (when saves became an official stat), there have been two AL position players to earn a win or a save in a game, and both were @Orioles:

05/06/2012, Chris Davis win at Bos
07/25/2019, Stevie Wilkerson save at LAA#Birdland"

Stealing this Tweet/quote from @bobmc in another thread.

A little rant here...  I cannot stand when MLB uses the bolded disclaimer.  They do that fairly often.  For example, RBI weren't an official stat until 1920.  So according to MLB nobody had an official RBI until 1920.  They don't count RBI records before 1920.  By MLB orthodoxy Ty Cobb didn't lead the league with 127 RBI in 1911, because there were no RBI.

Same thing here.  Nobody had a save until 1969.  Except that Jerome Holtzman invented saves in 1959.  And the original Baseball Encyclopedia retroactively figured saves for essentially every single game going back to 1871.  But as far as Major League Baseball's official records go Hoyt Wilhelm had 30 career saves, not 228.

I mentioned in the Stevie Wilkerson thread that Jimmy Dykes had a game in late 1927 where he started in the field, then pitched the 9th inning of a 3-2 win.  On bb-ref he has a save. In The Baseball Encyclopedia he has a save.  on Fangraphs he has a save.  On the Baseball Cube he has a save.  But MLB and Stats Inc can Tweet with a straight face that this kind of thing never happened before last night.

It's awesome that Wilkerson got a save in a game where he played center field.  But it's happened before.

I see what you're saying, but what if they just said "in the last 40 years" or "since 1969."  We have all kinds of discussions on here that qualify performance by things like "the dead ball era, pre-DH," etc.  I think the "stat" while meaningless (it's not like the O's are grooming non-pitchers to pitch in save situations) is still interesting in the way that most coincidences are interesting.  

 

[HowAboutThat]

Also very ironic that arguably the worst pitching performance of the game earned Scott the win.

 

[BRobinsonfan]

Just now, Philip said:

Also very ironic that arguably the worst pitching performance of the game earned Scott the win.

 

Yeah... underscores how meaningless the "w" stat can be.  

[Enjoy Terror]

48 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

Good post.  I remember the articles about when "Pujols passed Babe Ruth on the RBI list" earlier this year.   https://www.mlb.com/news/albert-pujols-passes-babe-ruth-in-rbis   Pujols is actually 173 behind Ruth.  https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/RBI_career.shtml

I'm actually shocked that A-Rod is #3 all-time and Barry Bonds didn't break 2000.

[jjnono]

In a media age when catching eyeballs and generating clicks is paramount to an outlet's existence (MLB, ESPN, BleacherReport, et al.), being able to scream in large letters "Sets a New Record," "First Ever to Achieve...," or "Worst Ever!" is one way to get those eyeballs and clicks.  It comes as NO surprise that the writers of those articles would jimmy stats -- without actually resorting to flat out prevarication -- to support their headlines...

First Position Player to Record a Save!

(since 1969)

[survivedc]

Don’t get the issue here...no position player has had a save from 1969 until last night with Wilkerson. 

I will note that RBI is a bit of a different stat than  the Save in that a position was specifically created/popularized for the Save around the time the stat was created. 

 

[HowAboutThat]

3 hours ago, jabba72 said:

Still remember the Chris Davis Win, almost like it was yesterday. 

That was a great season.

[Moose Milligan]

I hope I can get to meet and be friends with Drungo someday so I can see him yelling at kids to get off his lawn when he's an old man.

[ChrisP]

Wow...just Wow..

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlbvideos/steve-phillips-sounds-off-on-the-orioles-allowing-a-position-player-to-record-the-save/vi-AAEU94l?ocid=spartanntp