Markakis hits 500th double

[kidrock]

I didn't see a thread posted on here (maybe I missed it), but Nick now has 505 career doubles.  That's incredible.  I miss him on the O's alot.  Still wish Sabathia didn't hit him in the hand that year.

[Moose Milligan]

MLB section.

[Frobby]

 

[linedrive]

Quote

Very nice. I thought he was sitting out the season.

 

[Oriole1940]

Congrats Nick.  I know how much you are appreciated down here.

[Frobby]

I know this thread doesn’t really belong here, but since it exists, I’ll mention that the next double Nick hits, he’ll tie some guy named Babe Ruth at 506.

[Jagwar]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

I know this thread doesn’t really belong here, but since it exists, I’ll mention that the next double Nick hits, he’ll tie some guy named Babe Ruth at 506.

Babe would have had more, but he kept hitting them over the fence. 

[scOtt]

13 minutes ago, Jagwar said:

Babe would have had more, but he kept hitting them over the fence. 

Or stopping at 1B because he couldn't leg it out to 2nd.

[DrungoHazewood]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

I know this thread doesn’t really belong here, but since it exists, I’ll mention that the next double Nick hits, he’ll tie some guy named Babe Ruth at 506.

The career doubles list is a pretty crazy mix.  Obviously to get high on the list you have to have a long career.  But the quality is varied.  I pulled a list of everyone with 400+ doubles, which is the top 189 of all time.

There are a crapton (that's the official way to state it) of inner circle HOFers (or should be HOFers) led by Bonds, Ruth, Mays, Cobb, Aaron, Speaker, Wagner, Musial, Hornsby, etc.

But there are also some lesser lights like Dante Bichette (5.7 WAR career), Bill Buckner (15), Ruben Sierra (17), Joe Carter (20). 

Garret Anderson is 49th all time in doubles, one behind Willie Mays.  Johnny Damon is 50th.  Luis Gonzalez is 18th (!).  Gonzalez had 100 more doubles than Al Kaline. 

Rod Carew and Joe Morgan are behind Steve Finley and Carlos Lee.  Aramis Ramirez is tied with Frank Thomas.  Gary Gaetti had more doubles than Roberto Clemente, Eddie Collins, Tim Raines, or Mike Schmidt.

[murph]

4 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The career doubles list is a pretty crazy mix.  Obviously to get high on the list you have to have a long career.  But the quality is varied.  I pulled a list of everyone with 400+ doubles, which is the top 189 of all time.

There are a crapton (that's the official way to state it) of inner circle HOFers (or should be HOFers) led by Bonds, Ruth, Mays, Cobb, Aaron, Speaker, Wagner, Musial, Hornsby, etc.

But there are also some lesser lights like Dante Bichette (5.7 WAR career), Bill Buckner (15), Ruben Sierra (17), Joe Carter (20). 

Garret Anderson is 49th all time in doubles, one behind Willie Mays.  Johnny Damon is 50th.  Luis Gonzalez is 18th (!).  Gonzalez had 100 more doubles than Al Kaline. 

Rod Carew and Joe Morgan are behind Steve Finley and Carlos Lee.  Aramis Ramirez is tied with Frank Thomas.  Gary Gaetti had more doubles than Roberto Clemente, Eddie Collins, Tim Raines, or Mike Schmidt.

Wow (and I know we are taking this misplaced thread way off course, sorry) I thought maybe Drungo made a mistake.  I remember Bichette having some really big years, how could he only have 5.7war, thought you must have looked at just one year.   But, nope, that is correct.   I remember him not being that good defensively, but his dWar is impressive (impressively bad)!  

 

[DrungoHazewood]

Also, look at the career lines of Markakis and BJ Surhoff.  They're virtual twins right now.

34.4 career WAR
2129 vs 2313 games
9218 vs 9106 PA
1110 vs 1062 Runs
2367 vs 2326 hits
22 vs 42 triples
189 vs 188 homers
1037 vs 1153 RBI
884 vs 640 walks
79 vs 81 HBP
1213 vs 839 Ks
210 vs 169 GDP

In context the hitting is a bit off 110 OPS+ for Nick, 98 for Surhoff.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 minute ago, murph said:

Wow (and I know we are taking this misplaced thread way off course, sorry) I thought maybe Drungo made a mistake.  I remember Bichette having some really big years, how could he only have 5.7war, thought you must have looked at just one year.   But, nope, that is correct.   I remember him not being that good defensively, but his dWar is impressive (impressively bad)!  

 

Not only was Bichette seen as a very poor fielder, but almost all of his good years were in pre-humidor Denver, in Mile High Stadium.  The average OPS there in the late 90s was something like .850.  In 1997 he was a well below average player who slashed .308/.343/.510.  In 1998 he led the league in hits and hit .331 but was a 1-win player because he walked 28 times, grounded into 22 double plays, and the Rockies and their opponents scored 5.2 runs/game.

I've told this before, but Bichette had the craziest throw I've ever seen.  In a game against the O's in '91 or '92 the winning run was on third in the 9th.  Someone hit a long fly to right that Bichette caught on the edge of the warning track.  He took a step or two and winged it to the plate, it got to the plate about the same time as the runner. Only it was 25' over the catcher's head and hit the backstop on the fly.  O's win! (Tracer alert: I think I was off by a few years, it was probably this game in '89).

[murph]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Not only was Bichette seen as a very poor fielder, but almost all of his good years were in pre-humidor Denver, in Mile High Stadium.  The average OPS there in the late 90s was something like .850.  In 1997 he was a well below average player who slashed .308/.343/.510.  In 1998 he led the league in hits and hit .331 but was a 1-win player because he walked 28 times, grounded into 22 double plays, and the Rockies and their opponents scored 5.2 runs/game.

I've told this before, but Bichette had the craziest throw I've ever seen.  In a game against the O's in '91 or '92 the winning run was on third in the 9th.  Someone hit a long fly to right that Bichette caught on the edge of the warning track.  He took a step or two and winged it to the plate, it got to the plate about the same time as the runner. Only it was 25' over the catcher's head and hit the backstop on the fly.  O's win! (Tracer alert: I think I was off by a few years, it was probably this game in '89).

Looking at his dWar, I am surprised he even caught the ball, but the offensive context makes more sense now for the overall WAR as well.  Nice of him to help in the Why Not year.  

[DrungoHazewood]

31 minutes ago, murph said:

Nice of him to help in the Why Not year.  

I doubt Roberto Clemente could have thrown out the runner at the plate.  He had to be 360-370 feet from the plate when he caught the ball, going back.  And a 25-year-old Brady Anderson was running.

[Frobby]

Nice post, Drungo.   Of the 58 players ahead of Nick on the doubles list, 36 are in the Hall, 22 are not.    Of those 22, 3 are active (Pujols, Cabrera, Cano), 5 are not yet eligible (Beltran, Ortiz, Beltran, Rodriguez, Rollins), 3 have PED issues (Bonds, Palmeiro, Ramirez) and one has been excluded from eligibility (Rose).    That leaves 10 who aren’t Hall of Famers (yet) purely on their baseball merits:

Luis Gonzales 

Todd Helton 

Bobby Abreu

Jeff Kent

Al Oliver

Dave Parker

Garret Anderson

Johnny Damon

Scott Rolen

Mark Grace