Saturday, June 23, 2007

Extra Base History

With the season rapidly approaching the halfway mark, Magglio Ordonez and Curtis Granderson are still chasing Extra Base Hit history. So today, I'll take a closer look at where they stand. In 73 games, Magglio Ordonez has 34 doubles. If we project that over 162 games, that comes out to 75 doubles. As Table 1 below shows, that would break the all time Major Leagure record set by Earl Webb of the Red Sox in 1931. So Ordonez is chasing a 76 year old record. When you consider that the single season home run record has been broken 4 times since 1931, the doubles record would be quite an accomplishment. Hank Greenberg holds the Tigers record with 63 in 1934.

Table 1: All-Time Single Season Doubles Leaders

Player

Team

Year

Doubles

Magglio Ordonez

DET

2007

75*

Earl Webb

BOS

1931

67

Joe Medwick

STL

1936

64

George Burns

CLE

1926

64

Hank Greenberg

DET

1934

63

*Projected over full season


Curtis Granderson is also chasing history. With 13 triples so far, he is on a pace for 29 triples over 162 games. That would not be a Major League record as Chief Wilson had 36 for the Pirates in 1912 (see Table 2). It would, however, be an American League record. The current American League record is held by Sam Crawford of the Tigers who had 26 in 1914. That's a 93 year old record! Given the smaller sizes of the parks in the modern era, this would be a very difficult record for anyone to break today. It would certainly be one worth national attention if he started getting close.

Table 2: All-Time Single Season Triples Leaders (since 1901)

Player

Team

Year

Triples

Chief Wilson

PIT

1912

36

Curtis Granderson

DET

2007

29*

Joe Jackson

CLE

1912

26

Sam Crawford

DET

1914

26

Kiki Cuyler

PIT

1925

26

*Projected over full season


Both Magglio and Curtis are also collecting a lot of extra base hits (EBH) of all kinds and are on pace for the Tigers all-time record. Ordonez has 47 EBH hits which puts him on a pace for 104 for a full season. Granderson has 44 which projects to 98 over a full season. Neither mark would challenge the all-time record of 119 set by Babe Ruth in 1921 (see Table 3). However, Ordonez would break the all-time Tigers record of 99 posted by Hank Greenberg in 1940.


Table 3: All-Time Single Season Extra Base Hit Leaders

Player

Team

Year

EBH

Babe Ruth

NYY

1921

119

Lou Gehrig

NYY

1927

117

Chuck Klein

PHA

1930

107

Barry Bonds

SF

2001

107

Todd Helton

COL

2001

105

Magglio Ordonez

DET

2007

104*

Hank Greenberg (Tigers Record)

DET

1940

99

*Projected over full season

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 27, 2007

    Granderson's more likely going to hit about 20-24 triples.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Devon,

    There is no question that 26 triples will be difficult. You can't really project triples because a player doesn't have that much control over how many triples he gets. Granderson could stay stuck at 16 the rest of the season and still have a great season because he gets doubles and homers instead.

    Lee

    ReplyDelete

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