Two New Clubs That Don't Mean Much
by Asher B. Chancey, BaseballEvolution.com
November 1, 2007

There are two rather meaningless statistical accomplishment I keep up with because, for some reason, I latched onto them at some point and they fascinate me. One is the 100-plus club, in which a player gathers 100 more RBIs than homeruns, and the other is the Double Crown, in which a player leads his league in both homeruns and RBI.

Congratulations go out to Matt Holliday (36/137), Alex Rodriguez (54/156), and Magglio Ordonez (28/139) for joining the 100-plus club this season, and to A-Rod for winning the American League Double Crown (by a landslide).

There are two other statistical accomplishments I stumbled onto this season that I wanted to share. These are not nearly as rare, but just as fun!

The first accomplishment might measure a player’s true hitting ability by comparing the number of homeruns a player hit to the number of times that player struckout. If a player hits a lot of homeruns, but also strikes out a ton, then he is not a talented hitter, he is swinging for the fences a lot.

Without further ado, please join me in congratulating the

Players Who Struck Out 100 or more Time More than They Homered

Player	HR	Strikeouts	DIFF
Ryan Howard	47	199	152
Mike Cameron	21	160	139
Jack Cust	26	164	138
Dan Uggla	31	167	136
Brandon Inge	14	150	136
Grady Sizemore	24	155	131
B.J. Upton	24	154	130
Adam Dunn	40	165	125
Jhonny Peralta	21	146	125
Alex Gordon	15	137	122
Jason Bay	21	141	120
Mark Teahen	7	127	120
Curtis Granderson	23	141	118
Bill Hall	14	128	114
Delmon Young	13	127	114
Andruw Jones	26	138	112
Mark Reynolds	17	129	112
Adrian Gonzalez	30	140	110
Adam LaRoche	21	131	110
Jeff Francoeur	19	129	110
Chris Young	32	141	109
Nick Swisher	22	131	109
Jonny Gomes	17	126	109
Brad Hawpe	29	137	108
Miguel Olivo	16	123	107
Akinori Iwamura	7	114	107
Troy Tulowitzki	24	130	106
Casey Blake	18	123	105
Jason Varitek	17	122	105
Josh Fields	23	125	102
Chris Duncan	21	123	102
Craig Biggio	10	112	102
Khalil Greene	27	128	101
Ryan Zimmerman	24	125	101
Josh Willingham	21	122	101
Kelly Johnson	16	117	101
Carl Crawford	11	112	101
Rickie Weeks	16	116	100
Felipe Lopez	9	109	100

Hey, whaddya know? Another way for me to dog Craig Biggio!

If the “100 more strikeouts than homeruns” Club allows us to measure a player’s talent level, this next club may allow us to measure a player’s value level. Comparing a player's homeruns to his strikeouts measures that player's talent level. Hitting homeruns while constantly swinging for the fences, and thus frequently striking out, is rather common in baseball, whereas maintaining plate discipline and still hitting homeruns is quite rare. So, when talking about value, we will compare homeruns to bases on balls because, as we all know, “value” is the new synonym for “walks a lot.”

Without further ado, please clap along with me for the list of

Players Who Managed to Accumulate More Homeruns than Bases on Balls

Player	HR	Walks
Ryan Braun	34	29
Alfonso Soriano	33	31
Bengie Molina	19	15
Miguel Olivo	16	14
Marcus Thames	18	13
Ivan Rodriguez	11	9
Victor Diaz	9	1
Jason Smith	6	6
Chris Coste	5	4
Ben Francisco	3	3
Reggie Abercrombie	2	2
Micah Owings	4	2
Delwyn Young	2	2
Matt Cain	2	2
Freddie Bynum	2	2
Ronny Cedeno	4	3
Ramon Castro	11	10
Shelley Duncan	6	5
Victor Diaz	9	1
J.R. House	3	1
Juan Rivera	2	1
Mike Rivera	2	1
Brad Eldred	2	1
Brandon Backe	1	1
Noah Lowry	1	1
Yovani Gallardo	2	1
Justin Maxwell	2	1
Scott Moore	1	1
Ian Stewart	1	1
Luis Hernandez	1	1
Carlos Zambrano	2	0
Ryan Jorgensen	2	0
Chin-Lung Hu	2	0
Woody Williams	1	0
Jason Schmidt	1	0
Livan Hernandez	1	0
Kip Wells	1	0
Luis Rivas	1	0
Chad Moeller	1	0
Dustan Mohr	1	0
Freddy Guzman	1	0
Brayan Pena	1	0
Hong-Chih Kuo	1	0
Charlton Jimerson	1	0
Brandon Wood	1	0
Jeff Bailey	1	0
Wladimir Balentien	1	0

Obviously, for most of these guys very little can be determined from the small sample sizes. But a wag of the finger goes out to Ryan Braun and Alfonso Soriano – do better next year! We’ll be watching, because when it comes to meaningless statistical accomplishments, I am always on the lookout.

And I rarely let them go.




Questions? Concerns? Comments? Asher lives in Philadelphia, PA, and can be reached at asher@baseballevolution.com.