Today with a single and a home run Derek Jeter got his 2999th and 3000th hits, joining a group of just 27 other players to do so. Jeter is the fourth youngest player to reach the mark, having turned 37 on June 26th. Ty Cobb did it as a 34-year old while Hank Aaron and Robin Yount as 36-year olds. Pete Rose got his 3000th hit at age 37 and 21 days, a few days older than Jeter. Inspired by Steve’s HR-pace graph — and this great New York Times career-HR pace graph — I wanted to see how Jeter’s hit pace compares to the other members of the 3000-hit club.

Below is a graph showing hits accumulated by seasonal age. The graph is interactive, so that you can hover over and click on the names at the left to compare the pace of different players. It is a canvas element so it only works in modern browsers (i.e., no IE8 or older). Here is a sample image if it doesn’t work on your browser.

The age is seasonal age not actual age. So in the graph Tris Speaker and Stan Musial get to 3000 hits faster because they did it sooner in their age-37 season even though they were older when it happened. The data come from Retrosheet. Where available it is daily, but for pre-1918 seasons it is just yearly (see Ty Cobb for an example of yearly versus daily data).

Looking at Jeter you can see he got a relatively late start, but then he accumulated hits at a very good clip. By 30 he had more hits than most of the 3000-hit club members did at that age. Since then he hasn’t slowed down as much as most, and he is way ahead of the pack for his age. Given his legend-like status and contract through the 2014 season (with the player option) — even with his talents diminished — he should get a good number more plate appearances before he retires. He should almost surely move into the top ten (by passing Eddie Collins at 3315 hits) and maybe the top five (by passing Tris Speaker at 3514 hits). Until then congratulations to a guy who has already had a great career.

Consider Alex Remington’s excellent pieces on Kim Ng and Justine Siegal and Marisa Ingemi and Kate Sargeant my preamble.

On April 2, 1931, a 17-year-old girl struck out two of the greatest hitters in baseball history. Jackie Mitchell struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig swinging and then walked Tony Lazzeri. Shortly thereafter, baseball’s then-commissioner and all-around inflexible gentleman, Kenesaw Landis, disallowed Mitchell’s contract, ending her tenure with the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts.

By all accounts, Mitchell threw one pitch throughout her career — a “dropball” or sinker, reportedly taught to her by Hall-of-Famer Dazzy Vance. Despite her incredibly young age, she located the pitch effectively and worked as a middle-reliever during her career (which included chiefly independent league and barnstorming appearances following her departure from MiLB).

Babe Ruth, physiologist extraordinaire, remarked after the game:

I don’t know what’s going to happen if they begin to let women in baseball. Of course, they will never make good. Why? Because they are too delicate. It would kill them to play ball every day.

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A few weeks ago, we looked at a few of the arms who might be available for mid-season trades, and it wasn’t exactly a list of Cy Young candidates. Jason Marquis, Kevin Slowey, Jeremy Guthrie… useful pitchers all, but not exactly the kind of sexy addition that a team looking to make a big time push for the World Series is dreaming of. Looking around the league, there just didn’t seem to be any high quality arms with front-line starter upside who would be on the market this summer.

But then, June happened to the Marlins. After looking like a surprising contender in April and May, they’ve gone 3-22 in June, changed managers, and are now 14 1/2 games behind the first place Phillies. Even their Wild Card hopes seem long gone, as they stand 10 games back of the Braves and would have to leapfrog over 10 teams to claim the consolation playoff berth. The 2011 Marlins are going to be also-rans, and that puts a pitcher on the market who could change a lot of playoff races.

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NOTE: This data may not include every player, only those with recorded heights.

In my two recent articles, concerning little people in baseball and east Asians in baseball, many commentors got hung up on the height issues.

“What about just short people?” said some. “Maybe they are a present inefficiency? Why do you keep ignoring short people!?”

Others asked: “How do you expect China to produce legitimate talent? I watch Southpark. I know that Chinese people are too short for baseball.”

Well, okay, let’s explore these issues.

Chinese People Are Too Short to Play Baseball
This is wrong. And not just racistly, but legitimately too.

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Observe, if you will, the following WAR leaderboard, covering from the beginning of the 2010 season to the current date.

There, in 12th place amongst all position players, sits New York Yankees left fielder Brett Gardner. His total of 9.2 is closer to fifth place then it is to 13th place. Perhaps he hasn’t done it in the traditional way — blasting the ball across the ballpark and hitting his way into the hearts and minds of baseball fans — but there should be little doubt. Brett Gardner is one of baseball’s elite.

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The Milwaukee Brewers’ “all in” offseason, during which they traded a good chunk of young talent (including some of their best prospects like Brett Lawrie and Jake Odorizzi) to dramatically improve their pitching staff, seems to be working. New Brewers Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke are dominating so far (although it hasn’t shown in Greinke’s ERA), and Milwaukee is currently in first place in the National League Central. However, as part of the price for acquiring Greinke from the Royals, the Brewers had to take on shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt. Betancourt has somehow been even worse than the Brewers might have expected (perhaps he’s the victim of a curse), and is at -0.5 WAR so far. Betancourt isn’t hitting, and he has only exacerbated the Brewers problems in the field. The Brewers are in the divisional lead, as mentioned, but some might doubt whether the Brewers can make the playoffs with Betancourt playing like, well, Betancourt. What does history tell us about replacement level players and playoff teams?

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Source: The Washington Post

Consider this: The MLB’s opening day rosters were 72.3% America-born and, therefore, 27.7% foreign-born. Moreover, my diligent Googling skillz have suggested that 42 million Americans play baseball — recreationally, collegiately, high schoolally, professionally, or otherwise. So, that is 7 out of every 10 MLB players coming from a stock of 13.4% of Americans (24 42 million players / 313 million Americans).

In other words, the pool for American baseball talent is large and well-tapped (because it fills the most roster spots). High school and college teams have done an excellent job of vetting young American talent, ensuring that only the best reach the minors — and then the best of the best reach the majors. Despite this considerable pool of American talent, the teams that want an edge know they cannot let the local talent satisfy their needs. Enter: East Asia.
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Since FanGraphs introduced sortable Major League Leaderboards that cover multiple positions and seasons, it’s been much easier to compare players who played in different eras. It’s also useful for settling debates, such as “who is the greatest _____ of all time.” All you have to do is look up the position and set the years, and you’ve won bragging rights over all your baseball friends. Well, if you’ve spent some time looking at the leaderboards lately, you may have noticed a significant change, particularly at third base. Very recently, Alex Rodriguez passed Mike Schmidt in career WAR; meaning you could make the argument that A-Rod is now the best third baseman of all time. Rodriguez is one of the more polarizing athletes in the sport, so let’s explore whether he deserves this title.

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Every season, there’s always one thing in demand at the trade deadline — starting pitching. Nearly every contender outside of Philadelphia is in the hunt for another rotation arm, and the demand always outstrips the supply. While there’s no Cliff Lee on the block this year, there are still some interesting arms who could make a difference down the stretch. Here are the best candidates:

PLAYER: Edwin Jackson
TEAM: White Sox
POSSIBLE DESTINATION(S): Yankees, Red Sox, Reds
CONTRACT STATUS: $8.35 million, free agent at end of year
PROJECTED WAR: 1.8

The White Sox might end up trading Jackson even if they get back in the race for the AL Central title, as they currently have six starting pitchers for just five slots. Jackson is no stranger to changing teams, as he’s been dealt by Los Angeles, Tampa Bay, Detroit, and Arizona since arriving in the Major Leagues. Given the White Sox surplus of arms and his impending free agency, he’s a good bet to be packing his bags once again.

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The Yankees have a problem with their offense, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at the aggregate numbers. They not only lead the AL in scoring, but they are the only team that has scored more than five runs per game. Their lead over the next closest team is nearly a third of a run. Their team .345 wOBA leads the majors, and even with a park adjustment their 117 wRC+ leads as well. They are the only team that has three players with double-digit home runs, and two of those players rank in the top four. Pick any offensive measure and they’re sure to grade out at or near the top. So where’s the problem? Strangely enough, it involves the one position reserved solely for hitters.

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