Putting Hitting Streaks in Perspective, Again

Back in July of 2013, I put together a little bit of research to put Michael Cuddyer’s 27-game hitting streak into perspective. I had been quite critical of Mr. Cuddyer at that time, and it only seemed fair to show him a little love. At the time, I mentioned that I might look into some more hitting streak data in the near future. Turns out the “near future” was three years later. Spurred on by the recent hitting streaks from the killer B’s on a swarm — Jackie Bradley Jr. and Xander Bogaerts — I thought I’d wade back in.

First, as I mentioned last time, a couple of ground rules. I don’t count streaks that span two seasons. I don’t like doing it, and you can’t make me. Second, there are some streaks that took place from the time before we have game logs. When I first conducted this research, the earliest season for which we had game logs was 1916; now it’s 1913. Fortunately, for the sake of convenience, no relevant hitting streaks occurred during 1913-1915, so we’re not getting any new information in that respect.

We are getting some other new information, though. For instance, Baseball-Reference has WPA calculated further back than they did before, so where before we didn’t know the WPA of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak, now we do have that figure. We also have a few more years of streaks in the mix. The cut-off for WPA data now seems to be 1930, though there was one streak from 1943 for which WPA information appears unavailable.

Most importantly — and with some very gracious data assistance from Hans Van Slooten at Sports-Reference — I have added streaks of 25 games or more now, instead of just 30 All told, we have 141 streaks, counting Bradley’s and Bogaerts’ contributions. I ranked them, as I did last time, by wRAA, and I used the same method as last time, calculating wOBA and wRAA via the constants on the Guts! page, though the FanGraphs game logs helped for the years we have them. We don’t really quote wRAA too much around here, so if you need the refresher, click this hot internet link.

25+ Game Hitting Streaks by wRAA, 1913-2016

Player	Games	Year	BA	OBP	SLG	WPA	wOBA	wRAA
Joe DiMaggio	56	1941	0.408	0.463	0.717	4.07	0.528	36.7
Babe Ruth	26	1921	0.483	0.610	1.045		0.682	32.0
Rogers Hornsby	33	1922	0.466	0.494	0.808		0.573	28.8
Tommy Holmes	37	1945	0.423	0.494	0.699	1.38	0.550	28.7
Ty Cobb	35	1917	0.464	0.516	0.754		0.593	28.7
Paul Molitor	39	1987	0.415	0.495	0.683	2.22	0.501	27.9
Chuck Klein	26	1930	0.486	0.521	0.908	1.44	0.606	26.9
Wade Boggs	25	1987	0.458	0.563	0.698	1.44	0.576	24.9
Al Simmons	27	1931	0.453	0.488	0.846	2.76	0.586	24.7
Chuck Klein	25	1929	0.467	0.504	0.916		0.606	24.6
Rico Carty	31	1970	0.451	0.530	0.743	1.50	0.554	24.4
George Brett	30	1980	0.467	0.504	0.746	2.70	0.544	24.0
George Sisler	41	1922	0.454	0.489	0.615		0.501	23.7
Duke Snider	27	1953	0.450	0.508	0.780	2.22	0.566	22.7
Dan Uggla	33	2011	0.377	0.438	0.762	1.51	0.510	22.4
Chase Utley	35	2006	0.405	0.452	0.699	1.99	0.483	21.7
Edwin Encarnacion	26	2015	0.412	0.474	0.876	1.58	0.547	21.3
John Olerud	26	1993	0.435	0.530	0.837	1.38	0.552	21.2
Jackie Bradley Jr.	29	2016	0.415	0.488	0.783	1.61	0.524	20.4
George Sisler	25	1920	0.447	0.486	0.796		0.578	20.3
Pete Fox	29	1935	0.409	0.455	0.705	0.85	0.510	20.2
Ian Kinsler	25	2008	0.425	0.508	0.717	1.79	0.520	19.9
Albert Pujols	30	2003	0.390	0.471	0.712	2.61	0.501	19.7
Ken Williams	28	1922	0.405	0.459	0.784		0.542	19.3
Hal Trosky	28	1936	0.413	0.435	0.762	1.09	0.522	19.0
Dustin Pedroia	25	2011	0.404	0.459	0.752	1.69	0.511	18.9
Vladimir Guerrero	31	1999	0.386	0.431	0.756	2.07	0.499	18.8
Bob Johnson	26	1938	0.425	0.465	0.755	0.42	0.545	18.7
Jimmy Rollins	36	2005	0.379	0.442	0.602	0.90	0.443	17.7
Luis Gonzalez	30	1999	0.400	0.466	0.696	1.72	0.492	17.5
Eric Davis	30	1998	0.400	0.430	0.708	1.90	0.478	17.4
Hank Aaron	25	1956	0.407	0.439	0.759	1.06	0.515	17.1
George McQuinn	34	1938	0.386	0.457	0.572	-0.11	0.467	16.8
Ron Santo	28	1966	0.386	0.466	0.673	1.61	0.490	16.7
Joe Gordon	29	1942	0.429	0.471	0.634	1.71	0.513	16.5
Tillie Walker	27	1914	0.433	0.485	0.711		0.553	16.5
Roger Peckinpaugh	29	1919	0.436	0.483	0.600		0.509	16.3
Shawn Green	28	1999	0.366	0.434	0.750	0.81	0.487	16.3
Bill Lamar	25	1925	0.476	0.496	0.587		0.495	16.1
Ryan Zimmerman	30	2009	0.382	0.427	0.649	1.44	0.465	16.1
Tris Speaker	27	1916	0.449	0.526	0.571		0.519	15.8
Mike Sweeney	25	1999	0.412	0.474	0.706	0.98	0.501	15.8
Chuck Klein	26	1930	0.434	0.458	0.708	0.78	0.503	15.7
Nomar Garciaparra	30	1997	0.383	0.407	0.652	2.57	0.457	15.6
Rowland Office	29	1976	0.408	0.461	0.560	1.51	0.463	15.2
Hack Wilson	27	1929	0.393	0.458	0.673		0.496	15.2
Jack Clark	26	1978	0.368	0.420	0.689	1.98	0.487	15.2
Jose Offerman	27	1998	0.437	0.517	0.583	1.11	0.483	15.2
Stan Musial	30	1950	0.388	0.435	0.661	0.91	0.488	15.2
Goose Goslin	30	1934	0.376	0.443	0.616	0.70	0.472	15.0
Gee Walker	27	1937	0.420	0.463	0.643	0.99	0.495	14.9
Pete Rose	25	1967	0.390	0.453	0.600	0.90	0.475	14.9
Kevin Millar	25	2002	0.441	0.463	0.696	1.19	0.493	14.9
Manny Ramirez	27	2006	0.400	0.454	0.720	1.08	0.477	14.8
Sam Rice	29	1920	0.447	0.484	0.570		0.490	14.4
Kenny Lofton	26	2003	0.406	0.471	0.623	1.11	0.470	14.4
Heinie Manush	26	1933	0.440	0.462	0.568	0.87	0.471	14.2
George Metkovich	25	1944	0.407	0.422	0.655	1.23	0.494	14.2
Andre Ethier	30	2011	0.397	0.462	0.560	1.62	0.453	14.1
Hank Aaron	25	1962	0.372	0.454	0.617	1.10	0.487	14.1
Harvey Kendrick	25	1929	0.441	0.495	0.656		0.512	14.0
Willie Davis	31	1969	0.435	0.463	0.532	1.79	0.450	13.7
Sandy Alomar, Jr.	30	1997	0.422	0.455	0.595	1.33	0.462	13.5
Lou Brock	26	1971	0.429	0.471	0.554	0.90	0.462	13.5
Moises Alou	30	2007	0.403	0.445	0.588	0.59	0.455	13.4
Wade Boggs	28	1985	0.402	0.481	0.527	1.49	0.449	13.3
Jason Giambi	25	1997	0.409	0.451	0.699	1.61	0.488	13.3
Clyde Barnhart	25	1925	0.420	0.487	0.600		0.491	13.1
Bing Miller	28	1929	0.406	0.462	0.623		0.481	13.1
Freddie Lindstrom	25	1933	0.431	0.448	0.627	1.80	0.487	12.9
George Sisler	26	1917	0.422	0.473	0.520		0.474	12.6
Zack Wheat	29	1916	0.379	0.400	0.586		0.468	12.5
Garret Anderson	28	1998	0.405	0.435	0.629	1.06	0.452	12.5
Paul Lo Duca	25	2003	0.422	0.449	0.637	0.70	0.466	12.5
Pete Rose	44	1978	0.385	0.421	0.462	1.31	0.400	12.3
Guy Curtright	26	1943	0.410	0.466	0.524		0.467	11.9
Zack Wheat	26	1918	0.444	0.459	0.528		0.476	11.8
Albert Belle	27	1997	0.346	0.407	0.645	0.95	0.446	11.7
Ken Landreaux	31	1980	0.392	0.445	0.496	1.21	0.428	11.6
Ken Boyer	29	1959	0.350	0.389	0.607	1.43	0.435	11.5
Rube Bressler	25	1927	0.406	0.447	0.585		0.468	11.5
Michael Young	25	2005	0.392	0.447	0.598	1.59	0.448	11.5
Xander Bogaerts	26	2016	0.385	0.419	0.581	0.92	0.429	11.4
Joe Medwick	27	1942	0.402	0.439	0.533	1.14	0.461	11.2
Gabe Kapler	28	2000	0.375	0.408	0.652	0.92	0.446	11.1
Jose Reyes	26	2012	0.365	0.405	0.625	1.06	0.436	11.0
Steve Sax	25	1986	0.406	0.457	0.528	1.43	0.439	10.9
Sam Rice	31	1924	0.402	0.448	0.500		0.440	10.9
Lance Johnson	25	1992	0.439	0.477	0.510	2.27	0.449	10.7
Harry Walker	29	1943	0.404	0.438	0.491	0.03	0.439	10.6
Nomar Garciaparra	26	2003	0.373	0.397	0.645	1.20	0.433	10.6
Casey Blake	26	2007	0.317	0.413	0.606	0.31	0.435	10.6
Marquis Grissom	28	1996	0.386	0.426	0.559	1.03	0.425	10.5
Michael Cuddyer	27	2013	0.372	0.400	0.575	0.69	0.423	10.5
Edd Roush	27	1920	0.404	0.429	0.535		0.448	10.3
Derek Jeter	25	2006	0.377	0.451	0.538	1.37	0.429	10.2
Luis Castillo	35	2002	0.403	0.436	0.468	1.81	0.401	10.2
Rod Carew	25	1982	0.414	0.459	0.495	0.50	0.435	10.1
Dom DiMaggio	34	1949	0.340	0.418	0.487	0.63	0.420	10.1
Bob Dillinger	28	1948	0.395	0.436	0.500	0.52	0.434	9.9
Scott Rolen	25	2009	0.390	0.430	0.571	0.99	0.434	9.9
Heinie Manush	33	1933	0.362	0.413	0.486	0.79	0.414	9.8
Brian Harper	25	1990	0.384	0.415	0.566	0.94	0.438	9.7
Red Schoendienst	28	1954	0.387	0.422	0.524	0.42	0.425	9.6
Earle Combs	29	1931	0.371	0.417	0.486	0.51	0.417	9.5
Dom DiMaggio	27	1951	0.403	0.434	0.481	0.91	0.422	9.1
Joe Medwick	28	1935	0.358	0.384	0.583	1.16	0.430	9.1
Hack Wilson	25	1927	0.350	0.391	0.612		0.447	9.0
Ichiro Suzuki	27	2009	0.398	0.432	0.542	0.27	0.415	9.0
John Flaherty	27	1996	0.375	0.393	0.607	1.24	0.425	8.9
Emilio Bonifacio	26	2011	0.390	0.479	0.430	0.86	0.411	8.9
Nolan Arenado	28	2014	0.360	0.383	0.568	1.44	0.407	8.9
Sam Rice	28	1930	0.390	0.442	0.517	0.44	0.432	8.8
Ichiro Suzuki	25	2007	0.411	0.445	0.500	0.35	0.416	8.5
Edd Roush	27	1924	0.400	0.429	0.540		0.444	8.4
Denard Span	29	2013	0.371	0.406	0.492	1.17	0.392	8.3
John Stone	26	1930	0.384	0.425	0.586	-0.05	0.442	8.3
Luke Appling	27	1936	0.350	0.449	0.470	0.56	0.432	8.2
Benito Santiago	34	1987	0.346	0.360	0.559	0.35	0.397	8.2
Johnny Damon	29	2005	0.348	0.386	0.530	-0.26	0.395	8.0
Vladimir Guerrero	26	2002	0.363	0.420	0.539	0.84	0.413	8.0
Johnny Pesky	26	1947	0.402	0.434	0.486	0.55	0.425	8.0
Buzz Boyle	25	1934	0.345	0.406	0.517	0.94	0.418	7.9
Jeff Kent	25	2004	0.359	0.415	0.576	0.65	0.418	7.9
Goose Goslin	25	1928	0.350	0.409	0.540		0.430	7.7
Glenn Beckert	27	1968	0.362	0.393	0.448	1.59	0.382	7.5
Heinie Manush	27	1930	0.395	0.425	0.509	0.02	0.423	7.3
Mel Almada	29	1938	0.372	0.413	0.465	0.39	0.406	7.0
Willie Davis	25	1971	0.398	0.405	0.463	1.01	0.391	6.6
Dale Alexander	29	1930	0.339	0.375	0.579	0.52	0.412	6.6
Victor Martinez	25	2009	0.358	0.425	0.484	0.25	0.403	6.5
Glenn Beckert	26	1973	0.355	0.407	0.439	0.46	0.385	5.9
Carlos Lee	28	2004	0.369	0.400	0.484	-0.24	0.382	5.7
Tony Gwynn	25	1983	0.361	0.411	0.412	0.39	0.381	5.2
Ron LeFlore	27	1978	0.311	0.354	0.445	0.58	0.369	4.8
Jerome Walton	30	1989	0.338	0.352	0.449	1.54	0.357	4.7
Willy Taveras	30	2006	0.349	0.404	0.426	0.66	0.370	4.6
Bruce Campbell	27	1938	0.304	0.344	0.513	0.07	0.383	4.2
Shannon Stewart	26	1999	0.342	0.397	0.447	0.01	0.376	3.9
Danny O’Connell	26	1953	0.356	0.382	0.424	-0.04	0.368	3.2
Joe McEwing	25	1999	0.318	0.350	0.436	-0.51	0.345	0.5

As you can see, Bradley’s streak was the real deal, and Bogaerts was getting there before he walked his way out of his streak on Friday night. Bogaerts walked twice in that game against Toronto, and was ready to take a third in his final chance in the ninth inning — he started walking to first after taking a 3-0 offering that was called a strike — before eventually striking out to end the streak. Still, his streak was respectable.

When I decided to go back and put all the single-season 25-game (or better) streaks into the mix, I wondered how many would stack up well with the 30-game (or better) streaks I had already examined. The answer was plenty. Five of the top 10 now are streaks I just added. Four of them — Chuck Klein, Wade Boggs, Al Simmons and Klein again — are at the bottom of the top 10. And then there is Babe Ruth, who as you can see trounces everyone but DiMaggio.

In 1921, Ruth was at the height of his powers. His 13.9 WAR that season would be the second-best mark of his career, and one of three seasons in which he posted 13 WAR or better. He whomped 59 homers, walked in 20.9% of his plate appearances while only striking out in 11.7% of them. And he slugged .846, which was the second-best mark of his career (he had slugged .849 the previous year). There was no Most Valuable Player Award that season, though he surely would have won it.

We should also talk about Klein for a second. His induction into the Hall of Fame is often pointed to as an example of Veteran’s Committee foolishness, and looking at his relatively paltry 42.8 WAR, you can see why. But the man could definitely hit. In the first six seasons of his career, his worst wRC+ was the 142 wRC+ he produced in his rookie season of 1928. He appears three times here, tied for the most of anyone on the list — George Sisler, Heinie Manush and Sam Rice also appear three times. Here’s a table of all the repeat performers.

Players With Multiple 25+ Game Hitting Streaks, MLB History

Player	#	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3
George Sisler	3	1917	1920	1922
Sam Rice	3	1920	1924	1930
Chuck Klein	3	1929	1930	1930
Heinie Manush	3	1930	1933	1933
Zack Wheat	2	1916	1918
Edd Roush	2	1920	1924
Hack Wilson	2	1927	1929
Goose Goslin	2	1928	1934
Joe Medwick	2	1935	1942
Dom DiMaggio	2	1949	1951
Hank Aaron	2	1956	1962
Pete Rose	2	1967	1978
Glenn Beckert	2	1968	1973
Willie Davis	2	1969	1971
Wade Boggs	2	1985	1987
Nomar Garciaparra	2	1997	2003
Vladimir Guerrero	2	1999	2002
Ichiro Suzuki	2	2007	2009

Klein and Manush are of particular interest to me because they’re the only ones to pull this off twice in the same season. DiMaggio’s feat is obviously the most impressive, but it’s just slightly less impressive to pull this off twice in the same season. Manush had roughly a month separation for his two in 1933, as his went from May 25th to June 23rd, and then July 22nd to August 25th. Klein had a little less than that: in 1930, he went streaking from May 18th to June 17th, and then July 12th to August 3rd. To pick up the pieces of your streak a month or less later and go on another one strikes me as remarkably difficult mentally. Interestingly, Manush and Klein would streak together during 1930. Klein’s May 18-June 17 streak would overlap with Manush, whose 1930 streak started a week later on May 25th and ended on June 23rd. Crazy, right?

Of course, while those feats are impressive, they didn’t come in the Integrated Era. Here are the top 10 streaks from just the Integrated Era:

Best 25+ Game Hitting Streaks, 1947-Present

Player	Games	Year	BA	OBP	SLG	WPA	wOBA	wRAA
Paul Molitor	39	1987	0.415	0.495	0.683	2.22	0.501	27.9
Wade Boggs	25	1987	0.458	0.563	0.698	1.44	0.576	24.9
Rico Carty	31	1970	0.451	0.530	0.743	1.50	0.554	24.4
George Brett	30	1980	0.467	0.504	0.746	2.70	0.544	24.0
Duke Snider	27	1953	0.450	0.508	0.780	2.22	0.566	22.7
Dan Uggla	33	2011	0.377	0.438	0.762	1.51	0.510	22.4
Chase Utley	35	2006	0.405	0.452	0.699	1.99	0.483	21.7
Edwin Encarnacion	26	2015	0.412	0.474	0.876	1.58	0.547	21.3
John Olerud	26	1993	0.435	0.530	0.837	1.38	0.552	21.2
Jackie Bradley Jr.	29	2016	0.415	0.488	0.783	1.61	0.524	20.4

Again, just half of the streaks are 30-plus gamers. Also, you’ll see that Bradley’s streak squeezes onto the list. Bradley really was a house afire. Also, we probably should have talked more about Edwin Encarnacion’s streak last season.

Here’s one more, a look at streaks by decade.

25+ Game Hitting Streaks, By Decade/Era

Period	#
1910s	7
1920s	18
1930s	22
1940s	10
1950s	7
1960s	5
1970s	8
1980s	10
1990s	18
2000s	25
2010s	11
Pre-Integration (1913-1946)	54
Integration (1947-2016)	87
Free-Agent Era (1975-2016)	68

1913-present

Ultimately, hitting streaks are fun oddities, as Corinne Landrey characterized them in last Thursday’s FanGraphs newsletter. They don’t mean much in the larger context of who was great in baseball history. Some of them weren’t even that meaningful as they happened. Consider: of the 115 streaks for which we have win-probability data, six of them produced a negative WPA.

While these streaks don’t mean as much in a larger context, they are memorable, and tracking them is great fun. It’s fun to watch players when they’re so hot, and when the streaks end, you feel like a tiny part of you dies with it. If you polled Red Sox fans who watched Bogaerts make the final out Friday night, there were probably just as many sad that his hitting streak ended as there were those who were sad because it meant the team lost the actual game. The same is definitely true of Bradley’s streak. The night it ended, the game was over by the fifth inning, but people stuck around to see if Bradley could keep his streak going.

I was one of them. Watching from the bleachers, you could feel the palpable excitement as the Sox nearly rallied to get Bradley one last shot in the ninth, and when Mookie Betts squibbed a ball to first base to end the game with Bradley standing harmlessly in the on-deck circle, it was crushing. “You know Bradley would have got a hit if he’d gotten one last chance,” we all mumbled as we filed out of Fenway. “He’s been so hot.”