Baseball Think Tank

I was farting around on www.baseball-reference the other night (for those not aware...that's pretty easy to do as baseball-reference.com is one of the best websites on the internet. From a numbers and history standpoint, it has everything).

A few things of interest...

--I was thinking during the all-star game of the best player to never make an all-star game. These were the top three that I came up with

Tim Salmon (hit 299 homeruns and won the 1993 AL rookie of the year)
Eric Karros (slugged 294 homeruns and won the 1992 NL rookie of the year)
Kirk Gibson (won the 1988 NL MVP and was MVP of the '84 ALCS)

The three best modern players (with at least five years of experience) to never make an all-star game would be...

Pat Burrell (OPS+ of 120) He might make one in the next year or so...probably should have made it this year.
Travis Hafner (OPS+ of 144) Kind of surprising that he didn't make one a few years ago and now I'm wondering if he ever will as he seems to be in an Andruw Jones decline.
Juan Pierre (.300 batting average) The favorite whipping boy of many baseball blogs probably won't ever make one.


--Cy Young has 759 complete games. Let me repeat that...759 complete games. That is UNBELIEVABLE. It seems that when baseball people talk about records that won't ever be broken (Dimaggio's hitting streak, Ripken's consectuve game streak, Cy Young's career win total) the career complete game total never gets mentioned. I'm telling you...it's the safest record...not just in baseball...but sports period. I don't see this record ever to be broken. Take this example...Greg Maddux is the highest active leader on the career complete list...and he comes in 355th place with a 109. He has started 727 games. So that means that he pitches a complete game 15% of the time. Cy Young started 815 games. He completed 92% of the games he started. I know baseball goes in cycles but there's just no way the game will ever be that pitching dominant in terms of a starter completing 90% of his games

--Speaking of Maddux...That last paragraph had some interesting numbers. Namely Cy Young has the most starts in baseball history with the aforementioned 814. Maddux has started 727 games...and that ranks fouth all time just behind Don Sutton (756) and Nolan Ryan (773). I'm having a hard time digesting that. This might be Maddux's last year so I'm been kind of depressed about that. But in actuality I should be looking on the bright side in that my favorite player has given me so much to already have watched. That makes me feel pretty fortunate. And he's had a helluva of a career so that makes it even better.