lineups

Youngest, Oldest, Most Frequent Opening Day Starters

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With Opening Day just a couple of days away, the VORG gives you the oldest and youngest players to ever start an Opening Day game, as well as the record holders for most Opening Day starts. YOUNGEST OPENING DAY STARTERS – BY POSITION 1913-2016 POS Player Age Date Tm Opp 1B Ed Kranepool 20.155 4/12/1965 … Read more

Infield Quartets with Most Games Started

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Last time out I discussed the outfield trios with the most games started, inspired by the infield foursome of Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey. I decided to go further down the infielders rabbit hole by seeing who that Dodger group topped in terms of most games started. Here are the top ten foursomes, with their … Read more

The Outfield Equivalent of Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey

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Recently, I was thinking about the 1970s Dodgers infield of Davey Lopes, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and Bill Russell. They famously played together longer than any other infield foursome (833 games). It got me wondering what trio of outfielders started the most games together, both in specific outfield slots and as a general trio regardless … Read more

New Day, Opposing Pitcher with Same Last Name

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From the Twitterverse on Thursday. It started innocently enough:

… which led to:

So, using the Retrosheet game logs, it turns out that the same team has faced two different pitchers with the same last name in consecutive games nearly 200 times between 1914 and 2015! Of course there are brother combinations in there, like the Perrys, Niekros and Deans, but there are quite a few more without a familial link. Here they are, in team-by-team order:

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Youngest and Oldest Starting Lineup

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September is here, and with that comes a flood of baby-faced rookies getting their first taste of “The Show.” Lineups for some teams start to resemble Spring Training tilts, or Triple-A All-Star games. There is youth all around. The VORG wondered what team put together the youngest lineup ever based on average age on the … Read more

Kings of Particular Spots in the Batting Order

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The Retrosheet gamelogs contain a wealth of information, including full starting lineups for over 170,000 games in MLB history. Using these files, the VORG has determined the top three players for most games started from each slot in the batting order.

Some highlights:

  • Rickey Henderson started 2,890 games in his Hall of Fame career, and not surprisingly 99.5% of those games saw him batting leadoff. His next highest count? He batted third eight times.
  • Charlie Grimm is the only player to finish in the top three at two different slots (6th, 7th). These accounted for 88% of his total games started.
  • Ken Griffey, Sr. batted third a mere 239 times, roughly 1/8th Junior’s total. Griffey Sr. batted second most often.
1ST Frequency
Rickey Henderson 2875
Pete Rose 2300
Lou Brock 1893
2ND Frequency
Nellie Fox 1711
Omar Vizquel 1570
Ozzie Smith 1529
3RD Frequency
Stan Musial 2253
Ken Griffey, Jr. 2014
Carl Yastrzemski 1978
4TH Frequency
Eddie Murray 2038
Fred McGriff 1825
Willie McCovey 1607
5TH Frequency
Harry Heilmann 1275
Ernie Banks 976
Robin Ventura 918
6TH Frequency
Charlie Grimm 892
Graig Nettles 832
Travis Jackson 789
7TH Frequency
Charlie Grimm 976
Everett Scott 894
Jimmy Dykes 768
8TH Frequency
Al Lopez 1363
Jim Hegan 1317
Ray Schalk 1207
9TH Frequency
Ozzie Guillen 1095
Gary Disarcina 853
Bucky Dent 826

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The VORG’s Valentine’s Day Gift to You

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Sunday of course is Valentine’s Day, and many of your favorite baseball sites will undoubtedly be doing something “love-related”, like theme teams, or baseball-oriented Valentine’s cards. Here at the VORG, we like to think of “baseball love” in terms of partnerships. We admire those great double-play combos, and we’ve written about the most frequent batterymates. … Read more

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