Saturday, February 11, 2023

The TOP 600 HALF-SEASONS/7: THE "THREE-PEATERS"

We continue "up the food chain" within our Top 600 half-season data set; we're now focusing on those who produced more than one appearance on the list (with a side focus on the percentage of such hitters who've been inducted into the Hall of Fame).

Keeping count as we press upward: of the hitters who made it onto the list once, 23% of those players are in the Hall of Fame (not counting active players). As we noted at the conclusion of our last post, 31% of the hitters with two appearances on the list have been inducted (though it goes up over a third when we remove several folk who are still active--Aaron Judge, Christian Yelich, Bryce Harper, J.D. Martinez). 

Now we move up one more notch--the hitters appearing in the Top 600 three times:






We can see immediately that we've got a higher correlation to the HOF with this "gang of five" (from the early years, 1900-1931). The only hitter not enshrined is Benny Kauff, whose high-flying years were in the short-lived Federal League and whose career was cut short by scandal. Ed Delahanty's stellar 1902 season registers in both halves, but his first half is the one that OPS+ places in the "Top 40." Eddie Collins has the early lead in the "most time between appearances on the Top 600 list"--seven years. (We'll see how long that holds up...) 

And it may be surprising to see that Hack Wilson's second half in 1930, which produced a record number of RBI (109), ranks only in the middle of the pack (#180). A good bit of that is due to the offensive levels of that blistering year, and some more of it is due to the ballpark (Wrigley Field), which has always been known as the "friendly confines," especially for hitters.






The trend continues in the 1929-1976 time slice for "three-peaters," with five of the six hitters on the list also in the HOG. We have two players who cruise by that "time between" mark set by Collins: Mel Ott goes thirteen years between appearances, with the total distance between first and last appearance spanning fifteen years; Al Kaline goes eleven years between his first and second appearance, and twelve years between his first and his last. 

Most have probably forgotten about what fast starts Willie Stargell had as the chief power source for the Pirates; all of his appearances in the Top 600 are first-half affairs. And we can more easily visualize the unusual combination of elements that made Joe Morgan such a catalyst in the Big Red Machine's back-to-back World Series championships in 1975-76.







The correlation slips a bit in the next forty-year slice (1976-2016), but it's still above the levels for "two-timers" (and will probably step up another notch in the future sometime after Joey Votto retires). That said, some of the most fearsome-looking half-seasons--at least by ordinary stats--are turned in by the non-HOFers (Jack Clark, Albert Belle, Sammy Sosa). Sammy's 2001 season, overshadowed by Barry Bonds and his 73 HRs, is only going to get more impressive with the passage of time.

Our Hall of Fame correlation jumps up strongly here: 12 of the 17 non-active players who registered "three-peats" on the Top 600 half-season peak list are enshrined, or just over 70%. Keep that in mind as we move further up the food chain...