The National League has now completed 150 regular seasons. In all that time no player has ever led the league with a lower batting average than Trea Turner did this year (.304). Nico Hoerner set the record for the lowest average for the runner-up (.297). That’s the modern game.
The Tigers managed the biggest blown lead in history. They led their division by as much as 15.5 games, but finished second. Nobody ever blew a lead that big. Not the 1978 Red Sox. Not the 1951 Dodgers. The Tigers were still up by nine and a half games on September 10, whereupon they lost 11 of their next 12 games! (Ah, memories of the 1964 Phillies!) The Tigers made the playoffs as a wild card – but by the skin of their teeth. They had the same record as the Astros, but snuck in with the tie-breaker.
So much for the downers. There were many positive things, of course.
Cal Raleigh became the only catcher ever to hit 60 homers. He hit 47 while playing catcher (the record), 13 as a DH. Although Raleigh is a powerful hitter, that total basically came out of nowhere. His previous high was 34.
Raleigh also broke Mickey Mantle’s record of 54 homers by a switch hitter. Raleigh hit 22 against lefties, while Mickey hit never hit more than 16. (Mickey actually hit better against lefties – lifetime .329 average vs .282 against right-handers.)
Raleigh’s 60 also set the Mariners’ franchise record. Shohei Ohtani set the HR record for the Dodgers’ franchise (55).
To throw in a silly record, Aaron Judge became the tallest men ever to win the batting average crown in either league. It ain’t easy to defend the strike zone when you’re 6’7″.
Judge tied the record for most seasons with 50 or more homers (4). Four men have done this, but excluding the steroid era, it’s just Judge and Babe Ruth. (Sosa and McGwire are the others.)
It was the first season in history with three 4-homer games. Nick Kurtz became the only rookie and the youngest man ever to pull that off! He did it in his 66th major league game.
The baby-faced Kurtz also tied the all-time MLB record for the most total bases in a game (19). He’s the only American Leaguer to have done it. It’s always fun to see a new star emerge and wonder how good he can be. The only guys in the majors with a higher OPS than Kurtz this year were all-time greats Ohtani and Judge.
This is the second season in a row where no team got at least 100 wins, and, I don’t know if this is a record for parity, but only 3 teams won less than 70 games. I imagine that the management of two of those teams (the White Sox and the Rockies) were trying to lose as well.
Leaving aside the Reds who have one of the worst records for any team to make the playoffs, there was just a 10 game gap between the best team and the 11th team. I don’t know how to do the calculations on this, but I’d guess that if the eventual World Series winner played anybody but the White Sox and the Rockies say 10 best of seven series, that the remaining teams that didn’t make the playoffs (most of whom were sub .500) would win 3 out of those 10 best of seven series.
How about your home state Brewers earning the top overall seed with the 23rd-highest payroll?
Hmmm. No mention of the AL Central champs who will be hosting the fallen Kitties in the Jake (“at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario” -Tom Hamilton) tomorrow. Man, it’s been fun listening to Hammy the last two months.
Guess the Mets need a $500 million payroll. Way to go, Tito.
They should start calling the big HR jump “The Davey Johnson award” In 1973 he hit 43 dingers after never hitting more than 18 in any other year.
Look at Brady Anderson. He went from 16 to 50, then back to 18. He played 140+ games in all three seasons!
ahhh, I forgot about that one. hmmm I bet I could get ChatGPT to compile a list of the Top 10 statistically anomalous seasons
On the pitching side, Steve Stone went from 11 wins to 25 to 4 , then never pitched again. He won the Cy in 1980. In the previous year, he had only 11 wins despite getting 32 starts. Even Steve couldn’t figure out what happened in 1980.
Similar to Dave Johnson, there was the “Polish miracle.” Both Ted Kluszewski and Stan Musial suddenly discovered a home run swing around age 27
Musial had three consecutive seasons of 16-19-39. His lifetime batting average had been .342 coming into his big season, but he had never hit as many as 20 homers.
Kluszewski’s three-year sequence was 13-16-40. Like Musial, Big Klu had posted several seasons in the .300s, but the massive power surge was unexpected. (He was obviously not on Musial’s level, but he had batted .320 the year before the surge.) He kept the power at that level for four seasons, until injuries took their toll on his gigantic body. (He was listed at 225, but he probably thought he was supposed to list his birth weight,)
The Rockies claimed the amazing record of the worst run differential in the modern era (absolutely crushing the the old one) Their run differential of -424 is pretty astounding. They absolutely sucked in every aspect of the game.
To find a greater run differential, you have to go back to the 19th century!
They made a run at the 1962 Mets (40-120 .250), with their 43-119 .265 record.The 2024 White Sox (41-121 .253) came even closer.
At one point the Rockies were 9-50 and I wondered if they’d even hit 30 wins for the year. They were starting to look like they might finish with the worst record since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. Sadly they got hot and went 34-69 the rest of the way 🙁
They did have the worst run differential since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders,
I just saw that the Spiders lost 101 road games. That record seems likely to hold up.
Jays won what was arguably the most competitive division, not that this means that there are any guarantees for the post-season. Being someone who splits his time between Toronto and Ottawa, I say “Go Jays”, albeit with muted enthusiasm as I was actually always an Expos fan, and they are not coming back. *Sigh.*