Threshold! We're all awaiting crossing the threshold .... Hopefully - Schwarbs to cross it! Resetting 1-0 Solo HR wins! Yes - this is it! Make no mistake about it. Joe - you're right! This type of MLB history ... is interesting!
I remember being at a 1-0 game with a home run decider, and remember it because it was one of the best pitched games I have seen in person even in a loss, a better performance than the no hitter I had seen.
The pitcher was Kevin Appier, who many outside of KC do not remember. He had 46.4 WAR in his first 8 full seasons, and probably should have won the AL Cy Young award in 1993. He got injured at 29, and was really never the same.
I had close seats that night, (in 1993) able to see the movement of the ball and everything. I turned to my friend after the first inning and said he had no hit type stuff tonight. No ball reached the outfield until the 5th inning, when the CF called off an infielder to catch a bloop, so really shallow. He walked a guy in the 6th to end the perfect game bid, but the man was caught stealing on the next pitch so he had still faced the minimum.
Then with two outs in the 7th, Rafael Palmeiro somehow pulled a nasty moving low and outside pitch down the right field line. It was just long enough and just fair enough, going just over the wall in the corner. "no one pulls that pitch!" I said to my friend. "He must be juicing". As it turned out, he was.
Appier went on to finish out the game with no other blemishes. The last guy hit the ball into the outfield, the only ball besides Palmeiro's that even went to medium depth outfield.
28 batters faced, 11 K's, and a game winning 335 foot homer. The Royals had nine hits, all singles, and did not score.
I was going to argue with you that and say that of course we all remember Kevin Appier ... but then somehow it clicked that 1993 was 33 years ago. Damnit. How could that have happened to me?!?!? Next thing you know, someone may try to tell me that Dave Steib's similar run of hidden greatness happened more than forty years ago. And since I was in high school when Steib was toiling in anonymity, that can't possibly be >40 years in the rearview mirror!
Whether Appier deserved the CYA in '93 goes to the stathead debate between ERA and FIP. Fangraphs version of WAR has him a bit behind Randy Johnson in the Unit's breakout season. Regardless, Appier was a fine pitcher with a great two-year peak.
Yep, the older I get, the more recent the memories that stick seem - yet the farther they are away.
I don't give a crap about fWAR. Using FIP is just fanasy baseball. It is a fine thing to look back and see how a pitcher might do in the future is interteresting. For instance, making a decision about a pitcher who had an ERA lower than his FIP when it has not been lower in other years, it might make you (if you were a GM) decide that it will never be repeated and shy you away some. Likewise, a guy who had a bad year when his ERA was much higher than his FIP and doesn't have a history of it being that much higher, there might be value there.
Using it as a basis for WAR or basing any awards on it is patently ridiculous. You are taking 3 bases and using that to give points based on how you think his season should have gone and ignoring how it did is arrogant insanity and one of the things that makes fWAR useless. I expect tham to start making the offensive wersion of their WAR to be based on statcast xstats while ignoring anything that actually happened any year now. It would be right in character.
Well ... the choice is yours. But for me, both fWAR and bWAR attempt to factor out the defensive credits and debits a pitcher gets from his fielders a concept that goes back way before Voros McCracken's DIPS or Tangotiger's modification to FIP. For the pre-PBP days relevant to Appier, that can be done in many ways all of which have limits. My $0.02: BBRef's decision to do it via an adjusted Range Factor is at least as problematic as assuming di minimus impact of a pitcher on balls in play.
Adjusted range factor was a bit of a problem. It was basically like OAA on statcast is now. Or statcast is like it. But people look upon OAA as biblical without even knowing that it is (and is advertised as) a purely range based stat.
But for a couple of decades, Baseball Reference has been using DRS. Where people watch every pay, and includes plays you participate in where the ball wasn't even hit to you if you were part of the play. They took advantage of the fact that every game is televised to improve what they did. Fangraphs is not interested in improving, or in watching anything.
BR uses DRS for defense. FR uses FIP for pitchers defense, uses UZR (one third of this is now OOA, one third is actual called errors (highly stadium and home score keeper related.) One third for infielders is double play percentage. (a very high team and pitcher context) For catchers it is virtually all their own hinky framing stat. The outfielders other third is outfield arm, which is also based on xstats and does not look at any play.
Fangraphs just want to do a program and never watch the game. They will never change. It is OK for some basic offense. The rest is the problem.
I know Joe is right about Ted Williams’ solo home run in 1942, but I thought he was already in the airforce after the Pearl Harbour attack in December of 1941.
Williams' service was in the USMC, not the Army Air Corps (the precursor to the USAF).
Bob Feller was the first of many to enlist right after Pearl. There were a small number of active players who were drafted before Pearl Harbor caused the US to enter the War that had been ongoing for some time before then. Most notably, Hank Greenberg who was drafted in May some seven months before the Day that Lived in Infamy. Another who even predated Greenberg was Hugh Mulcahy. He is best remembered, if at all, these days, for his nickname, "Losing Pitcher." Irrelevant aside: the author of the original M*A*S*H novel called Father Mulcahey "Losing Preacher" in homage to the Phillies performer.
Thanks, I knew I was wrong about the details but thanks for clarifying. I just thought that 1941 was the last season of greatness. DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak and Ted hitting .410. After that, every able bodied mad was in the service. That was where my question originated.
In almost 7 decades of baseball fanaticism, I been to a good number of 1-0 games and seen a bunch of others on tv or heard on radio (boyhood summers on the beach down the Jersey shore!). The 1-0 game I remember with the most appreciation and vivid memories was not won by a HR, alas. It is game 7 of the 91 World Series, because it would decide the championship, was 10 innings, both starters were all-time great and went the distance -
Not quite. John Smoltz, who started for the Braves, was lifted with one man out and runners on the corners in the 8th. Mike Stanton and Alejandro Pena finished it off.
I've played a lot of baseball over my 83 years. I've probably played more than I've watched, except when I was just a child. Even before Little League, I discovered the joy and pain of the game at my grandfather's knee, watching early-1950s PCL games, mostly L.A. Angels and Hollywood Stars, from a distance under three feet, on a screen barely larger than my Kindle Reader. Since my teen years, I can't recall watching a full-season of baseball until four years ago, when I retired. I discovered Joe when a friend gave me a subscription as a birthday gift. Joe's memories, views and stories have revived the dormant love affair I've had with this game since those early days with my grandfather.
Today I learned that, not as player but as viewing fan, I did fit Joe's description of one who is mostly bored by 1-run games. But not now. His view of the levels upon which these games can be appreciated, and especially his personal memories of them, has changed my mind entirely, so that now, instead of waiting for action, I'll be looking forward to watching these games from a player's POV, and will look for reruns on MLB.TV. While I never recall much about games I watch, I've never forgotten how to play baseball. I've played mostly 2nd and 3rd, I've played the outfield corners, I've even pitched some, all with good coaches and managers. So I know how the game is played, the strategy and tactics. Now this shift will let me appreciate it even more, so . . .
For 1-0 games decided by a home run, check out the last 2 games of the 1966 World Series. In Game 3, Orioles CF Paul Blair hit a HR in the 5th inning for the only run of that game. In Game 4, Orioles RF (and World Series and AL MVP) Frank Robinson hit a HR in the 4th inning for the only run of that game. So a solo HR was the only run in back-to-back World Series games including the clincher.
Nope. Checked all 39 games. Henderson had at least one every non-strike year from 1980-2001, which is darn impressive. (He did miss both strike years, though: 1981 & 1994.)
Not the same thing, but he lead off the bottom of the first with homers another 42 times (including both strike seasons). Edit: none of which were the sole run in a 1-0 contest.
Even more dramatic and rare is the 1-0 game that ends with a walk off homer. No idea how many of those there are in history ~ and no time today to go into that rabbit hole - but I know that the first in major league history was in a game between Providence and Detroit on August 17, 1882. Old Hoss Radbourn (appearing as an outfielder that day) ended it in the 18th against Stump Wiedman.
If I recall correctly Joe and Mike went on and on about it the next week on the Poscast.
I can’t help but think of the greatest 1-0 game to end on a homer; the 1963 sixteen inning duel between a young Juan Marichal and 42 year old Warren Spahn. A guy named Mays ended it.
Baseball was so much better when starting pitchers were allowed to finish what they started.
That Marichal-Spahn game (each man pitched a complete game) was the longest such game of the 20th century, regular or postseason. This century's longest was a 2022 wild-card game, when Cleveland's Oscar Gonzalez homered against Tampa's Corey Kluber for a 1-0 win in the 15th inning. Kluber had of course won a couple of Cy Youngs with Cleveland.
Not sure exactly what you mean about the longest "such game." If it is the double-complete games, I'd point you to the Cadore - Oeschger game in 1920 when both pitchers went the full 26 innings.
Forget that 15+ inning outing and just look at the rest of Spahn's season. After that game, he went 9, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, & 9 innings over his next 10 outings. He then had a pair of clunkers (1.1 and 3 IP for the two) before finishing it out with three more CGs. It ended up being the 7th straight and 9th overall year when Spahnie lead the NL in complete games. Oh yeah, he started most of his games on either 3 (15) or 4 (12) days of rest with just a handful of others unlike these days with de facto 6 man rotations.
Marichal - who was early in his career, but not all that young - "only" completed 10 more games that year.
Kyle Schwarber is a legend in the Paul Bunyan sort of way. I was thinking about his Hall of Fame chances recently and my gut says that of course he's a future Hall of Famer. He's in his 12th season and has nearly 400 home runs and everyone seems to love him.
And then I was looking at another player, who never comes up in my mind as a Hall of Famer. He's only in his 11th season, one fewer than Schwarber, but has almost 10 WAR more and is posting more this year, too. That player is Dansby Swanson. Swanson gets a lot of value out of being a great SS and Schwarber is a DH now.
Maybe I'm wrong on Schwarber and he's not really a future HOFer, but he feels that way in a way that Swanson doesn't, but maybe should? I guess my point is that Swanson's probably a lot better than anyone really notices.
A couple years ago on JoeBlogs there was discussion of the 2016 Cubs, and how that magical team had no likely future Hall of Famers on it. I mentioned Schwarber, and was told in no uncertain terms that he had, quote, "not a snowball's chance in hell." As he closes in on 500 HRs, that snowball is looking better and better...
(I also wonder if Jon Lester doesn't have an outside chance, now that pitching wins are no longer the end-all be-all they once were. But that's a debate for another day.)
I wonder about Lester as well. His postseason stats are quite impressive. I think he’s eligible in 2027. It’ll be interesting to see how the voters treat him.
Did you know that playing shortstop improves your offensive war? I had no idea. Something about the scarcity of players who can field that position and hit well. That doesn’t seem fair to me. But that probably explains why some players don’t want to DH, want to play certain positions, etc. Because it probably translates to contract dollars as well.
I haven't looked in a while, but when originally constructed, players at DH received a position bonus in WAR not on their fielding (duh!) but because hitting while DHing was shown to be worse one-to-one than the same player being on the field.
Average hitter who plays excellent defense at SS ... that is a valuable player.
Swanson is currently tied (with Andy Benes) for 17th most bWAR of any player picked 1/1. He has no chance of catching ARod, Chipper, or Junior. But a mere 3 Win season in 2027 would leapfrog him over Upton, Erstad, Strasburg, Monday, and Surhoff. Baines and Price are two good seasons away.
...
Schwarber is trying to David Ortiz path to the Hall. But (a) per at bat, Ortiz is the better hitter by a comfortable margin and (b) Ortiz played a lot more. Plus, of course, the post-season heroics. I don't see Schwarber making it to Cooperstown, but that doesn't make what he is doing any less fun and memorable.
Let's not forget the Pirates v. Angels series this weekend. The Pirates only scored 1 run in each of the 3 games (1-0, 1-6, 1-0) taking 2 out 3... and capped it off by light hitting catcher Henry Davis going deep in the 3rd game for the only score in the 1-0 finale and getting Skenes the W!.
Thanks for 5 great years and here’s to many more
As a Braves fan, I didn’t enjoy the end of this 1-0 game but it was awesome. I also yelped “oh my goodness” when Schwarber turned on that pitch
I always feel awful for the losing team's starter. Just brutal.
Threshold! We're all awaiting crossing the threshold .... Hopefully - Schwarbs to cross it! Resetting 1-0 Solo HR wins! Yes - this is it! Make no mistake about it. Joe - you're right! This type of MLB history ... is interesting!
I remember being at a 1-0 game with a home run decider, and remember it because it was one of the best pitched games I have seen in person even in a loss, a better performance than the no hitter I had seen.
The pitcher was Kevin Appier, who many outside of KC do not remember. He had 46.4 WAR in his first 8 full seasons, and probably should have won the AL Cy Young award in 1993. He got injured at 29, and was really never the same.
I had close seats that night, (in 1993) able to see the movement of the ball and everything. I turned to my friend after the first inning and said he had no hit type stuff tonight. No ball reached the outfield until the 5th inning, when the CF called off an infielder to catch a bloop, so really shallow. He walked a guy in the 6th to end the perfect game bid, but the man was caught stealing on the next pitch so he had still faced the minimum.
Then with two outs in the 7th, Rafael Palmeiro somehow pulled a nasty moving low and outside pitch down the right field line. It was just long enough and just fair enough, going just over the wall in the corner. "no one pulls that pitch!" I said to my friend. "He must be juicing". As it turned out, he was.
Appier went on to finish out the game with no other blemishes. The last guy hit the ball into the outfield, the only ball besides Palmeiro's that even went to medium depth outfield.
28 batters faced, 11 K's, and a game winning 335 foot homer. The Royals had nine hits, all singles, and did not score.
I was going to argue with you that and say that of course we all remember Kevin Appier ... but then somehow it clicked that 1993 was 33 years ago. Damnit. How could that have happened to me?!?!? Next thing you know, someone may try to tell me that Dave Steib's similar run of hidden greatness happened more than forty years ago. And since I was in high school when Steib was toiling in anonymity, that can't possibly be >40 years in the rearview mirror!
Whether Appier deserved the CYA in '93 goes to the stathead debate between ERA and FIP. Fangraphs version of WAR has him a bit behind Randy Johnson in the Unit's breakout season. Regardless, Appier was a fine pitcher with a great two-year peak.
Yep, the older I get, the more recent the memories that stick seem - yet the farther they are away.
I don't give a crap about fWAR. Using FIP is just fanasy baseball. It is a fine thing to look back and see how a pitcher might do in the future is interteresting. For instance, making a decision about a pitcher who had an ERA lower than his FIP when it has not been lower in other years, it might make you (if you were a GM) decide that it will never be repeated and shy you away some. Likewise, a guy who had a bad year when his ERA was much higher than his FIP and doesn't have a history of it being that much higher, there might be value there.
Using it as a basis for WAR or basing any awards on it is patently ridiculous. You are taking 3 bases and using that to give points based on how you think his season should have gone and ignoring how it did is arrogant insanity and one of the things that makes fWAR useless. I expect tham to start making the offensive wersion of their WAR to be based on statcast xstats while ignoring anything that actually happened any year now. It would be right in character.
Well ... the choice is yours. But for me, both fWAR and bWAR attempt to factor out the defensive credits and debits a pitcher gets from his fielders a concept that goes back way before Voros McCracken's DIPS or Tangotiger's modification to FIP. For the pre-PBP days relevant to Appier, that can be done in many ways all of which have limits. My $0.02: BBRef's decision to do it via an adjusted Range Factor is at least as problematic as assuming di minimus impact of a pitcher on balls in play.
Adjusted range factor was a bit of a problem. It was basically like OAA on statcast is now. Or statcast is like it. But people look upon OAA as biblical without even knowing that it is (and is advertised as) a purely range based stat.
But for a couple of decades, Baseball Reference has been using DRS. Where people watch every pay, and includes plays you participate in where the ball wasn't even hit to you if you were part of the play. They took advantage of the fact that every game is televised to improve what they did. Fangraphs is not interested in improving, or in watching anything.
BR uses DRS for defense. FR uses FIP for pitchers defense, uses UZR (one third of this is now OOA, one third is actual called errors (highly stadium and home score keeper related.) One third for infielders is double play percentage. (a very high team and pitcher context) For catchers it is virtually all their own hinky framing stat. The outfielders other third is outfield arm, which is also based on xstats and does not look at any play.
Fangraphs just want to do a program and never watch the game. They will never change. It is OK for some basic offense. The rest is the problem.
I know Joe is right about Ted Williams’ solo home run in 1942, but I thought he was already in the airforce after the Pearl Harbour attack in December of 1941.
Williams' service was in the USMC, not the Army Air Corps (the precursor to the USAF).
Bob Feller was the first of many to enlist right after Pearl. There were a small number of active players who were drafted before Pearl Harbor caused the US to enter the War that had been ongoing for some time before then. Most notably, Hank Greenberg who was drafted in May some seven months before the Day that Lived in Infamy. Another who even predated Greenberg was Hugh Mulcahy. He is best remembered, if at all, these days, for his nickname, "Losing Pitcher." Irrelevant aside: the author of the original M*A*S*H novel called Father Mulcahey "Losing Preacher" in homage to the Phillies performer.
Thanks, I knew I was wrong about the details but thanks for clarifying. I just thought that 1941 was the last season of greatness. DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak and Ted hitting .410. After that, every able bodied mad was in the service. That was where my question originated.
Brilliant.
Rudy York played for the Tigers, not the Yankees.
In almost 7 decades of baseball fanaticism, I been to a good number of 1-0 games and seen a bunch of others on tv or heard on radio (boyhood summers on the beach down the Jersey shore!). The 1-0 game I remember with the most appreciation and vivid memories was not won by a HR, alas. It is game 7 of the 91 World Series, because it would decide the championship, was 10 innings, both starters were all-time great and went the distance -
won on just a walk off single.
Not quite. John Smoltz, who started for the Braves, was lifted with one man out and runners on the corners in the 8th. Mike Stanton and Alejandro Pena finished it off.
THAT is good knowledge! thx for setting the record straight
Unfortunately, it was painfully gained. ... I'm a Braves fan who can see that game in my nightmares.
Sorry for that
Another inspiring column.
I've played a lot of baseball over my 83 years. I've probably played more than I've watched, except when I was just a child. Even before Little League, I discovered the joy and pain of the game at my grandfather's knee, watching early-1950s PCL games, mostly L.A. Angels and Hollywood Stars, from a distance under three feet, on a screen barely larger than my Kindle Reader. Since my teen years, I can't recall watching a full-season of baseball until four years ago, when I retired. I discovered Joe when a friend gave me a subscription as a birthday gift. Joe's memories, views and stories have revived the dormant love affair I've had with this game since those early days with my grandfather.
Today I learned that, not as player but as viewing fan, I did fit Joe's description of one who is mostly bored by 1-run games. But not now. His view of the levels upon which these games can be appreciated, and especially his personal memories of them, has changed my mind entirely, so that now, instead of waiting for action, I'll be looking forward to watching these games from a player's POV, and will look for reruns on MLB.TV. While I never recall much about games I watch, I've never forgotten how to play baseball. I've played mostly 2nd and 3rd, I've played the outfield corners, I've even pitched some, all with good coaches and managers. So I know how the game is played, the strategy and tactics. Now this shift will let me appreciate it even more, so . . .
Thanks again, Joe
For 1-0 games decided by a home run, check out the last 2 games of the 1966 World Series. In Game 3, Orioles CF Paul Blair hit a HR in the 5th inning for the only run of that game. In Game 4, Orioles RF (and World Series and AL MVP) Frank Robinson hit a HR in the 4th inning for the only run of that game. So a solo HR was the only run in back-to-back World Series games including the clincher.
Rickey Henderson is famous for leading off games with a homerun. Did any of those ever stand up for the win?
Nope. Checked all 39 games. Henderson had at least one every non-strike year from 1980-2001, which is darn impressive. (He did miss both strike years, though: 1981 & 1994.)
Argh! I was just about to post that data.
Not the same thing, but he lead off the bottom of the first with homers another 42 times (including both strike seasons). Edit: none of which were the sole run in a 1-0 contest.
Now that is what I call a great column. Speaking as a fan of both The Kid and Schwarbs, it doesn't get much better than this. Thanks
Even more dramatic and rare is the 1-0 game that ends with a walk off homer. No idea how many of those there are in history ~ and no time today to go into that rabbit hole - but I know that the first in major league history was in a game between Providence and Detroit on August 17, 1882. Old Hoss Radbourn (appearing as an outfielder that day) ended it in the 18th against Stump Wiedman.
If I recall correctly Joe and Mike went on and on about it the next week on the Poscast.
Congrats on five years, Joe!
I can’t help but think of the greatest 1-0 game to end on a homer; the 1963 sixteen inning duel between a young Juan Marichal and 42 year old Warren Spahn. A guy named Mays ended it.
Baseball was so much better when starting pitchers were allowed to finish what they started.
That Marichal-Spahn game (each man pitched a complete game) was the longest such game of the 20th century, regular or postseason. This century's longest was a 2022 wild-card game, when Cleveland's Oscar Gonzalez homered against Tampa's Corey Kluber for a 1-0 win in the 15th inning. Kluber had of course won a couple of Cy Youngs with Cleveland.
Not sure exactly what you mean about the longest "such game." If it is the double-complete games, I'd point you to the Cadore - Oeschger game in 1920 when both pitchers went the full 26 innings.
That game did not end 1-0, but rather was a 1-1 tie. I assume that's what Pete meant.
Yes, sorry, still talking about 1-0 games where the run is a home run.
Forget that 15+ inning outing and just look at the rest of Spahn's season. After that game, he went 9, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, & 9 innings over his next 10 outings. He then had a pair of clunkers (1.1 and 3 IP for the two) before finishing it out with three more CGs. It ended up being the 7th straight and 9th overall year when Spahnie lead the NL in complete games. Oh yeah, he started most of his games on either 3 (15) or 4 (12) days of rest with just a handful of others unlike these days with de facto 6 man rotations.
Marichal - who was early in his career, but not all that young - "only" completed 10 more games that year.
Kyle Schwarber is a legend in the Paul Bunyan sort of way. I was thinking about his Hall of Fame chances recently and my gut says that of course he's a future Hall of Famer. He's in his 12th season and has nearly 400 home runs and everyone seems to love him.
And then I was looking at another player, who never comes up in my mind as a Hall of Famer. He's only in his 11th season, one fewer than Schwarber, but has almost 10 WAR more and is posting more this year, too. That player is Dansby Swanson. Swanson gets a lot of value out of being a great SS and Schwarber is a DH now.
Maybe I'm wrong on Schwarber and he's not really a future HOFer, but he feels that way in a way that Swanson doesn't, but maybe should? I guess my point is that Swanson's probably a lot better than anyone really notices.
A couple years ago on JoeBlogs there was discussion of the 2016 Cubs, and how that magical team had no likely future Hall of Famers on it. I mentioned Schwarber, and was told in no uncertain terms that he had, quote, "not a snowball's chance in hell." As he closes in on 500 HRs, that snowball is looking better and better...
(I also wonder if Jon Lester doesn't have an outside chance, now that pitching wins are no longer the end-all be-all they once were. But that's a debate for another day.)
I wonder about Lester as well. His postseason stats are quite impressive. I think he’s eligible in 2027. It’ll be interesting to see how the voters treat him.
Did you know that playing shortstop improves your offensive war? I had no idea. Something about the scarcity of players who can field that position and hit well. That doesn’t seem fair to me. But that probably explains why some players don’t want to DH, want to play certain positions, etc. Because it probably translates to contract dollars as well.
I haven't looked in a while, but when originally constructed, players at DH received a position bonus in WAR not on their fielding (duh!) but because hitting while DHing was shown to be worse one-to-one than the same player being on the field.
Average hitter who plays excellent defense at SS ... that is a valuable player.
Swanson is currently tied (with Andy Benes) for 17th most bWAR of any player picked 1/1. He has no chance of catching ARod, Chipper, or Junior. But a mere 3 Win season in 2027 would leapfrog him over Upton, Erstad, Strasburg, Monday, and Surhoff. Baines and Price are two good seasons away.
...
Schwarber is trying to David Ortiz path to the Hall. But (a) per at bat, Ortiz is the better hitter by a comfortable margin and (b) Ortiz played a lot more. Plus, of course, the post-season heroics. I don't see Schwarber making it to Cooperstown, but that doesn't make what he is doing any less fun and memorable.
Let's not forget the Pirates v. Angels series this weekend. The Pirates only scored 1 run in each of the 3 games (1-0, 1-6, 1-0) taking 2 out 3... and capped it off by light hitting catcher Henry Davis going deep in the 3rd game for the only score in the 1-0 finale and getting Skenes the W!.