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0 Subject: Records to be broken

Posted by: Khahan
- [367431722] Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 12:08

I posted this on my facebook page but thought I'd get a discussion going here, too. Feel free to add to both this and facebook if you'd like.

Since we don't have baseball, all we can do is think about baseball. Rank these modern day records by order they are most likely to be broken - #1 the 'most likely' to be broken to #10 least likely to be broken. For purposes of this exercise, please do not derail it into talk about PED's. This is just looking at raw numbers of how things stand today (whether you think they should or shouldn't is irrelevant)

Barry Bonds single season HR record of 73
Hack Wilson single season rbi record of 191
Cal Ripken consecutive games played streak of 2,632
Pete Rose career MLB hits of 4,256
Nolan Ryan career strike outs of 5,714
Ichiro Suzuki's single season hit total of 262
Rickey Henderson career stolen bases of 1406
Rickey Henderson single season stolen base of 130
Sam Crawford 309 career triples
Hank Aaron 2297 career RBI's

Note - I purposely left out Cy Young career cumulative totals because of changes in the game. Same with Jack Chesbro's 41 win season. If you want to add those into your list: Jack Chesbro 41 wins in a single season. Cy Young 511 career wins Cy Young 749 complete games.

My list:
1. 262 hits
2. 2297 career rbis
3. 73 HR

4. 191 rbi's
5. 130 stolen bases

6. 4,256 career hits
7. 309 career triples
8. 5,714 career strike outs
9. 2,632 consecutive games played
10. 1406 consecutive games played

None of these are easy and most are considered out of reach. 1-3 are going to be REALLY difficult but I think will fall in the next 50 years if any of them do. 4 and 5 are very unlikely and would be historic but I could see them happening. 6-10 I'm saying is a mathematically probability so small its hardly worth considering. Cy Young and Chesbro's are impossible under the current mlb system.
1Seattle Zen
      ID: 301361318
      Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 13:38
It was fun to dig into the ten stats you listed, but I will say that you left off the one that I believe is, by far, the least likely to be broken.

Sam Crawford averaged just over 16 triples a year for his 19 year career. We haven't had someone with over 16 triples in the Bigs since Jose Reyes hit 19 in 2008. Dexter Fowler is the active leader in triples with 82, tied for 262th all time. Brett Gardner is second with 68, tied for 408th. Sam's record seems pretty safe.

Hack Wilson had a monster year in 1930. Slugging .737! Walked over one hundred times. He must have had a massive flock of ducks on the pond when he stepped into the batter's box that year. Looking at the list of most RBI in a season, all of the recent players on the list: Manny Ramirez, Juan Gonzalez, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Belle... have been known steroid users. Want to break the record, well, you need to play every day, mash and have your teammates on base again and again. I could see this one fall someday.

Wee Willie Keeler's record of 206 singles stood for 106 years until Ichiro came along and hit 225 in 2004. In this age of walking or driving the ball, I think the record of 225 singles will last longer than 262 hits, myself. Not many slap hitters around anymore.

Looking at Rickey Henderson's career stats, I forgot he played for the Padres and he played for them on two separate occasions. And he played for the Mariners while I lived in Seattle, forgot about that, too. He had a phenomenal walk rate, that crouch was an awesome tool. I didn't realize he had a OPS over 1.000 in 1990. Career OBP of .401, no wonder he scored so many runs. I was inbetween grades 7 and 8 in the summer of 1982 and my local library had a reading contest - if you read a certain amount of books, you could get a ticket to an Oakland A's game. I completed the task, went to the game and... Rickey took the day off :( I can't find a page on the web that gives me the number of stolen base opportunities Rickey had in 1982 and what percentage of the time he attempted to steal. 130 steals looks pretty safe from this vantage point as steals are out of favor, but I could imagine someone with Billy Hamilton speed and a OBP somewhere around 430~450 stealing 131 bases. Maybe on a team like the Marlins who are not going to win many games, want to generate some excitement and don't have many sluggers behind him.

His 1406 all time steals looks FAR less likely to be topped. Rajai Davis is our current career leader and he's a good thousand steals shy and it has taken him 14 seasons to get up to 400. Dee Gordon is next, tied for 127th all time with 330 steals. Will baseball ever see another Rickey Henderson? Seems real unlikely.

Unlike 1982, not only did I get to see Barry Bonds play in 2001, I saw one of his 73 bombs. Interleague play against the Mariners in Safeco, first game after the All-Star game - July 12. He had 39 HR up to that point. I remember being the only fan in my vicinity to get up and cheer. I told my buddy that if Barry went on to break McGwire's record that year, we would have witnessed one of them and I was right.

G. Stanton hit 59 bombs just a couple years ago. That record will fall.

Barry's 2004 OPS of 1.4217 ain't going nowhere, though. This record is roundly ignored because the haters just want to pretend that Barry didn't exist. Well, he did and he is simply the GREATEST batter to ever step into the box. You are considered a baseball god when you have a OPB over .400, Barry got on base over 60% of the time in 2004! No one thought we would see a Slugging % that starts with an eight again, only the Babe could do that, until Barry came along and did it twice. It's true that Babe hit more homers than entire teams one hundred years ago, but Barry surpassed him.

I've never really been that impressed with Cal Ripken's consecutive games played record. Kept that to myself back then, though, as I lived in Baltimore when he broke the record and was viewed as a baseball god among the white people. Eddie Murray was better, just sayin. It's the baseball equivalent of the 30 year watch given to middle managers by Fortune 500 companies. "90% of life is showing up". Playing in every single game in a season is kinda stupid so pardon me if I don't care if someone plays in a bunch of games in a row. Might not come out while Sir Cal is still alive, but he probably healed so amazingly quickly from injuries during the season because of Da Juice. Speaking of...

Nolan Ryan pitched for 27 seasons. He averaged 9.548 K/9, good for 13th all time (min 1000IP). We remember him when he was 947 years old and puts 115 lb. Robin Venture in a head lock and gives him the business. Ryan was a compiler, the Craig Biggio of pitchers. Barry Bonds was run out of baseball while he was continuing to put up seasons of 1.000+ OPS yet Nolan was the beloved grandpa who kept striking guys out to pad his career numbers. Yes, it's hard to imagine someone's arm staying attached to their body long enough to throw in the majors for 27 years, maybe someone will learn the knuckler in his forties and pitch into his fifties, baseball's Gordie Howe.

What's the one record that will not be broken? Well, it's not a player record, it's a manager. Only six managers have lost over 2000 games. Connie Mack lost 3948, one thousand five hundred and eighty three more than second place Tony La Russa. Bruce Bochy just retired and he would need another TWENTY FOUR seasons to catch Connie at his pace. What major league team would allow a manager with a career losing record to manage them for 53 years? Even the most egocentric owners wouldn't manage their team themselves. Just won't happen.
2biliruben
      ID: 170202910
      Tue, May 12, 2020, 19:38
maybe someone will learn the knuckler in his forties and pitch into his fifties, baseball's Gordie Howe.

Phil Niekro came close. 48?
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