Baseball's top 10 'records' ... without the home runs
 

Interesting article by Jayson Stark

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/column...son&id=2433030

Which record is most likely to never be broken?

Joltin' Joe's record is statistically the most impossible of these. 30 wins and the K record is very possible if trends move away from pitchers getting pulled in the 6th inning. Somewhere somebody is going to put somebody in the lineup at DH for 2500 games. The hit, consecutive scoreless innings, and steals records have been set relatively recently. Hack Wilson's record has been threatened a few times, albeit early in the season; if trends move towards more offense, 191 ribbies could well be toast. Somebody's going to stay just over .400 eventually. That leaves the hitting streak and Gibby's 1.12, and I think the 1.12 could go if we enter another pitching-dominant era.

No Fair

I picked "Cal Ripken ---with a trout" and you changed the poll:).

30 wins. Pitchers don't get the chance these days and I don't see that changing. Even pitchers who may be good enough to approach it are babied so they are 100% for the playoffs.

I'm going with Ripken's here. DiMaggio's is going to be tough, no doubt, but with Jimmy Rollins and Luis Castillo threatening it in the past couple of years, it does seem possible for somebody to top a 56-game hitting streak. I'm not saying that it's likely, but it seems more possible than somebody breaking Ripken's record.

I don't claim to know how the game will change in the future, but looking at things right now, Miguel Tejada is still 10 years away from reaching the record, and he's played in nearly 1000 consecutive games. As far as somebody being a DH for that long, there aren't many switch-hitting DHs out there. I know that's not a requirement to play every day, but if a lefthanded batter starts slumping at all against lefty pitching, I'm sure a manager would have to consider starting a righthanded-hitting DH against a southpaw once in a while. Even David Ortiz doesn't play every day, and he can actually hit lefties.

I just don't know if there are any players good enough or durable enough to play in every game for even 10 years, although Tejada is well on his way to getting there. Still, it's hard to imagine somebody doing it for 20 years or more.

I would be pretty shocked if Nolan Ryan's record was ever broken. Maybe if they abolished the DH and raised the mound - but it would have to be fundamental changes to the game to make it happen.

I'm going to say Hack Wilson's RBI record, simply because no one has approached it in recent times, even with the increased offense. All of the other "records" (with the exception of DiMaggio's streak) have either been set recently or approached by someone relatively recently.

Isn't Pujols on pace to break it this year? I see this one as having a pretty good chance of falling in the next 10 years with the huge offensive numbers being put up.

I voted for 30 wins. No way that's getting broken until there's a major change in the way the game is managed.

i voted for the pete rose's hits record. i dunno if it will ever be broken.

Several guys have been on pace to break it during the first half of a season. But the most RBIs anyone has had in a season since the 1930s is Manny Ramirez, with 165 in 1999. Simply put, this record has not been seriously threatened in over 70 years. It's not quite Jack Chesbro's 41 wins (which really is impossible), but until someone gets a lot closer to it than anyone has so far, I think it's the safest record on the list.

The question for the poll says, "Which record won't be broken?" If that's the criteria, then the best option for that would be Nolan Ryan's 5,714 career strikeouts. Getting within 1000 would be an amazing accomplishment.

I think a lot of these will be tough to break. The two that really stand out to me on that list are:

Ripken - as someone else said, we are talking about Tejada having an incredible run and being 10+ years off.

The one I don't think gets enough credit - the scoreless innings streak by Hershiser. 6.5 full games worth of shutouts in a row. Maybe a one inning reliever will approach it I guess. . . but a starter? That'd be an incredible run in this day and age.

It was an incredible run in 1988. Realize that Drysdale's record stood for a few decades before Hershiser came along and set a new one.

That would be my bet. We saw Maddux have a pretty good streak not so long ago, and he was still something like three shutouts short of matching it. There was also a reliever, whose name escapes me, who put up something like 40 scoreless innings. Impressive in its own right, considering the nature of the beast, but at an inning a pop, that's still another 20 outings before you break the record.

Ryan's strikeout record is hefty - 383 K's is a lotta missed lumber - but I think it's breakable if you get a power pitcher who can sustain the 13.5 K's/9 pace necessary, AND can stay healthy. His career record, though...nobody's ever going to touch that again. I honestly think 5700 K's is the one true untouchable record left in baseball.

But players strike out so much more these days. I think it's possible for it to be broken. The real problem is longevity. Most pitchers aren't going to want to stick around for 50 years like Ryan did.

That's what I'm saying. Consider this:

Roger Clemens' best single-season mark is 292 K's.

He'd have to put up that mark for 19.5 consecutive seasons to tie Ryan's 5700. In 22 seasons, he's only just over the 4500 mark, and he's considered one of his generation's premier power pitchers. He's been averaging just under 200 a season recently, which means if he wants to hang around for six more years (maybe more since it'll only be a part-season this year if he plays), he'd approach Ryan...but I don't know if he's got the desire to do that, as you point out.

More to the point, given the rumors that surround any successful aging player these days, I don't know if he could maintain his level of excellence for that much longer. Maybe he is just ridiculously well-conditioned, and can do it for as long as he wants, like a Ryan.

On the other hand, maybe it's not an accident that he returned to 20-win form in '97.

The Iron Man streak. I just don't see any way a player goes that long anymore. And DH'ing your way to it would be seen as pretty cheap. Even though Ripken played in the AL, I don't recall him DH'ing very often (if at all).

Looks like he played a total of 24 days at DH in his career, and it looks as if all of those came after his consecutive games streak had already ended.

I have to disagree with the logic, only. Keeping pitchers in the game longer is only going to serve to potentially REDUCE the number of starts they make, not increase them. Since the number of starts a pitcher gets in a season is the single most important aspect toward acheiving 30 wins, keeping the pitchers in the game for the least number if innings possible and still making them eligible for the victory is paramount.

Pulling pitchers after 5 innings would increase the tendency for a pitcher to win 30 games, not decrease it, since it would logically increase the likelyhood that pitcher would start more games.

I think, after only 7 weeks of baseball, pretty much every significant record in the book is "on-pace" to be broken every year.

"On-Pace" is only relevant in August.

I hate when people refer 30 wins and .400 BA as records. They aren't records, they are just high levels of performance that is hard to duplicate. Ask me if someone will ever get 32 wins and I will most certainly say no

I disagree, for a few reasons.

1) The 5-man rotation. The #5 guys get skipped when the schedule allows, but so long as you have a 5th guy eating 20+ starts, then on average a starter is going to get around 32 starts. If you ditch that 5th man and go with a 4-man rotation and use the extra guy as another reliever, the extra 8 starts a year might make the difference.

2) Stress on the bullpen. If your starter isn't going deep into games, the bullpen has to work harder to preserve the win for him. You have to figure the incidence of late-inning lead changes would increase.

3) You're only eligible for the victory if you have the lead. If you're leaving the game after 5 innings down 1-0, 2-1 or tied 0-0, then unless you've pitched 5 complete and your team gets you the lead in the bottom of the 5th and holds it, you aren't getting a win, or any decision short of a loss.

That's really impressive. There's no way anyone beats that streak. Most of the games he played at SS, and he moved to 3B after he lost a step... but not a single game during the streak at DH... wow.

Didn't he play every inning of every game for the first 1500+ games of the streak?

No one will ever surpass 4256

Julio Franco will pass it when he's 63, and I'm almost joking.

I would have voted for Cy Young's 511 wins if it had been on the list.

Good one. Roger Clemens leads active players (since he's now active again) with 671 starts. He doesn't even have 511 DECISIONS in his career. Reaching 511 wins these days is downright impossible. That's certainly much more difficult than reaching Ripken's streak, which is the one I voted for.

I think Cy Young's 316 losses is even more untouchable thant the wins record. I can't imagine anyone ever getting a chance to lose that many games.

As for really untouchable, I would also suggest Johnny Van Der Meer's back to back no hitters. Sure, I could see somewhere down the line someone has an incredible run at back to back no hitters, but to break the record, it would require three consecutive no hitters. Not gonna happen.

His wins is safer. Nolan Ryan finished with 292 career losses.

And Cy Young's stuff isn't on there because Stark focused on more recent accomplishments.

I didn't realize Nolan got that close to the losses.

As for stuff on the list, I don't think any of those is unbeatable. If I remember correctly, Pedro had a good shot at it one year but injuries slowed him down.

Still it took a freak to get just over 92% of the way there. By safer, I mean that Young's wins mark is more impossible. I don't see anyone getting to 316 losses in my lifetime unless they add a boatload of games to the season.

I think any record is reachable, though, I do admit that the way we look at old baseball records as these sacred records and look at today's records and go "those are tainted" makes me laugh.

500+ wins? Riight. C'mon now. I think when a player stands out among his contemporaries and does stuff that no one else does, it has to be pretty freakin' impressive.

Do you really think three consecutive no hitters is reachable?

I finally got around to reading Jayson Stark's article, and I see where he's coming from now. I guess this really isn't completely about which record is hardest to break. Stark mentions Fernando Tatis with two grand slams in one inning. That record will be damn near impossible to break, but what does that record really say about Tatis as a ballplayer? Not much. The man played for seven years, and his last two were shit, frankly.

Many of these other records really define the ballplayers who set them. DiMaggio IS 56 games. Pete Rose IS 4256 hits (as far as on-the-field stuff, anyway). Nolan Ryan IS strikeouts. Fernando Tatis isn't two grand slams in one inning. Fernando Tatis is nobody.

Given all of this, it's hard to imagine anyone topping these records and BECOMING them. Even if some guy does DH his way to a 2700-game playing streak, he's not going to become baseball's iron man. He's going to become a walking asterisk. That makes me even more secure in my vote for Ripken's record as #1 among this list.

Cal played 8,243 consecutive innings from June 5, 1982 to September 14, 1987.

Dola,

I picked his record.

Says more (or less, your call) about Chan Ho Park as a ballplayer, though. :p

Sorry, late to the party but wanted to get to this thread now that I have a chance.


This is also Johnny Van Der Meer all over with his back to back no hitters.

larrymcg421 mentioned this one before as really unbreakable but I just don't see it. Some of the crazy longevity records (tho I'll get to those in a second) or the 56 game streak or the 59 IP scoreless streak (tho someone gets a 30+ IP one every few years just like there's a 40+ game hitting streak every once in a while) are so much more unbeatable because it's much more sustained greatness than 2 straight games tho the level of greatness is much higher.

SI

Speaking of aging, maybe some of these longevity streaks will change when the game changes. People are living longer and what's to say their "productive" major league careers won't be changed, too, as medicine advances. That wisdom of playing the games 20+ years will get you a long way, especially if you can lessen the blow of aging versus a 25yo, wet behind the ears and starting in the majors.

Maybe in 20 or 50 or 100 years, we'll see players playing into their 40s or even a rare 50 or maybe even 60 year old as technology, fueled by trillions of baby boomer bucks in their quest for a longer life, improves and the quality and length of life increases. If 1990s technology can get Nolan Ryan pitching well into his 40s, what's to say that 2050's technology won't have Nolan Ryan III pitching into his 50s?

And then some of those longevity streaks that are less about sustained greatness and more about longevity and "sustained goodness" have a chance of falling like the hit record or Nolan Ryan's strikeouts.

SI

?

SI

1.12

haha... Didn't he lose like 28 in a row in '92-'93?

But I'm not talking about someone equalling Van Der Meer's record. I'm talking about breaking it. That would require three consecutive no hitters. 81 batters (and probably more, with walks and errors thrown in) without a hit.

Also I would suggest that Van Der Meer isn't really the same as Tatis. While he's not going to go down as a great player, he is very well known for the incident and it does stand as a great individual accomplishment. The Tatis incident is more about opportunity.

what about ty cobb's stealing home plate record?

Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA will never be approached by a starter

Who knows... if they decide to raise the mound again to the height it was when Gibson set that record, it may.

Just one point.

I remember a Bill James abstract pre Ripken setting the record that predicted that this record would fall. His reasoning to me is very solid. He said any record which is simply based on someone showing up and doing his job is one that is very reachable. Won't happen often but it's not influenced by changes in the game. It's simply not getting injured and playing at an acceptable level.

It's a fun record but even Ripken didn't maintain Gehrigs level of play during the streak. He simply was healthy and outperformed his potential replacement ( at times. I'm not knocking Cal here. )

The whole DH not starting against the pitchers who pitch opposite handed begs the question. The player doesn't have to start. I'm sure a manager can work the guy in against one of the relievers.

In fact, since all you need to do is pinch hit in every game the chances you could stay healthy with one at bat a game makes the streak extremely breakable if the manager is so inclined. It's not really skill based.

The hitting streak is what I voted for. Consistency in a sport where the best hitters fail at least 2/3rds of the time is extremely remarkable IMHO and would be the hardest to accomplish.

All of these pale in comparison to Cy Young though. That's the truly unbreakable record IMHO.

And if they decide to go with aluminum bats, somebody will hit .400.

A guy would have to have played in something like 1000 straight games before a manager would even consider using him as a pinch-hit DH just to extend a streak. That's something I had intended to mention when I posted before, but I forgot.

Just imagine it. Suppose a DH has played every day for a little over two seasons, 350 straight games or so. He's a lefthanded batter, and there's a southpaw on the mound. The manager puts in a righthanded DH for the day. Obviously, this righthanded DH can hit (otherwise, he wouldn't be the DH). If the starting pitcher is having a great game and pitches into the 9th inning, is the manager really going to pull his DH to sub in a lefthanded batter who just happens to have played in 350 straight games? What about 500 games? What about 800 games? At what point does a manager risk an entire game over getting one player a single at-bat? A manager can't even think about this player's streak until it gets up pretty far.

While a fielder can possibly get playing time because of his glove, a DH is only useful as long as he's hitting well. If he's slumping or if the opposing starter is a guy he struggles with, a manager really needs to think long and hard about letting this DH play. When your only possible contribution is with your bat, if you can't produce, there's always someone on the bench who just might. As far as health goes, yeah, it's probably pretty easy to DH for 2700 straight games. As far as production goes, however, DH is probably a pretty hard position to hang on to for that long. One or two bad weeks in a row, and you're gonna get the bat taken out of your hands.

Threatened it? They were only 65% of the way there, that's not threatening it. If they hit 50, that would be threatening it. They still had another month of games to go. That would be like saying a player who hit 40 homeruns in the 80's threatened breaking Marris' record.


As for the most over-rated streak up there, that would easily be Cal Ripken's streak.