Saturday, December 10, 2011

Batters Who Had 7+ Seasons With A 150 Or Higher OPS+

The PA minimum was 400. Here is the list of those 38 players. I highlighted Elmer Flick because he is the answer (or maybe an answer) to a trivia question: name a player who led the NL in RBI's and later went on to lead the AL in SBs. I don't think there are any others but I am not sure.


Flick was finally voted into the Hall of Fame in 1963 by the Veterans Committee. He was 87 but luckily still alive. He only got 0.4% of the vote from the writers in 1938 and that was it. In an 8 year period he had 7 top 10 finishes in WAR among position players including 5 in the top 5. Even now he ranks pretty high in career WAR (133rd) with 56.7. Through 1938, he was 36th. He had 9 top 10 finishes in OPS+ including 6 top 5 finishes and a first.

Health problems cut his career short. He played only 99 games after the age of 31 (when he had a 153 OPS+). See his SABR Bio by Angelo Louisa. Here is an excerpt:
"Despite his short but highly productive career in the majors, Flick remained largely forgotten by the baseball community in general and the Hall of Fame voters in particular until Ty Cobb's death in 1961. Some articles written about the Georgia Peach mentioned the aborted 1907 trade and thus revived interest in who Flick was and what made him worthy of being suggested in a trade for Cobb. The renewed attention, in turn, led to Flick being voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1963, an honor he treasured until he died from congestive heart failure at 8:25 A.M. on January 9, 1971, only two days before his 95th birthday. Flick also suffered from mycosis fungoides, a malignant lymphoma, which contributed to his death."

Those who just missed with 6 were

Alex Rodriguez
Billy Hamilton
Gary Sheffield
Harmon Killebrew
Harry Heilmann
Harry Stovey
Jeff Bagwell
Larry Walker
Mike Piazza
Pete Browning
Reggie Jackson
Vladimir Guerrero

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