White Sox Have Lowest Winning Percentage Ever For Team With Leader In Both ERA+ And OPS+

Chris Sale lead the league with a 178 ERA+ while Felix Hernandez finished 2nd with 170. See AL Pitching Leaders at Baseball Reference.

Jose Abreu lead the league with a 169 OPS+ while Victor Martinez had 168. See AL Batting Leaders at Baseball Reference.

The Sox finished 73-89 for a .451 pct. To see all of other teams that had both leaders click here to see an earlier post. The Sox are the 32nd team to have both leaders and only the 2nd to have a losing record. Sale only started 26 games. If he started 32 and the Sox won 4 of those games, they still finish only 77-85.

Are There Clutch Base Stealers?

This is something I wrote for "Beyond The  Box Score" In 2006. Click here to read it

Players Who Had An OPS+ Of 150 Or Higher At Ages 20, 21, And 22

Player	OPS+	Year	Age
Mel Ott	165	1929	20
Mel Ott	150	1930	21
Mel Ott	151	1931	22
Mike Trout	168	2012	20
Mike Trout	179	2013	21
Mike Trout	164	2014	22
Ted Williams	160	1939	20
Ted Williams	161	1940	21
Ted Williams	235	1941	22
Ty Cobb	167	1907	20
Ty Cobb	169	1908	21
Ty Cobb	193	1909	22

Trout will have to do very poorly the rest of the way to fall below 150 this year since the season is nearly over.

Even the list of guys with just two 150 or higher seasons is impressive. The only guys since 1900 not in the Hall of Fame are Cedeno and Pujols, who will make it.

Player	OPS+	Year	Age
Abner Dalrymple	151	1878	20
Abner Dalrymple	160	1880	22
Albert Pujols	151	2002	22
Albert Pujols	157	2001	21
Cesar Cedeno	152	1973	22
Cesar Cedeno	162	1972	21
Eddie Mathews	171	1953	21
Eddie Mathews	172	1954	22
Fred Carroll	150	1886	21
Fred Carroll	150	1887	22
Jimmie Foxx	161	1930	22
Jimmie Foxx	173	1929	21
Mickey Mantle	158	1954	22
Mickey Mantle	162	1952	20
Mike Tiernan	152	1888	21
Mike Tiernan	159	1889	22
Pete Browning	178	1883	22
Pete Browning	223	1882	21
Rogers Hornsby	151	1916	20
Rogers Hornsby	169	1917	21
Ross Barnes	185	1871	21
Ross Barnes	211	1872	22
Sam Crawford	153	1902	22
Sam Crawford	167	1901	21
Stan Musial	151	1942	21
Stan Musial	177	1943	22
Tris Speaker	151	1909	21
Tris Speaker	170	1910	22

Is Warm Weather Hitting What It Used To Be?

The table below shows OPS by months for each of the last two years in both leagues.

2014	AL OPS	NL OPS
April/March	0.716	0.695
May	0.713	0.710
June	0.715	0.682
July	0.711	0.693
August	0.690	0.696
Sept/Oct	0.705	0.696
2013	AL OPS	NL OPS
April/March	0.733	0.704
May	0.737	0.706
June	0.717	0.711
July	0.713	0.699
August	0.729	0.704
Sept/Oct	0.717	0.695

I always assumed that June, July and August would normally be higher than the rest of the year. But the last two years don't look that way. So I wondered what the long term trends were.

The table below shows how different these three months were in percentage terms compared to the entire season in OPS for the AL. These are 10 year averages, with 1974-1983 being a nine year average not using 1981 due to the strike.

Year	June	July	August
1914-1923	1.36%	0.65%	-0.13%
1924-1933	2.13%	2.62%	-2.10%
1934-1943	1.70%	2.28%	-0.37%
1944-1953	0.37%	1.51%	0.29%
1954-1963	1.05%	1.61%	-0.67%
1964-1973	1.26%	1.51%	-0.14%
1974-1983*	0.50%	1.09%	-0.15%
1984-1993	0.90%	1.03%	0.61%
1994-2003	0.70%	0.33%	0.09%
2004-2013	0.58%	0.38%	1.02%

From 1924-1933, OPS in July was 2.62% higher than the entire season OPS, on average. Notice neither of the last two periods are even .5% higher. Why any of these changes have happened, I don't know. Now the NL.

Year	June	July	August
1914-1923	1.09%	1.18%	-2.35%
1924-1933	3.30%	1.46%	-2.37%
1934-1943	1.63%	1.37%	-0.22%
1944-1953	1.21%	1.50%	-0.71%
1954-1963	0.71%	-0.05%	-0.25%
1964-1973	1.05%	1.88%	0.84%
1974-1983*	1.06%	0.95%	-0.66%
1984-1993	1.42%	0.13%	-0.64%
1994-2003	1.03%	0.06%	-0.36%
2004-2013	-0.59%	0.96%	1.91%