Chris Sale is the active career leader in Strikeouts per 9 IP. He
is 3rd in Bases On Balls per 9 IP. Has any other pitcher ever been in
the active top 3 in both? (Kluber is 4th and 1st, respectively)
Other
pitchers I have checked who did not do it include Koufax, Schilling,
Martinez, Halladay, Verlander, Young, Vance, Mathewson, Jenkins, Seaver,
Galvin, and Carlton (1000+ IP). That is, I could not find a point in their
careers when they were in the top 3 of both for active pitchers. For
most of them I checked at two different years during their careers.
So if you have any suggestions let me know. Maybe Sale has done something unprecedented.
Using the Baseball Reference Play Index, I would call up a 20 year period and then sort it to isolate the guys who were active up thru the year I was looking at (making them active). Then sort on the two stats.
