Triple Threat Triple Crowns

I am putting several posts on this topic together. The first is the original post. Then I did two more later, finding some more cases by using a different criteria for league leader in SB%. The added cases are Hank Aaron, Joe Morgan and Mike Trout.


1. Triple Threat Triple Crowns (7-11-2015)

Suppose that we looked for league leaders in stats that might represent three different skills:

Speed (triples, SBs, SB% and XBT% (see update below))

Power (SLG, ISO, HRs, TBs, extra-base hits)

Getting on base (OBP, times on base)

What players have led their league in at least one stat from each category? Looking over league leaders lists, I came up with 11 different players who have done it at least once. I list them, showing the year or years they did it, which stats they did it in and the amount or rate for each one. Stats from Baseball Reference and the Lee Sinins Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. SB% starts with 1951 at Baseball Reference.

If you can think of any other player who might qualify, please let me know.

2. 2 more triple threat triple crowns (9-29-2018)

Baseball Reference has a minimum number of SB attempts of .1 per team game to qualify for the league lead in SB%. So if a player has 16 attempts, he qualifies.

In 1976, Willie Davis is listed as the NL leader with 87.5% (14-2). In 1963, Lee Maye is also listed as the NL leader with 87.5% (14-2).

But The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer has 20 SBs as the minimum. If we go with that, then we will have different leaders in each of these two years, Hank Aaron and Joe Morgan.

In 1963, Hank Aaron had the highest SB% in the NL of anyone with 20+ SBs, 86.11% (31-5). He led the league in SLG with .586 and times on base with 279. So he won a triple threat triple crown that year.

In 1976, Joe Morgan had the highest SB% in the NL of anyone with 20+ SBs, 86.96% (60-9).  He led the league in SLG with .576 and OBP with .444.


3.  Mike Trout is first player to win a triple threat triple crown since 1978  (10-1-2018)

Trout led the league in OBP with .460. Here are the top 5 qualified batters in the AL in ISO

Player	ISO	BA	SLG
Mike Trout	0.316	0.312	0.628
Khris Davis	0.302	0.247	0.549
J.D. Martinez	0.299	0.330	0.629
Mookie Betts	0.294	0.346	0.640
Joey Gallo	0.292	0.206	0.498

Here are all the AL players with 20+ SBs this year. Baseball Reference has a minimum number of SB attempts of .1 per team game to qualify for the league lead in SB%. So if a player has 16 attempts, he qualifies. But The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer has 20 SBs as the minimum. Baseball Reference shows Jackie Bradley as the leader with 94.44% (17-1).

Player	SB%	SB	CS
Mike Trout	92.31%	24	2
Jonathan Villar	87.50%	21	3
Andrew Benintendi	87.50%	21	3
Jose Ramirez	85.00%	34	6
Greg Allen	84.00%	21	4
Delino DeShields	83.33%	20	4
Mookie Betts	83.33%	30	6
Adalberto Mondesi	82.05%	32	7
Whit Merrifield	81.82%	45	10
Mallex Smith	76.92%	40	12
Tim Anderson	76.47%	26	8
Rajai Davis	75.00%	21	7
Dee Gordon	71.43%	30	12
Francisco Lindor	71.43%	25	10
Jean Segura	64.52%	20	11

Update Jan 22, 2020. Here is something that I posted later in 2020

Recently I searched for leaders in XBT% who might qualify. XBT% is the percentage of times a runner advanced more than one base on a single or more than two bases on a double. Baseball Reference has this back to 1916. Here are the three new players I found:

Tris Speaker 1916 (led in XBT% (78%), OBP (.470), SLG (.502))

George Brett 1980 (led in XBT% (72%), OBP (.454) , SLG (.664))

Larry Walker 1997 (led in XBT% (70%), OBP (.452), SLG (.720))

Also, Ty Cobb (1917) and Chuck Klein (1932), who already had "triple threat" triple crowns, also led their leagues in XBT% in addition to their other speed stats their years.

I sorted by XBT% and then looked for the first guy listed who had at least 3.1 PAs per game (that might not be the best way to do it since that is not a measure of base running opportunities but it was easy and it does limit it to full-time players).