Monday, April 19, 2021

The Mystery Of Tommy Henrich's Triples

Earlier this month Jessica Brand tweeted something about Tommy Henrich hitting the only walk off homer in Yankees history on Opening Day (it was in 1949).

So I looked at his stats at Baseball Reference and noticed something that seemed a bit unusual. 

He led the AL in triples at age 34 (13) and 35 (14). He never did that before. He never even had double figures before. He never even finished in the top 10 before.

I asked Jessica if that was some kind of record and she told me he was "One of only 14 [players] to have multiple seasons with 13 or more triples, 34 or older." Click here to see all the players age 34+ who had a season with 13+ triples. All of the players with multiple seasons, except Henrich and Ed Cartwright, had at least one season with 11+ triples before age 34 (many had highs well above 11 and that minimum high belongs to Jim O'Rourke who did it in 86 games). Cartwright only played one season before age 34 (and in only 75 games with 4 3Bs).

So I decided to look at this a little more. Could any other player have done what Henrich did?

I used Stathead (from Baseball Reference) to call up all the seasons by players aged 34+ with 10+ triples. Click here to see the results

You can see which of these guys were league leaders since their triple total is in bold. The leader in most years has 10+. I checked the rare occasions when it was less and found two more guys who were 34+ years old and led their league (Brett Butler and Hank Bauer).

This table shows all the players aged 34+ who led their league in triples:

Player

3B

Year

Age

Bill Bruton

13

1960

34

Brett Butler

9

1994

37

Brett Butler

9

1995

38

Earl Averill

15

1936

34

Hank Bauer

9

1957

34

Harry Stovey

20

1891

34

Honus Wagner

19

1908

34

Jake Daubert

15

1918

34

Jake Daubert

22

1922

38

Jim O'Rourke

16

1885

34

Paul Molitor

13

1991

34

Roberto Clemente

12

1969

34

Sam Crawford

26

1914

34

Sam Crawford

19

1915

35

Steve Finley

10

2003

38

Tommy Henrich

13

1947

34

Tommy Henrich

14

1948

35

The next table shows how these players did before age 34. The players in red are the players that led their league in triples twice from age 34 on.

Player

Highest 3B Total Before Age 34

Number of Years Leading League Before Age 34

Number of Years in Top 10 Before Age 34

Bill Bruton

15

1

4

Brett Butler

14

2

6

Earl Averill

16

0

4

Hank Bauer

7

0

1

Harry Stovey

23

3

6

Honus Wagner

22

2

6

Jake Daubert

16

0

2

Jim O'Rourke

11

0

6

Paul Molitor

16

0

3

Roberto Clemente

14

0

10

Sam Crawford

25

4

13

Steve Finley

13

1

6

Tommy Henrich

7

0

0

Henrich is the only one who failed in all of the following before age 34: having a 10+ triple season, leading the league and finishing in the top 10. Bauer comes close to him in lack of early triple prowess. But he did have a top 10 finish and he only beat his previous best by 2. He then had 6 triples at age 35, none at 36 & 37 and 1 at age 38. He did not continue his triple "surge" the way Henrich did.

The other players to lead twice from 34 on (Butler, Daubert and Crawford) were all good to great at hitting triples earlier in their careers. They did not blossom later like Henrich.

It is possible Henrich just became a better hitter and that led to more triples. But I looked a stat that Voros McCracken created that we might call "triple average." It is 

3B/(2B + 3B)

or what percent of the time a batter hits one for extra bases does he get a triple (some fast players may not get many triples if they don't hit the ball hard enough and some guys who hit lots of triples might be good hitters while not necessarily being fast). To do well in this ratio, you need speed. Slow guys just stop at second base.

Henrich improved here as well from age 34 on. The next table shows this (he missed some years due to WW II):

Age

2B

3B

3B "Avg"

24

14

5

0.263

25

24

7

0.226

26

18

4

0.182

27

28

5

0.152

28

27

5

0.156

29

30

5

0.143

33

25

4

0.138

34

35

13

0.271

35

42

14

0.250

36

20

3

0.130

37

6

8

0.571

24-33

166

35

0.174

34-37

103

38

0.270

He also seemed to run the bases well. We can see this with XBT% (extra bases taken percentage.)  This is the percentage of times a runner advanced more than one base on a single or more than two bases on a double, when possible. His career XBT% was 50% but at age 34 it was 57% and at age 35 it was 51%. The league averages those years were 45% and 44%, respectively.

Did Henrich gain speed at age 34? Or was it his experience that allowed him to know better about when to take the extra base? A little of both? I looked at some reference materials like biographical encyclopedias but nothing mentions his dramatic improvement in hitting triples. So I don't have an explanation or theory. But no other player led his league in triples at both age 34 and 35 before without previously finishing even in the top 10.

2 comments:

  1. The Triple is my favorite play in Baseball. And I don't care how flabbergasted any announcer gets when describing a HR which, let's face it, has become too common, too boring and it's another game stoppage. The added drama "did he flip his bat". "did he stare at the pitcher", "is he celebrating too much" is a real drag.

    There is that great moment when the batter is coming into second base and sizes up where the ball is then commits to third which has become far too infrequent. You can just feel it when the entire crowd realizes in unison "He's going for 3 !!!".

    With the "new rules" in the Atlantic League trying to provide more action maybe MLB is overlooking one simple change which would please everyone (except the owners) to no end: push the fences back 50 feet. It would create more Triples and real Home Runs plus inject speed and athleticism back into the game.

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  2. Thanks for reading and commenting. I wonder if it is possible to move the fences that far back. Would they have to take out alot of seats?

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