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.