Thursday, July 14, 2022

Ruth-Gehrig 1927 is easily the best 1-2 punch in the AL & NL since 1900

Using Stathead, I looked up all the seasons of at least a 170 OPS+ in the AL & NL since 1900 with 400+ PAs. Click here to see the search results.

Then I found all the pairs of teammates who had at least a 170 OPS+ in the same year. Then I found each player's rank in OPS+. Those are all shown in the table below.

In 1927, Ruth had an OPS+ of 225, 11th best since 1900. Gehrig had 220, 15th best. Their average rank is 13. That is the lowest. Amazing that two guys in the top 15 were on the same team in the same year.

No pair comes close to this. The next one is again Ruth-Gehrig but in 1930. Their average rank that year is 31.5, Ruth is 12 slots lower than in 1927 and Gehrig is 25 slots lower.

Six of the eleven cases are Ruth and Gehrig (although, as you can see, Gehrig had a higher OPS+ than Ruth in one year, 1933).

It might be a big surprise, that the best pair outside of Ruth-Gehrig is Kevin Mitchell-Will Clark in 1989. But Ruth-Gehrig have five years that have much better average ranks.

Year

Team

Player

OPS+

Rank

Player

OPS+

Rank

Avg Rank

1927

NYY

Ruth

225

11

Gehrig

220

15

13

1930

NYY

Ruth

211

23

Gehrig

203

40

31.5

1931

NYY

Ruth

218

16

Gehrig

194

66

41

1928

NYY

Ruth

206

32

Gehrig

193

73

52.5

1932

NYY

Ruth

201

43

Gehrig

181

141

92

1989

SFG

KMitchell

192

75

WClark

175

220

147.5

2018

BOS

Betts

186

105

JDMartinez

173

249

177

1969

WSA

FHoward

178

164

Epstein

176

203

183.5

1937

STL

Medwick

182

137

Mize

174

233

185

1933

NYY

Gehrig

177

183

Ruth

176

196

189.5

2004

STL

Pujols

173

242

Edmonds

171

291

266.5

Update July 19: I found three additional pairs of teammates whose average rank would make this leader board, although one of the players had an OPS+ less than 170. They are below, with their ranks in parentheses followed by their average rank in red:

1961 Yankees) Mantle 206 (33) Maris 167 (376) 204.5
1959 Braves) Aaron 183 (127) Mathews 168 (342) 234.5
1929 Yankees) Ruth 193 (72) Gehrig 166 (404)  238

This means that Ruth & Gehrig have 7 of the top 14

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