You may or may not know that the Phillies' Jamie Moyer a couple of months ago became the all-time leader in homeruns allowed when he allowed his 506th career homerun to Vernon Wells of the Blue Jays on June 27th. Same as you and Tim Wakefield, that got me thinking of a few things. Moyer has been with the Phillies since 2006, but unlike you I either don't have the stats for those seasons or never finished them because of computer crashes so this will not be as involved as yours was with Wakefield and I will just have to go with the real stats until 2009.
At the beginning of the 2009 season, Moyer was 5th all time in homeruns allowed with 464. If you are curious, the top 10 at the beginning of 2009 are (years pitched are in parentheses for comparison' sake thank you Baseball-Reference!!):
505 for Robin Roberts (19 seasons, 1948-66)
484 for Fergie Jenkins (19 seasons, 1965-83)
482 for Phil Niekro (24 seasons, 1964-87)
472 for Don Sutton (23 seasons, 1966-88)
464 for Moyer (23 seasons, 1986-as of 2008)
438 for Frank Tanana (21 seasons, 1973-93)
434 for Warren Spahn (21 seasons, 1942-65 he didn't play 1943-45 due to WWII)
430 for Bert Blyleven (22 seasons, 1970-92 plus record for one season of 50 in 1986)
414 for Steve Carlton (24 seasons, 1965-88)
407 for David Wells (21 seasons, 1987-07)
Note: at the end of 2009, Randy Johnson (22 seasons, 1988-09) had past David Wells with 411 homeruns allowed
Moyer has an extreme outside chance if he really sucks ass during the replay to become the alltime leader in 2009, but he would have to allow 42 homeruns during the season for that to happen, extremely unlikely. He will take over second place from Fergie Jenkins though sometime during the year I am fairly certain when he allows his 21st homerun. In real life, that happened on July 9th when Brandon Phillips of the Reds took Moyer deep for a 2-run shot to break a 4-4 tie in the top of the 5th inning in a game that the Phillies came back and won 9-6.
If you are curious about the particulars on the record-breaking 506th, it was on June 27th during a game against the Blue Jays in the bottom of the 3rd inning with the Phillies leading 4-0. With a runner on base, Vernon Wells takes the first pitch he sees from Moyer and deposits it into the seats. Those would be the only two runs Toronto would score in the game as the Phillies win 11-2.
Some of the names for the most homeruns allowed are very familiar to Red Sox or Phillie fans over the years. Robin Roberts spent all but the last 5 years of his career with the Phillies, Fergie Jenkins pitched for the Red Sox a couple of years in the mid 70s (in fact he began his career with the Phillies), Frank Tanana was with the Sox for one year in the early 80s, and of course Steve Carlton, a Phille from 1972-86 before the last two years of his career turned into a joke. Also I can't forget to mention Randy Johnson, who as we know was originally a Montreal Expo. Kind of odd how the top two at the time (Roberts and Jenkins) pitched less than 20 years and everyone else on the list is 21 years or more. Apparently allowing a lot of homeruns doesn't hurt your Hall of Fame chances much, as of the players on the list who are eligible the only two not in the Hall yet are Blyleven and Tanana. Johnson undoubtedly will be in when the time comes, but I don't know about Wells and Moyer.
Moyer so far on the year has allowed four homeruns for a total of 468 right now. 5 more will pass Sutton for 4th, 15 more will pass Niekro for third, and 17 more pases Jenkins for second place. I will be sure to update you in the blog when each milestone happens.
An added quick note regarding Bert Blyleven which I discovered thanks to a little research on Retrosheet. As previously mentioned, he holds the record for most homeruns allowed in a season with 50 in 1986, breaking Robin Roberts' record of 46 in 1956. The next season, 1987, Blyleven led the league again with 46 homers allowed which at the time tied Roberts' total for the second-highest total ever, the record that Blyleven had broken the season before (they have both since been passed by Jose Lima with 48 homers allowed in 2000). In no other season in his career did Blyleven allow more than 24 homeruns, meaning that he allowed a bit more than 20% of his homers for a 22 year career in two consecutive seasons, believe it or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment