First Time in 50 Years?

[Ben Grimm]

The 2012 Phillies are on pace to have just one hitter reach 500 Plate Appearances (PA) this season. A typical team over a season averages about 5 or 6 players with 500+ PA.

Here's where each player currently stands.

Rollins 480
Pence 440 (traded)
Victorino 431 (traded)
Ruiz 353 (on DL)
Polanco 314 (on DL)
Pierre 303
Wigginton 297
Mayberry 285
Galvis 200 (on DL - suspension)
Utley 133
Fontenot 105 (DFA'd)

Jimmy Rollins is on pace to reach 620 PAs by season's end. Ruiz could be out for the rest of the year since bringing him back for two weeks of meaningless games doesn't make much sense. Even if Polanco was to come off the DL today, he'd only be on pace for 410 or so.

Other than strike-shortened seaons, the most recent year I can find a Phillies team with just one player with more than 500 PAs is the '61 team. Johnny Callison had 538, though teams only played 154 games then. Had they played a full 162, Tony Gonzalez likely would have reached the mark since he had 485 and was playing full-time by the end of the season.

[philliesfiend55]

That's an obscure but very interesting fact, Ben.
Tony Taylor who usually batted leadoff or second and would get around 600 plate appearences in his prime, but he got hurt in '61 and got less than 450 PA and Callison , as you pointed out was the only player to exceed 500 PA..
The American League used 477 Plate appearences as minimum to qualify for the bating title from 1957-60 and the National League used the same number from 1957-1961 in those pre-expansion years. It goes back to the 1954 American League batting race. The standard back then used to qualify was 400 at bats. Then in '54 a lot of people thought that Ted Williams got gypped out of another batting title. He hit .345 compared to Cleveland's Bobby Avila who hit .341. Williams had only 386 at bats, but he had 136 walks - over 520 plate appearences and not counting SF and HBP.
So the major leagues agreed to overhaul the standard and it took two years of research before they came up with the 3.1 plate appearences for each game played standard.
That's 477.4 = 477 plate appearences for a 154 game schedule and 502.2 = 502 plate appearences for a 162 game schedule. The rule was enacted for the 1957 season and the 3.1 PA per game standard is still in effect today..

[Ben Grimm]

The American League used 477 Plate appearences as minimum to qualify for the bating title from 1957-60 and the National League used the same number from 1957-1961 in those pre-expansion years. It goes back to the 1954 American League batting race. The standard back then used to qualify was 400 at bats. Then in '54 a lot of people thought that Ted Williams got gypped out of another batting title. He hit .345 compared to Cleveland's Bobby Avila who hit .341. Williams had only 386 at bats, but he had 136 walks - over 520 plate appearences and not counting SF and HBP.

It's amazing how some things that seem so obvious take so long for baseball to adapt - and a good portion of fans really. PA's should have been the standard from day one since using ABs penalizes those with good plate discipline. I never actually heard the Williams-Avila story before - thanks for that. I have heard stuff like the Cobb incident to make him lose one because players didn't like him and I remember the Willie McGee trade that froze his AVG when he went to the AL. People here were incensed that his AVG stuck once Dykstra started to fade. On the day of the trade, Lenny was at .340 while Willie was at .335. It didn't really matter since Dykstra had a rough final month and dropped out anyway.

BTW - nobody on this team is on pace for 20 HRs this season. Closest to it is Rollins with 12 (assuming Carlos Ruiz isn't returning). The last time the Phils didn't have a 20-HR hitter was 1990 when the immortal Von Hayes knocked 17.

[philliesfiend55]

RE: No Phillie likely to hit 20 HRs for first time since 1990:
Yes, the 2012 season is a season for Phillies firsts and rarities, but not neccessarily good ones.

[philliesfiend55]

In Spring Training Who would have thought that (as Ben Grimm pointed out) the Phillies would have only one player with 500 plate appearences this season (Jimmy Rollins) the first time this has happened since 1962, a full half-century ago. Or who would have guessed that of the players ranking 2 through 5 - that with 13 games left:
A. None would have reached 450 plate appearences.
B. Two of them would have essentially platooned at one position for most of the year - Left Field - # 3 - John Mayberry Jr. (434) PA and #5 - Juan Pierre (408 PA).
C. The other two (former all-stars) would have been traded - #2 - Hunter Pence (440 PA) and #4 - Shane Victorino (431 PA).
D. The only Phillie position player selected as an all-star - #6 - catcher, Carlos Ruiz (380 PA), would have only a 50-50 chance of finishing the year with 400 PA.

[philliesfiend55]

RE: No Phillie likely to hit 20 HRs for first time since 1990:
Yes, the 2012 season is a season for Phillies firsts and rarities, but not neccessarily good ones.

Jimmy Rollins went on a home run tear in September and currently has 21 HR. At least this season won't go in the books at the first time in "like forever" that no Phillie has hit 20 home runs in a season.

[Ben Grimm]

There is something to be said about maintaining relative health to your core players during a season to achieve success.

Here are the Phils during their playoff run as well as this year's struggle to .500