Tuesday, October 26, 2010

10-10-10-10 Seasons in Red Sox History

I was curious about some of the big power/speed seasons in Red Sox history, I will have a post about 20/20 seasons soon (Boston has not had a 30/30 season), so I did some more research. Today however, I was more interested in how many players have had a season in which they had ten or more doubles, triples, home runs, and stolen bases. The triples part is the hard part. You have to have decent power to drive the ball and speed in order to move all the way to third base. So, I formulated a hypothesis as to which players I would see and then did the research.

First Trivia: There are two players that had two such seasons. Who are they?

My hypothesis: I expected to see Nomar Garciaparra, Jackie Jensen, one of the three of Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, or Johnny Pesky, Tris Speaker, and at least one other Dead Ball Era player.

The Results:
Nomar Garciaparra (2003): 37 doubles, 13 triples, 28 home runs, 19 stolen bases.
Johnny Damon (2002): 34 doubles, 11 triples, 14 home runs, 31 stolen bases.
Nomar Garciaparra (1997): 44 doubles, 11 triples, 30 home runs, 22 stolen bases. And it was his rookie year.
Jackie Jensen (1956): 23 doubles, 11 triples, 20 home runs, 11 stolen bases.
Bobby Doerr (1940): 37 doubles, 10 triples, 22 home runs, 10 stolen bases.
Billy Werber (1934): 41 doubles, 10 triples, 11 home runs, 40 stolen bases. Largely forgotten great player in the 1930's.
Tris Speaker (1912): 53 doubles, 12 triples, 10 home runs, 52 stolen bases.
Jake Stahl (1910): 19 doubles, 16 triples, 10 home runs, 22 stolen bases. Ah, the Dead Ball Era.
Buck Freeman (1902): 38 doubles, 19 triples, 11 home runs, 17 stolen bases.
Buck Freeman (1901): 23 doubles, 15 triples, 12 home runs, 17 stolen bases.

Trivia Answer: As you can see both Nomar Garciaparra and Buck Freeman did it twice.

Results: It's pretty rare to see these seasons. Most players do not hit a lot of triples. It's weird that there were four seasons in the first twenty years of the franchise's existence, then after 1956, there was not another one for over forty years. Garciaparra was an incredible player in his rookie season. My hypothesis was correct, although I did not guess that it would be 1956 that Jensen did it. Also, I was surprised that Doerr was the only player who did it. Pesky did not have much power, but I thought he may have hit ten home runs. I am very surprised that DiMaggio did not do it. Four Dead Ball Era players is surprising.

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