Let’s Make Out!

Jimmy Rollins made his 500th out of the season last night. This was the 6th time in his career that Rollins has made 500 outs in a season, a new Major League dubious record. Here’s the list of players who have managed the feat more than twice (you’ll note that they’re mostly middle infielders):
6 – Jimmy Rollins
5 – Cal Ripken, Juan Pierre
4 – Bobby Richardson, Dave Cash
3 – Jose Reyes, Larry Bowa, Juan Samuel, Omar Moreno, Rick Burleson

7 thoughts on “Let’s Make Out!”

  1. Couple of shocks.
    First, Cal Ripken is a surprise. I guess I never realized that his career OBP was only average, plus he played everyday so he was regularly pulling down 700+ PAs a year. It also surprises me that the first time he did it was 1985 when he had a good year (282/26/110, OPS+ 124). The other seasons he was offensively ordinary, though good for a shortstop.
    Second, they actually allowed Omar Moreno to play long enough to do it 3 times?

  2. Ripken played every inning of every game for years and hit into a lot of double plays, so any time he had an OBP below .350 he was a threat to get to 500 outs. And he only batted .300 a few times. He was still a great player, but one who consumed a truckload of outs.

  3. Ok, so where do I go to find out who has the lowest average number of outs per season, counting seasons with, say 500 PAs? I’ll be back.

  4. I would highly expect that Ted Williams would dominate a list like that, Linus, given his very high OBPs, and the fact that he had a lot of seasons where he would just barely reach 500 PAs.

  5. Rollins has been a good tradeoff in other years, but not this one. He’s still hit enough for a guy who’s a good shortstop, but he should have been at the bottom of the order all season.

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