Jim took us on a deep dive into Moncada’s problems with the strikeout on Thursday; meanwhile Nick Madrigal appears to be the opposite down in Winston-Salem, having struck out just once (as of this writing on Friday) in 88 plate appearances. Heck, there’s even a Twitter account chronicling whether the guy struck out :
https://twitter.com/DidMadrigal/status/1027018314499977218
This got me a-thinkin’: which White Sox players have struck out the least over a full season? Originally, I was going to go back to the beginning of the DH era, but that left too many rows. Even setting the date to 1990 left over a hundred instances, so I decided to set the earliest date at 2000. Additionally, a player must have logged at least 502 plate appearances in a season, and struck out less than 100 times. That gives you 58 instances to guess: how many can you name? Good luck!
Quiz Parameters
- I’ve allotted 10 minutes for completion attempts, though I suspect many of you will finish much quicker than that.
- For hints, I’ve provided the year, the number of strikeouts, and the position of the player in question.
Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, or confound your friends
- Unsurprisingly, the White Sox leader all-time for fewest strikeouts in a season came during the early part of the 20th century. Eddie Collins leads the way with just 8 in both the 1923 and 1925 seasons.
- The only White Sox team that didn’t have at least one player qualify for this list was the 2017 iteration. I think the 2018 version likely won’t qualify, either.
- You’ll see some names on this list with, uh, not-great seasons. Just because they didn’t strike out a lot doesn’t mean they were very good. Thus, the venerable average triple-slash sits at: .279/.335/.448. Definitely less robust than many of the triple-slashes that have appeared in past editions of Sporcle Saturday.
Direct link here
All data from baseballreference.com
58/58 with 7:50 left.
What’s fun about this one is the appearance of certain names as offensive leaders.
58/58 with 4:42 left
58/58 5:43 left. 2002 3b/2B threw me off for like a minute.
Boomer also 58/58 7:02 remaining. He beat me the bastard.
57/58. That’s the only one that I didn’t get.
Curious: would you all rather have seen more names? Back to 1990 or even further?
Yes!
Well, it’s the first time I get all the answers, so I’m happy.
Yes, or even further back to 1980 or 1970 or all time but with bar lower, like seasons with fewer than 75 or even 50 strikeouts. To me, there’s nothing all that impressive about whiffing fewer than 100 times. I remember as a kid in the 1970s that most teams in MLB had no more than one or two guys who struck out that much. So the quiz was not so much remembering guys who didn’t strike out much, it was could I remember who the three outfielders were on the 2000 team. Or even better you could have made it whiff % and have asked about those who whiffed at an admirably low rate.
58/58 with 6:39 left.
Took me awhile to get
There’s been a lot of focus on the 2000s recently, it’s really burned some of these names in my mind.