Good morning!
Evidently it’s Jose Abreu Appreciation Month over here at Sporcle Saturday. I was perusing various player splits yesterday morning when one in particular caught my eye: throughout much of his tenure on the White Sox, Jose Abreu has led the team in RBI when there are runners in scoring position and two out. And, in the seasons in which he placed second, he was either injured or off the lead by just one or two RBI.
In fact, if you look at combined seasons from 2014 to the present, Abreu blows away the field with 192 RBI in such situations: the next-highest White Sox total is 80. Further, if you’re interested in expanding that to MLB as a whole, Abreu places third. The two guys ahead of him? J.D. Martinez (197) and Nolan Arenado (205). While it may not come as much of a surprise to those of us who have watched Abreu expand his zone with runners on, it still ain’t too shabby!
So today, we celebrate Abreu’s clutchness by looking at other players throughout franchise history who have come up big in similar situations. I’ve set the qualification cutoff at a minimum of 30 RBI in such situations over the course of a season. That leaves 54 entries: how many can you name? Good luck!
Quiz Parameters
- As noted above: a player must have recorded at least 30 RBI with RISP and two outs to qualify.
- I’ve allotted 10 minutes for completion attempts.
- For hints, I’ve provided the season, number of RBI, and position of the player.
Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, and/or confound your friends and family:
- Abreu is currently 11th in White Sox history with those 192 RBI. The franchise leader has 347 RBI.
- The MLB record holder is actually someone who appears on this list (1933) with 520 over the course of his career, just edging out Henry Aaron, who had 512.
- The average triple-slash of the guys on this list: .320/.419/.545
(Photo by Zach Bolinger/Icon Sportswire)
All data from stathead.com
52/54, with my misses coming in 1927 and 1951. Speaking of 1951, the 1B from that year just died this month.
(Speaking of 1B, that should be the position for the 1972 OF.)
Thanks. I’ll get that fixed. My eyes go sideways when I compile the position hints by hand. Edited to add: have you listened to the Effectively Wild podcast interviews with that 1951 1B? Wonderful interviews. In case you missed them, he appears on episodes 1454 and 1629.
Oh, yes, yes, yes to the Effectively Wild podcast interviews! You could tell how much they loved speaking with him.
50/54. Also missed 1927 and 1951, plus 1935 and the 1936 2nd baseman.
show up a combined 9 times as answers here. I got them all and would have gotten none of them before I started doing these quizzes.
One player I had never heard of here was the 1936 second-baseman. I looked him up. He played over 800 games for the Sox and was considered an excellent defender. He has a SABR bio and I learned his career ended because of glaucoma and he eventually was blind.
SABR bio for 1936 2b
I agree completely. The only old time Sox guys I knew were the Black Sox guys and then a few others (Bonura, Zernial, Appling, Al Simmons). Now I am disappointed if I miss any of those guys from the 20s and 30s you mentioned in your spoiler. But I still missed the 2nd baseman! I’m going to have to make a concerted effort to remember him in the next quiz!
Yes, the only reason I got the second baseman from 1936 was he showed up occasionally on Ted’s quizzes, so he entered my consciousness.
Ted has provided us reasons to search SABR biographies, and I can’t thank him enough for that. Just Ping Bodie’s bio alone is worth the effort of doing these quizzes, seeing who you missed, and looking them up.
(Ping Bodie isn’t on this quiz. But look up Ping Bodie.)
The Ping Bodie biography must be real life because I wouldn’t find it believable it if it was fiction.
I was shocked that