Category Archives: Multiple Sports

Stats the Fact, Jack: July 27, 2020

By Jerry Tapp on | Leave a comment

(A weekly look at several sports stats you may not know)

 

  1. The NBA has decided that voting for this year’s major awards (MVP, Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, etc.) will not include games that are played at the end of July (and into August) which will complete the 2019-20 season. Instead, the league has stated that these awards will be based on performances from the start of the 2019-20 season through March 11, 2020, when the league shut down due to the pandemic. This may be good news for Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo. The reigning league MVP was one of the favorites to take home the MVP this season until the halt in play. Should he win the MVP award again this season, he would become only the 12th player in NBA history to win back-to-back MVP awards. The other 11 are: Steph Curry, LeBron James, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. Bird, Chamberlain and Russell are the only players to win the league’s MVP award in three consecutive seasons.
  2. In just two seasons with the Brewers, Christian Yelich has won a National League MVP Award and finished second the other year; he has amassed 80 home runs and 52 stolen bases with the Brewers in two seasons. In these two years, Yelich has accomplished what only 10 other Brewers players have… a career with the Brewers with 80 or more HRs and 50 or more stolen bases. The other Brewers players with 80 HR and 50 stolen bases in their Milwaukee careers: Ryan Braun (344 HR-215 steals), Robin Yount (251-271), Cecil Cooper 9201-77), Greg Vaughn (169-62), Paul Molitor (160-412), Corey Hart (154-83), Rickie Weeks (148-126), Don Money (134-66), Jose Valentin (90-75) and Carlos Gomez (87-152).
  3. Brandon Woodruff was the Brewers Opening Day starting pitcher for this season, becoming the seventh different pitcher to start the first game of the season for the Crew in the last seven seasons. The Opening Day Brewers pitchers over the past six seasons: 2020: Brandon Woodruff, 2019: Jhoulys Chacin, 2018: Chase Anderson, 2017: Junior Guerra, 2016: Wily Peralta, 2015: Kyle Lohse, 2014: Yovani Gallardo.
  4. Hall of Fame quarterbacks every once in a while have a bad game… a terrible game. Did you know that since 1966 (the start of the Super Bowl era) there have been seven Hall of Fame quarterbacks who had a game where they had no TD passes and five or more interceptions in that game? The seven: Terry Bradshaw, Dan Marino, Joe Namath (he did it twice!), Ken Stabler, Bart Starr, Fran Tarkenton and Johnny Unitas.
  5. Some of you may find this hard to believe, but Brewers manager Craig Counsell is the longest tenured manager in the National League. Counsell was hired to manage the Brewers on May 4, 2015. The second-longest tenured skipper in the N.L. is Miami’s Don Mattlingly; he was hired as the Marlins’ manager on November 2, 2015. Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was also hired in 2015 (November 23, 2015) and is the third-highest tenured manager in the N.L. Over in the American League, Oakland’s Bob Melvin tops the list as not only the A.L.’s longest-tenured manager, but all of baseball. He was hired by the A’s on June 9, 2011. Following Melvin on the list in the A.L. are Terry Francona (Cleveland-October 6, 2012), Kevin Cash (Tampa Bay, December 5, 2014) and Scott Servais (Seattle-October 23, 2015).
  6. LeBron James is averaging 10.6 assists per game this season. If he ends the season averaging 10.0 or more assists per game, he will become only the second player age 35 or older to average 10 or more assists per game for a season. The other player? Steve Nash. He averaged 10.0 or more assists per game in a season when he was 35, 36 and 37 years of age.
  7. Here’s a really interesting trivia question for you to share with your friends, especially if you are all Brewers fans: Can you name the three players who played 1,000 or more games with the Brewers but never made an All-Star team as a member of the Brewers? The answer: Jim Gantner (1,801 games), Charlie Moore (1,283 games) and BJ Surhoff (1,102 games). Surhoff was an all-star with the Baltimore Orioles in 1999. He played for the Brewers from 1987-95.
  8. Last season in the NFL there were four quarterbacks who passed for 4,500 or more yards: Jameis Winston, Dak Prescott, Philip Rivers and Jared Goff. Since the AFL-NFL merger (1970), there have been 62 times when a QB has passed for 4,500 or more yards in a season. Five of those happened in the 1980s, three in the 1990s, 11 in the 2000s, and there were 43 times it happened from 2010-19. Of those 62 QBs, 26 of the 62 were age 22-29, 14 of the 62 were age 30-33, and 22 of the 62 were age 34 or older.

 

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Stats the Fact, Jack: July 20, 2020

By Jerry Tapp on | Leave a comment

(A weekly look at several sports stats you may not know)

  1. Over the past couple of weeks, the Milwaukee media has been writing about how the Brewers will be looking to make club history in the 2020 season by making the playoffs for the third season in a row, something that has never been done in the history of the team. It is true that the Brewers have never made the playoffs in three consecutive seasons, but they are one of 11 MLB teams that have never accomplished this feat. The other 10 MLB franchises that have never made it to the post-season in three straight years: Arizona, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati, Colorado, Miami, New York Mets, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa Bay and Washington. The Brew Crew is the only one of these 11 teams that could make it three in a row this season; Tampa Bay and Washington are the only other two teams on this list that made it to the post-season last season.
  2. In the past 20 seasons, which Chicago baseball team has won the most games in a season? In 2014, the Cubs and White Sox each won 73 games. In the other 19 seasons, the Cubs have won more games than the White Sox in 12 seasons. The White Sox won more games than the Cubs in seven seasons since 2000.
  3. Last year in the NFL (2019 season) about 45% of the TDs scored in the season were by players who were under the age of 25. In NFL history, there have been six players who scored 50 or more career TDs before they turned 25: Barry Sanders (57), Todd Gurley (56), Maurice Jones-Drew (56), Randy Moss (54), Jim Brown (53) and Emmitt Smith (53).
  4. Which NBA franchise has had the worst record this century? If you answered the New York Knicks, you are correct. The Knicks have a combined record of 693-997 (.410 winning percentage) from the 1999-2000 season until today. Three other teams have a cumulative winning percentage under .426 since 1999-2000: Washington (.423), Charlotte (.424) and Minnesota (.425).
  5. Terry Felton may not be a name that you are familiar with in baseball lore, but he holds a very dubious honor. Felton, a pitcher, was a second round pick of the Minnesota Twins in the 1976 draft. He played four seasons in the majors. In 1979 he was 0-0; in 1980, he was 0-3, in 1981 he was again 0-0; in 1982, however, he had a record of 0-13. After that 1982 season, he never again played in the majors. He ended his MLB career with a record of 0-16. He holds the record for most career losses without a win in the majors. Felton played two years in the minors in 1983 and 1984. In his minor league career he compiled a pitching record of 43 wins and 64 losses.
  6. It looks like we are less than two months away from the 2020 NFL regular season kicking off. Over the past 10 seasons, there are two teams that have compiled an 8-2 record in their opening week games… New England and Philadelphia. Five teams went 7-3 in their first game of the year from 2010-2019: Kansas City, Denver, Green Bay, Baltimore and San Francisco. The NFL’s worst opening game teams this past decade? Cleveland was 0-9-1, Indianapolis was 1-9, and the Giants were 2-8.
  7. The 2020 MLB season will consist of only 60 regular season games. In MLB history, the best record after the first 60 games of the year is 48-12 by the 1912 New York Giants. The 2001 Seattle Mariners, 1939 New York Yankees and 1907 Chicago Cubs tied for the next-best record after the first 60 games with a 47-13 record. Since 2010, there have been seven teams that won 40 or more games in the first 60 played in a season. Three of those teams won the World Series (the 2016 Cubs went 42-18; the 2017 Astros went 42-18 and the 2018 Red Sox went 41-19). For Brewers fans, the best the Brew Crew has done in the first 60 games of a season is 37-23 in 2018.

 

 

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Stats the Fact, Jack-July 13, 2020

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Stats the Fact, Jack-July 13, 2020

(A weekly look at three sports stats you may not know)

  1. In the history of Major League Baseball, there have been 46 players who had 1,000 or more career plate appearances and no home runs. Topping the list is Dave Eggler who played from 1871 to 1885. He had 2,598 plate appearances without a home run. Only one player who played this century was on the list of 46 players: Reggie Willits, an outfielder who played from 2006-11with the Angels. He had 1,014 career plate appearances without an HR. Of the current players, pitcher Johnny Cueto tops the list. He has 618 plate appearances and no home runs.
  2. Michael Jordan played for the Chicago Bulls from 1984-85 until 1997-98. He had 29,277 points, 5,836 rebounds and 5,012 assists with the Bulls during that timeframe, most on the club in each category. Since the 1998-99 season until today, do you know who has the most career points, rebounds and assists as a member of the Bulls? Luol Deng tops the list with 10,286 points; Joakim Noah is number one on the rebound list with 5,387; and Kirk Heinrich had 3,811 assists for the Bulls since 1998-99, most in that category.
  3. There are 10 NFL teams who have a .500 or better record in the history of the NFL playoffs. The teams: New England Patriots (37-21, .638), Green Bay Packers (35-23, .603), Baltimore Ravens (15-10, .600), San Francisco 49ers (33-22, .600), Pittsburgh (36-25, .590), Oakland Raiders (25-19, .568), Dallas Cowboys (35-28, .556), Denver Broncos (23-19, .548), Washington Redskins (23-19, .548) and Carolina Panthers (9-8, .529).

 

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Today’s Sports Stat: October 25, 2018

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This year’s World Series features a pair of teams, the L.A. Dodgers and Boston Red Sox, who are making their second Fall Classic appearances in the last 10 years. The Dodgers lost to the Houston Astros in last year’s World Series; the Red Sox won the championship in 2013.

With that being said, would you say that baseball has been a model of parity in the World Series over the past 10 years? How about the parity of the other professional sports… the NBA, NHL and NFL?

Let’s take a look at how many different teams have played for their sport’s championship in the last 10 seasons.

In the past 10 seasons, the professional league with the “best” parity in their title game/series is a tie between the NFL and NHL. Both of those leagues have seen 14 different teams play for the title in the last 10 seasons. Major League Baseball follows with 13 different teams playing in the World Series in the last 10 years. Not surprisingly, the league with the “least” parity is the NBA; in the last 10 seasons, only nine teams have played for the title in the NBA.

Only four franchises have played in four or more title games/series in the past 10 years: New England Patriots (NFL), Cleveland Cavaliers (NBA), Golden State Warriors (NBA) and the Miami Heat (NBA). All played in four title series games/series in the last 10 years.

If we look at how many teams have played in more than one championship title game/series in the last 10 years in the NBA, NHL, NFL or MLB, baseball has the most teams with six. They are followed by the NBA with five and both the NFL and NHL with four.

The teams that have played in two or more championship series/games in the last 10 seasons:

MLB (6): Boston, Kansas City, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco, St. Louis, Texas

NBA (5): Cleveland, Golden State, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami, San Antonio

NFL (4): Denver, New England, Pittsburgh, Seattle

NHL (4): Boston, Chicago, L.A. Kings, Pittsburgh

One final question: Which pro league has gone the longest without back-to-back title winners? If you answered baseball, you win the prize. The last back-to-back World Series champs are the New York Yankees in 1999 and 2000. The last back-to-back Super Bowl champs are the New England Patriots from 2004 and 2005. The NHL had back-to-back Stanley Cup winners in 2016 and 2017 with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the NBA had back-to-back champions with the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018.

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Today’s Sports Stat: June 9, 2018

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With their third championship in four years, basketball fans are looking at the Golden State Warriors as one of the game’s dynasties. But Cleveland Cavs, with their third loss in the title series in the last four years, had a performance that puts them among the most dubious in all of sports.

The Cavs became the first pro sports team this century (of the four major sports, NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA) to lose the championship three times over the course of four years. The last pro team to lose a title three times in four years was the Buffalo Bills who lost in the Super Bowl in four straight years, 1991-94. The Cavs also became the first NBA team to lose the Finals series three times in the span of four years since the Los Angeles Lakers lost in the NBA Finals three consecutive years, 1968, 1969 and 1970.

Here are the teams in the four major pro sports leagues that lost in the championship series/game three times over the course of four years.

MLB
Detroit Tigers, 1907, 1908, 1909
New York Giants, 1911, 1912, 1913

NFL
Cleveland Browns, 1951, 1952, 1953
New York Giants, 1958, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1963
Minnesota Vikings, 1974, 1975, 1977
Denver Broncos, 1987, 1988, 1990
Buffalo Bills, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994

NBA
New York Knicks, 1951, 1952, 1953
Los Angeles Lakers, 1962, 1963, 195, 1966
Los Angeles Lakers, 1968, 1969, 1970
Cleveland Cavs, 2015, 2017, 2018

NHL
Toronto Maple Leafs, 1933, 1935, 1936
Toronto Maple Leafs, 1938, 1939, 1940
Montreal Canadians, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955
Detroit Red Wings, 1961, 1963, 1964
St. Louis Blues, 1968, 1969, 1970

 

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