Longtime baseball fans most likely have memorized some milestone numbers.
For me, it would be 714 or 755, 56, 1117, and 512 -- Ruth and Aaron HR totals, DiMaggio's hit streak, Billy William's one-time NL record for consecutive games player, Ernie Banks' HR total.
Topps has an insert set dedicated to numbers which they called Significant Statistics. Two of the 25 cards are Cubs cards.
While the numbers are significant to Topps, they meant absolutely nothing to me. Do you have any guess what Swanson's 20 and Stroman's 5.0 signify?
In 2023, Swanson led the majors in Outs Above Average, +20.
Stroman's 5.0 is for Barrel % Allowed, meaning only 5% of the hitters he faced in 2023 were able to get the barrel of their bat on his pitches.
I enjoy numbers, but yikes, do we really need OAA and B%A?
I'm a stats guy too... but this is a tad extreme. Gotta give props to Topps though for taking the extra time to research these deep stats. And the four Cubs logos on the Swanson card has to be close to a record, right? And do I see a fifth logo on his pants?
ReplyDelete