Interesting, I remember that Herr season ... it got a lor of "oh by the way" press about "being on pace" to do exactly what he did. I misremembered on thing, though, I could'v sworn that Carew did it, too, but on reflectio= (okay, on looking it up), the closest he got to that was 9/90 in 1976.

It was sort of the opposite of Sixto Lezcano's 1977 (21/49) and Darrell Evans' 1985 (40/94). Which leads to an interesting speculation ... what current players do you think stand the best chance of hitting 40 homers in 2005 without knocking in 100 runs; and the much harder, much less likely, which players in 2005 have the best chance of matching Herr's feat< single-digit homers, 100+ RBI?

Incidentally, since I brought it up, I think the most likely guy to pull a Herr is Ichiro, who went 8/60 last year, but would anybody be shocked by a 9/112 season from him?

As for the other end of the spectrum, it turns out Mr. Bonds nearly pulled it off last year at 45/101, but my hunch is Jeromy Burnitz in Wrigley.

I applaud your intriguing analysis Magpie. Your response is exactly why I love this sight; insightful and interesting.

Admittedly, I discovered the players who went minus-10 HR and plus-100 RBI while sitting on the loo. I never thought to check numbers from the dead-ball era and only briefly assumed the presence of - as you so eloquently describe them, "oven mitts" - would contribute to such totals. Thanks for taking the notation deeper, and since I'm fairly new to Da Box, would love an explanation for your interest in 1912.

Paul Molitor managed to get 100+ RBI with less than 10 HR in 1996 (9 HR, 113 RBI) I think he's the most recent guy to do so.

Magpie, THAT was one TERIFFIC article.

I REALLY enjoyed it.

Errors and possiblly "dead" balls? Sounds painful.

Hey guys, the answer to this question is a simple query of the Lahman database....

There are 183 seasons with HR 100.
There are 9 such seasons since 1940.
They are

boudrlo01 in 1940 - 9,101
travice01 in 1941 - 7,101
elliobo01 in 1943 - 7,101
elliobo01 in 1945 - 8,108
walkedi02 in 1945 - 8,124
walkedi02 in 1946 - 9,116
kellge01 in 1950 -- 8,101
herrto01 in 1985 -- 8,110
molitpa01 in 1996 - 9,113

whoops, that should say with HR < 10 and RBI > 100 but the HTML ate my sentence

Oh, there is also one player since 1940 with exactly 100 RBI.

hermabi01 in 1943 with 2,100

Big long post in response to everything.

Let's see... gv27's question about my obsessive interest in 1912. Well, as one of the newest roster members I'm trying to earn my stripes here. So I'll be writing about the players of my youth. I may do something on Cy Young and I'm also working on a future piece about the amazing climax of the 1912 World Series.

what current players do you think stand the best chance of hitting 40 homers in 2005 without knocking in 100 runs; and the much harder, much less likely, which players in 2005 have the best chance of matching Herr's feat (single-digit homers, 100+ RBI?)

Adam Dunn came pretty close as well: 46 HR and 102, and so did Sosa with 35 and 80. And Brad Wilkerson's 32 and 67; I seem to remember Brook Jacoby doing something very close to that in 1987 except Jacoby was hitting sixth and took an enormous amount of heat for not driving in runs. Unfair: he was hitting behind Pat Tabler, Joe Carter, Mel Hall, and Cory Snyder. Exactly who was he gonna drive in?

As for the second part, the first guy I thought of too was Ichiro. Except I was thinking that he'd need to be hitting behind Barry.

The thing that works is a high average hitter batting third. As I recall, Tommie Herr was actually hitting third for the Cardinals in 1985: Coleman was leading off, and Willie McGee hit second. And Paul Molitor was hitting third for the Twins tha last time it was accomplished.

It's such a freakish thing that there really shouldn't be a plausible candidate. Ever. Looking at last year's numbers, the nearest alignment seems to be around 15 HR and 80 RBI: Lyle Overbay, Scott Hatteburg, Mark Bellhorn. Guys like that. The most RBI by anyone with single digit HRs last year was 76, by Johnny Estrada who had 9 HRs.

So the best candidate could be someone like Renteria who was 10 HR and 72 RBI last year, and now moves near the bottom of the best offense in the whole darn world. He'll have lots of people on base. Except now he can probably hit 10 HRs just in his home games.

groove's cool work with the Lahman database: I think it's neat to see the names pop up like that. The circumstances are kind of what we'd expect. It's easy to see how Dixie Walker could do it: Walker's Brooklyn team had ddie Stanky (148 BB, .417 OBP) and Augie Galan (114 BB, .423 OBP). But Bob Elliott? Elliott was a good hitter who actually had some power, but these were his Forbes Field years - in Forbes Field, RH hitters shall not hit HRS. But I look at those Pittsburgh teams and I don't know who the hell he was driving in.

And Cecil Travis! Back in 1993, when Olerud was having his huge year, people were naturally talking about Ted Williams: the last man to hit .400, who was also a tall thin LH batter who wore number 9. Anyway, someone asked Ted if Olerud reminded him of anyone. Ted said "Cecil Travis."

Travis had just a fabulous year in 1941: Joe DiMaggio, 56 game streak and all, was third in BAVG that year behind Williams (.406) and Travis (.359). Washington played in an awful home run park and Travis had only 7 HRs, but he did have 39 2b and 19 3b among his 218 hits. He was 27 years old, a great hitter, and he was a shortstop.

And he lost his next four seasons to the war. When he got back in 1946, he was 32 years old. He hit .252 and .216 and retired at age 33. He said he'd simply been away from the game too long.

Ok I played around some more... For players with more than 125 games played - I ranked by HR/RBI

+-----------+-----------+--------+----+------+--------+
| nameFirst | nameLast  | yearID | hr | rbi  | hr/rbi |
+-----------+-----------+--------+----+------+--------+
| Barry     | Bonds     |   2001 | 73 |  137 |   0.53 |
| Barry     | Bonds     |   2003 | 45 |   90 |   0.50 |
| Mark      | Bellhorn  |   2002 | 27 |   56 |   0.48 |
| Ruben     | Rivera    |   1999 | 23 |   48 |   0.48 |
| Mark      | McGwire   |   1998 | 70 |  147 |   0.48 |
| Brad      | Wilkerson |   2004 | 32 |   67 |   0.48 |
| Felix     | Mantilla  |   1964 | 30 |   64 |   0.47 |
| Harmon    | Killebrew |   1963 | 45 |   96 |   0.47 |
| Brook     | Jacoby    |   1987 | 32 |   69 |   0.46 |
| Troy      | Glaus     |   2000 | 47 |  102 |   0.46 |
| Barry     | Bonds     |   2000 | 49 |  106 |   0.46 |
| Willie    | Mays      |   1965 | 52 |  112 |   0.46 |
| Rickey    | Henderson |   1990 | 28 |   61 |   0.46 |
| Frank     | Robinson  |   1956 | 38 |   83 |   0.46 |
| Rick      | Monday    |   1973 | 26 |   56 |   0.46 |
| Mark      | McGwire   |   1996 | 52 |  113 |   0.46 |
| Hank      | Aaron     |   1969 | 44 |   97 |   0.45 |
| Sammy     | Sosa      |   2002 | 49 |  108 |   0.45 |
| Brady     | Anderson  |   1996 | 50 |  110 |   0.45 |
| Adam      | Dunn      |   2004 | 46 |  102 |   0.45 |
+-----------+-----------+--------+----+------+--------+

Lots of sluggers, plus leadoff hitters who had HR surges.

Further to points made by magpie and groove, there are indeed frequent cases of under 10-HR and plus-100 RBI seasons prior to 1940.

In fact, two-thirds of the Tiger outfield did it in 1917: Ty Cobb (6 HR, 102 RBI) and Bobby Veach (8 HR, 103 RBI). Two years later, Veach drove in 101 runs on the strength of just 3 home runs. We'll assume an abundance of oven mitts helped matters.

By 1925, he was a New York Yankee, pinch-hitting for Babe Ruth. Perhaps The Sultan had some additional cocktails the night before?

OK, groove's latest work (and that's one fine-looking table; the HTML has a tendency to eat my every sentient utterance) spits out three seasons that met Mick's original criteria: 40+ HRS and less than 100 RBI.

We know how Barry does it: the pitchers cower and tremble and throw Ball 1-2-3-4 whenever there are people on base. Harmon Killebrew and Henry Aaron?

The 1963 Twins had an offense very like that of the 1961 Yankees - they hit a zillion HRs (225 for the Twins, 240 for the Yankees) - but there was no one at the top of the lineup getting on base in front of the sluggers. Teams back then used middle infielders to lead off: the Twins had Bernie Allen (.302 OBP) and Zoilo Versalles (.307 OBP). No one on that Twins team drove in or scored 100 runs. Killebrew was a low-average power hitter most of his career; hitting HRs was basically how he drove in runs. So in 1963, half the time he only had himself to drive in...

And by 1969, Henry Aaron was becoming the same kind of hitter. He was 35 and his skills were narrowing a little. Just a little, and moving from Milwaukee to Atlanta disguised it a fair bit. But where he used to hit. 320 and higher with regularity, he was now down around .300. Not quite as many doubles and triples. But more HRs than ever - also a product of the Launching Pad (as we used to call Fulton County.)

Also - the Braves leadoff man was Felipe Alou. Felipe was a very good player in his day, but in 1969 he hit .282 with 23 walks and scored 54 runs.

So if the Reds do something really dumb - let's say Felipe Lopez leads off, Joe Randa hits second, and then Adam Dunn hits third: I can see Dunn hitting 44 HRs and driving in 87 runs. But it'll never happen if they do the right thing, and bat Jimenez-Casey at the top of the lineup...

I could do this all day if I didn't have a paper to write... Here is the complete list players that did satisfy 40 HR and less than 100 RBI.

+-----------+-------------+--------+----+------+
| nameFirst | nameLast    | yearID | hr | rbi  |
+-----------+-------------+--------+----+------+
| Barry     | Bonds       |   2003 | 45 |   90 |
| Harmon    | Killebrew   |   1963 | 45 |   96 |
| Hank      | Aaron       |   1969 | 44 |   97 |
| Matt      | Williams    |   1994 | 43 |   96 |
| Ken       | Griffey Jr. |   1994 | 40 |   90 |
| Mickey    | Mantle      |   1958 | 42 |   97 |
| Davey     | Johnson     |   1973 | 43 |   99 |
| Darrell   | Evans       |   1985 | 40 |   94 |
| Duke      | Snider      |   1957 | 40 |   92 |
| Mickey    | Mantle      |   1960 | 40 |   94 |
| Hank      | Aaron       |   1973 | 40 |   96 |
| Rico      | Petrocelli  |   1969 | 40 |   97 |
+-----------+-------------+--------+----+------+

And here are some recent candidates (since 2000) who have been within 5 HR or 5 RBI of accomplishing the feat

+-----------+-----------+--------+----+------+
| nameFirst | nameLast  | yearID | HR | RBI  |
+-----------+-----------+--------+----+------+
| Barry     | Bonds     |   2003 | 45 |   90 |
| Troy      | Glaus     |   2000 | 47 |  102 |
| Adam      | Dunn      |   2004 | 46 |  102 |
| Barry     | Bonds     |   2004 | 45 |  101 |
| Jim       | Edmonds   |   2003 | 39 |   89 |
| Alfonso   | Soriano   |   2003 | 38 |   91 |
| Brian     | Giles     |   2001 | 37 |   95 |
| Sammy     | Sosa      |   2003 | 40 |  103 |
| Jeff      | Bagwell   |   2003 | 39 |  100 |
| Rich      | Aurilia   |   2001 | 37 |   97 |
| Alfonso   | Soriano   |   2002 | 39 |  102 |
| Mike      | Piazza    |   2001 | 36 |   94 |
| Carlos    | Delgado   |   2001 | 39 |  102 |
| Chipper   | Jones     |   2001 | 38 |  102 |
| Brian     | Giles     |   2002 | 38 |  103 |
| Gary      | Sheffield |   2001 | 36 |  100 |
| Manny     | Ramirez   |   2003 | 37 |  104 |
| Aramis    | Ramirez   |   2004 | 36 |  103 |
| Andruw    | Jones     |   2000 | 36 |  104 |
+-----------+-----------+--------+----+------+

There's another aspect to this, which is that because of all the errors in the deadball era, there were actually fewer RBI to go around because more runs were scored by means other than being "batted in".

Let's take two examples. In 1905, the pennant-winning New York Giants led the NL in runs scored with 780. But the Giants had only 642 RBI, meaning that they scored 138 runs by means other than being "batted in".

99 seasons later, in 2004, the pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals led the NL in runs scored with 855. But the Cards had 817 RBI, meaning that they scored just 38 runs by means other than being "batted in". That's a difference of 100 runs, and an even greater difference on a per-run basis. 17.7% of the Giants' runs had no RBI, but only 4.4% of the Cards' runs (four times fewer).

It was much tougher to compile big RBI numbers in the deadball era for a whole bunch of interlocking reasons.

Well done, all. A fascinating analysis.

Herr did hit 3rd behind Coleman and McGee in 1985, and that was McGee's batting title year. With Coleman stealing bases, and McGee stealing bases and hitting doubles, Herr probably had more at-bats with a runner on 2nd than anybody in the league. He also had 13 sac flies. In 1987, Herr drove in 83, despite hitting only 2 homers and only 29 doubles.

I don't quite understand Craig's assertion; surely the errors meant there were more RBI to be had? Had all those errors not occurred, the result would not have been 780 runs with more RBI, it would have been fewer runs and a similar number of RBI (perhaps even fewer, since replacing errors with outs would mean innings ended before someone could drive in a teammate that reached on an error). It may have been harder to compile big RBI numbers, but is this really a reason for it?

No, what I mean is that it was tougher to compile big RBI numbers relative to the level of offense. In other words, even where levels of offense are constant, RBI are comparatively rarer in the deadball era (or in any situation where there are lots of errors, such as in high school or college baseball, for example, or Rookie ball).

Next guy to do it? Ichiro.

Lets not forget who the #8, #9 guys were in Seattle.

Scott Speizo, Who had a sweet .288 OBP, .215 Average and 4 SBs. Jose Lopez: .263 OBP, zero SB. Migel Olivo: .260 OBP since coming over to Seattle. Dan Wilson: .305 OBP and runs as slow as dirt.

Get a #9 Hitter who can steal some bases, who has a .350 OBP + and you will see Ichiro come close to the 100 RBI mark.