Baseball Archetypes: 70's Contact Nerds 👓

each year modern baseball up clarifying not the pop punk band shout out to those guys though baseball in today's day and age there we go it trends just a little more toward the three true outcomes with every game you've probably heard this terminology before but if not the three true outcomes are the home run the walk and the strikeout plays that only include the batter and the pitcher they exclude the rest of the defense the only exceptions being the rare inside the park home run or strike three dropped by the catcher these changes can be seen from the top all the way down from major league baseball to little league strikeouts don't carry the stigma they used to that is as long as you're swinging for the fences batter's approaches at the plate have adjusted accordingly this style of play has fit the agenda of the powers that be quite well as it greatly increases the pace of play leading to shorter games on average in the not too distant past there were major league clubs whose entire offensive identities relied on playing small ball quite simply base hits expertly landed where the defense is not bunts bloops slap hits just over an infielder's head slap hits into someone's head the really good ones had this down to an exact science perpetuating a legacy of unpredictability from baseball's dead ball era in some circles they'd say these teams played in the second dead ball era this is god family and batting average i present to you 70s contact nerds [Music] before we get rolling if you would please like and subscribe help break down the outfield walls that stand between small ball creators like me and a good audience this is the first video in my archetypes series where we deep dive into player comparisons from the past pretty research intensive pretty time consuming so your support would mean a lot here we go a few all-time stats for backstory ty cobb has the highest career batting average at 366. this record faces zero pressure to ever be beaten in my opinion ted williams slots in at number six on this list with an impressive 344 batting average the only contemporary contact merchant who even appears on this list of all time averages is tony gwynn who slots in at number 17 with a 338 average you know i call him contemporary but let's say the only one who's played in my lifetime win or lose the 60s and 70s minnesota twins were routinely at the top of the american league in terms of batting average and one man's stats could be considered the backbone of this hall of famer rod carew logged 15 consecutive seasons with a batting average above 300 he batted 388 in 1977 and was the first to do so since ted williams's famed 1957 season his fluid batting stance perfectly facilitated getting his hands to the ball regardless of where it came through the zone his hands started low minimizing the movement needed to make contact i don't believe there's any existing film of a pitcher ever catching him off balance it's really a thing of beauty power was an afterthought to karoo he has the 27th most hits of all time but he also spent six years in the marines just imagine if he had piled those seasons on kuru is still the standard by which dedicated contact hitters are measured lyman bostock a young phenom who karue took under his wing was possibly the greatest contact hitter who never reached his full potential i love his 1976 line 474 at bats 323 batting average four homers he was traded from the twins to the angels in 1978 on one of the biggest contracts of his time he struggled a bit there notably offering to give back part of his salary until his hitting improved he finally picked it up but tragedy struck that year as he was shot and killed as a passenger of a vehicle in his hometown of gary indiana his shooter leonard smith was sentenced to a psychiatric hospital and released after seven months guilty but mentally ill while researching this i actually found an espn feature where they tried to corner smith outside of his home early espn reporting was wild dude you could not convince me to shove a microphone in that dude's face after he shot a man for much less cajones the 1970s pittsburgh pirates rosters were built around first ballot hall of fame sluggers willie stargell and roberto clemente the rest of manager danny murtaugh's lineup would be comprised of seven stellar athletes who he could trust to be on base when stargel and clemente stepped up to the plate ethnicity did not factor into murita's lineup theory as unbeknownst to himself he set the first all-minority lineup in 1971 and when asked about it he replied i put the best nine athletes out there the best nine i put out there tonight happened to be black no big deal next question the world would be stunned at the loss of roberto clemente who died in a plane crash in december of 1972 while accompanying a shipment of relief supplies in response to an earthquake in nicaragua one of the greatest philanthropists baseball has ever seen power hitting right fielder dave parker would fill in the following season statistically he was about as close as you could get to clemente's effectiveness but what about the rest of the lineup you know the guys setting the table playing a brand of baseball as synonymous with three rivers stadium as the pillbox ball cap let's start with long time pirates second baseman renny stennett stinnett was actually from the same hometown as rod carew missed opportunity i should have called this video six degrees of separation from rod carew maybe next time his approach at the plate was similar though stinnett was a little more aggressive a first pitch swinger he batted lead off for most of his years in pittsburgh stinnett is one of only two players to record seven hits in one nine inning game his came in a 22 to nothing absolute demolition of the cubs from a batting average standpoint rennie arguably missed most of the season that would define his career as he broke his leg during the 77 season abandoning a 336 average as he was carted off often batting second in the lineup also a native of panama also a contact hitting legend manny sanguian manny has a lifetime batting average of 296 which is good enough for the fourth highest average by a catcher since world war ii he's referred to as the ultimate bad ball hitter very frustrating to pitch to as he could turn a ball in the dirt into a base hit he was instrumental in the pirates 1971 world series season as this was his best statistical season batting 319 with 81 rbis anyone who's ever played baseball at any level has at some point been told to choke up on the bat this simply means adjusting your hands closer to the barrel which is known to increase the chance of contact tim foley took this more literally than anyone who's ever played baseball there were times his right thumb was just a hair off the louisville slugger logo because of the likelihood of getting hit on the hands batting like this he also wore big leather farmer's gloves top it off with his thick glasses and you have a dude looking so uncool that it's actually cool fully batted 333 in the 79 postseason he hit for the cycle while with the expos in 76 considering he averaged less than two home runs per season this is one of the most unlikely cycles of all time quick side note have you ever wondered who was the absolute best at laying down a bunt percentage-wise that distinction belongs to lee masili who primarily played for the mets he reached base 35 times on 40 career bunt attempts good for 87 and a half percent couldn't find any footage of his masterful bunts so here's him pissing off the mad hungarian instead hmm it feels like i'm leaving a team out a team that manufactured runs so well that it felt inhuman just churning out runs like a well-oiled machine perhaps it was big and red yeah man apologies that was lame anyway the cincinnati reds aka the big red machine of the 70s were led by pete rose and three hall of famers johnny bench tony perez and joe morgan yep that's tv joe morgan this group was known as the core four they were supported by dave concepcion george foster ken griffey senior and cesar geronimo this collective was known as the great eight you know you're good when different sections of your lineup have different nicknames every member of the 8 and the 4 were characterized by excellent contact hitting with the exception of bench and foster whose playing style revolved around hitting dingers if you're putting together a list of top 10 all-time hitting teams i could make the argument for at least three 70s reds teams on that list pete rose put together a 44-game hitting streak during this time as well as 4192 hits that puts his name at the very top of the record books nothing about pete rose's game was necessarily pretty his swing wasn't pretty but it was effective the longer his career went on the more he hunched over shrinking the strike zone and maximizing his leverage as he uncoiled him bowling over defenders wasn't very pretty either super effective i could just sit and watch him play baseball for hours and i know i'm not alone in that the dude made a living just given more of a than the opposition did and that's canon almost every hitting technician on this list went on to become a coach in fact even my three honorable mentions here joe torre don mattingly and dusty baker are not only coaches but some of the most beloved major league managers in history and that seems a lot cooler than just dropping their stat lines well i'm wrapping this up but hey life's short aggravate the other team wear out of place gloves lose your helmet and look like you still have a helmet on hit for average take it easy