Credit where it's due:
https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-...ny-gwynn-s-hall-of-fame-career-182243389.html
The ones that popped out to me:
-From 1995, the year he turned 35, to 2001, the final year of his career,
Gwynn hit .350, with 937 hits. He never stopped being productive at the plate.
-(mentioned earlier) For his career batting average to slip below .300, Gwynn would have needed to add 1,183 hitless at-bats to his total — roughly the equivalent of two full seasons.
-Of the
12 top batting seasons since the expansion era began in 1961, Gwynn owns four of them. Those are: .368 in 1995, .370 in 1987, .372 in 1997 and .394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season.
-In 1994, Jeff Bagwell hit .368, the 13th best season since 1961, but didn't even win the NL batting title because Gwynn was nearly 30 points better.
This combo is mind blowing
-Gwynn had nine five-hit games in his career. Only Pete Rose had more, with 10. Gwynn also had 45 games with at least four hits. That puts him 10th on
the all-time list.
-In 2,440 career games, Gwynn had only 34 multi-strikeout games. So, the odds were better that Gwynn would get four hits than striking out twice. Let that sink in.
Combo again
-Gwynn's 434 career strikeouts are an amazing mark for a player who had 10,232 career plate appearances. Paul Waner is the only member of the 3,000 hit club to do better. He struck out 376 times in 10,766 plate appearances from 1926-1945.
-For comparison's sake: Adam Dunn has struck out 486 times since the start of 2012. Mark Reynolds struck out exactly 434 times in 2009 and 2010.
-In two-strike counts, Gwynn hit .302. That's a statistic that's only been measured since 1988, and since then, Gwynn's mark is easily the best. Wade Boggs, next on the list, hit .260 in two-strike counts.
I don't know which of these is more impressive. Wow.
