Buxton: speedy dude
This is last post in the “2016 by the numbers” series. I’ve made an attempt to look at the data from the 2016 APBA Baseball disk and cover overall trends as well as spotlight the best (as well as the worst). I checked out the defensive ratings first. Then, I took a gander at the 2016 pitching. Yesterday, I had fun with the hitting numbers.
Now, I’m going to wrap up with some very miscellaneous data. Let’s take a look a speed distribution. Not surprisingly, the slow runners outpace (no pun intended) the fast ones.
| Speed rating | Distribution |
| S | 360 |
| F | 184 |
But which players were the fastest using the Master Game speed rating? I’m not surprised by these guys, at all.
| Speed rating | Highest |
| Byron Buxton | 20 |
| Billy Hamilton | 20 |
| Dee Gordon | 20 |
| Jarrod Dyson | 19 |
| Mallex Smith | 19 |
| Trea Turner | 19 |
And the slowest? These runners will clog up the basepaths for ya’.
| Name | Speed |
| Bartolo Colon | 1 |
| David Ortiz | 2 |
| Ryan Howard | 2 |
| Wilson Ramos | 2 |
If a utility man is important to a team, these guys are champs. They all played six positions. They all played every position except catcher.
| Most positions | Number played |
| Andrew Romine | 6 |
| Luis Sardinas | 6 |
| Ryan Goins | 6 |
| Ryan Flaherty | 6 |
Five pitchers played another position in the field and are rated there on their card. All five are rated OF-1.
| Pitchers + | Def at OF |
| Pedro Strop | 1 |
| Cory Gearrin | 1 |
| Shelby Miller | 1 |
| Spencer Patton | 1 |
| Travis Wood | 1 |
Seventeen position players took their turn on the mound to help the cause. The grades I looked up were either 1 or 2 but Phegley did have an XY strikeout rating.
| Pitchers too | Main Pos. |
| Josh Phegley | C |
| Tyler White | 1B |
| Miguel Montero | C |
| Christian Bethancourt | C |
| Bryan Holaday | C |
| Drew Butera | C |
| Chris Gimenez | C |
| Eduardo Escobar | SS |
| Ryan Flaherty | 3B |
| Darwin Barney | 2B |
| Ryan Goins | 2B |
| Alexi Amarista | 2B |
| Tyler Ladendorf | 2B |
| J.B. Shuck | OF |
| Tyler Holt | OF |
| Andrew Romine | 3B |
| Luis Sardinas | SS |
On a side note, I’ve seen two of these players, Phegley (Indiana) and Shuck (Ohio State), play in college. Shuck should have stayed a pitcher in my humble opinion.
May need to shrink the font on the APBA card for these guys. They had the longest names in the 2016 set. It seems to me Saltalamacchia has been on this list for a while.
| Longest name | Characters |
| Christian Bethancourt | 20 |
| Jarrod Saltalamacchia | 20 |
| Francisco Rodriguez | 18 |
| Christian Friedrich | 18 |
| Michael Foltynewicz | 18 |
| Arquimedes Caminero | 18 |
And the shortest names? There will be lots of white space on these APBA cards.
| Shortest name | Characters |
| Jon Jay | 6 |
| Ryan Rua | 7 |
| Joe Ross | 7 |
| Ian Krol | 7 |
| Jon Gray | 7 |
| Chaz Roe | 7 |
With that, the 2016 by the numbers series is finished! You can read the whole 2016 by the numbers series here.
I hope you enjoyed this series of posts and if you haven’t already, place your order for the APBA cards or disk today.
Happy Holidays, APBA Fans!!
Great analysis. Thank you for sharing your insights.
66s,
Walt
You mean there are slower runners than Victor Martinez?!?
Jon Jay’s short name is always offset by his glorious nickname “The Federalist” :)