Mike Hampton, a hard-throwing lefty who finished second in Cy Young voting one season, faced Gwynn 38 times and never struck him out. One more thing: I took the top four vote-getters and went back to Twitter to post a couple of polls. Nobody owned "Tony Gwynn Opening Day" quite like, well, Tony Gwynn. Special to ESPN.com. When it comes to choosing between two of the greatest pitchers of all time, Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez, there are a number of factors to consider. . In addition to his pitching skills, Maddux was an excellent fielding pitcher. His first and biggest love is baseball. He finished his illustrious Hall of Fame career with a 3.16 ERA, 3,371 strikeouts, 17 Gold Gloves, and one of the best two-seamers ever thrown. How about .444 career average with the bases loaded. Draft: Drafted by the San Diego Padres in the 3rd round of the 1981 MLB June Amateur Draft from San Diego State University (San Diego, CA). With the All-Star game in San Diego this season, it's impossible not to think about San Diego . 19. In 1995 he went 35 games without striking out. Gross tubs? His 45 games with at least four hits is 10th all-time (since 1954), and ranks fourth among left-handed batters behind Wade Boggs, George Brett, and Rod Carew. Tony Gwynn is the greatest pure hitter I have ever witnessed. . There were two strikeout specialists who got Gwynn on strikes more than a few times: Nolan Ryan and Dwight Gooden. Perhaps the greatest pure hitter of his generation, the back of Gwynn's baseball card has enough nuggets and oddities to keep trivia buffs busy for days. **For the best user experience, we recommend disabling the Reddit redesign. His 590 career assists are the most in school history and his 221 assists in the 1979-80 season are also a record. Gwynn faced Greg Maddux 107 times in his career more than any other pitcher. In the 30-plus years that stat has been tracked, the next-best batting average with two strikes is .260 by Wade Boggs, more than 40 points below Gwynns mark. The numbers he put up are staggering, especially considering he played in an era that was increasingly dominated by big swings and steroid home runs. He batted .415/.476/.521 against the four-time Cy Young Award winner and Hall of Famer. From 1988 to 2001, Gwynn hit .302 in two-strike counts. Reality: Greg Maddux faced 20,421 batters during his career. Last season, 129 players had struck out 22 times by the end of April. Gwynns career batting mark was .338, the highest mark by any player who started his career after 1939. Runs scored is an opportunity stat, and it really has little to do with how good a player is. Gwynn faced Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz a combined 323 times. In 1995 he went 35 games without striking out. In 36 pitcher/batter battles, Pedro Martinez never struck out Gwynn. For two decades, Tony Gwynn was also the best friend those of us in the media-genius prediction business ever had. High School Sports. Well, heres the thing though: runs scored is not factored in WAR. And one final strikeout-related stat that blows the mind: Tony Gwynn hit .302 with two strikes on him. He struck out 15 times during the entire 1995 season a year in which he batted .368. Speaking of average, Gwynn's career mark of .338 ranks 17th among the all-time leaders. During his career, Tony won batting titles by 32 points (1987), 30 points (1984), 28 points (1994), 22 points (1995), and 17 points (1996). Gregory Alan Maddux (born April 14, 1966) is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for four teams. There are few ballplayers in the history of Major League Baseball that were as skilled in the batters box than Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who passed away on Monday. In this installment of Baseball Mythbusters, we will look at Greg Maddux and the 30 count. In fact, Maddux saw Gwynn more than anyone. Here's Maddux on how he gripped the baseball. "Mr Padre" is one of the best and most consistent contact hitters in the history of baseball. Five of those seasons belong to Gwynn (1984, '86, '87, '89, '97). It means Tony Gwynn would have had to go 0-for-his-next-1,183 to get his average to fall under .300 (and even then, it would have "plummeted" to a mere .29997). Greg Maddux. Even in his era, Gwynns contact rate was far and away the best of the great hitters. * Marquis Grissom, now Madduxs teammate, batted .405 (17-for-42). You gotta figure, to load up the bases the pitcher has already got to be fucking up. But Gwynn played a pivotal role in that game, nonetheless, singling in the eighth, and scoring the tying run in the 10th after reaching on an error. We kid you not. Do not let the reality fool you this is still nothing short of amazing. Heyward has looked good early in spring training, which has led to talk that he is likely to make the, LeBron James took some time this week to send positive thoughts to a veteran NBA reporter while also managing to make it about himself. Among the 38 pitchers he faced at least 50 times, his lowest average was a .243 mark against Dwight Gooden. But Gwynn wasnt done showing off his old bat. And thanks to statistic hubs like Baseball Reference, some unbelievable numbers are being shared from Gwynn's career. DarthIntegral JCC FODEUSS Commish VIP - Former Mod/RSA VIP - Game Host. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. In that game, Gwynn lined a two-run double in the bottom of the ninth off Dennis Eckersley to tie the game and send it to extra innings. 7. In 20 seasons he struck out a total of 434 times most hitters today strike out that much in three seasons. He faced Greg Maddux more than any other pitcher, 107 . Gwynn was without question the best pure hitter in the game of baseball in the 1980s and 1990s. He hit .400 or better against eight different Cy Young winners -- Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Bret Saberhagen, Vida Blue, John Denny, Dennis Eckersley, Mark Davis and Doug Drabek -- and batted . But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision. Maddux made 24 quality starts in 1994. As Howell broke for second, Gwynn put his picture-perfect swing into a Maddux slider and lifted it into center field . If you need proof of that -- besides his eight National League batting titles, career .338 batting average, seven Silver Slugger awards and 3,141 career hits -- check out some of these eye-popping stats and facts. Think about that: for five years from July of 1991 to April 1996, Gwynn never had an 0-for-12 at any time. Tony Gwynn won eight batting titles and hit .300 in 19 of his 20 major league seasons. He gets more of the bat on the ball on some pitches than anyone else, Maddux said. Winner of eight batting titles, Gwynn finished in the top five for the league's best average 13 times from 1984 through 1997. The former Atlanta Braves hurler faced Gwynn 107 times during their overlapping Hall-of-Fame careers. Tony Gwynn owned Greg Maddux, and Mad-Dog knew it. Gwynn hit below .300 just once in his career, Gwynn struck out less than 20 times in six straight seasons with a career-low 15 times in 1995. One split for pitchers is Count/Balls-Strikes. This shows opposing batter stats in situations that can be grouped into three categories: plate appearances that ended on a certain count, plate appearances that go beyond a certain count, and plate appearances with certain miscellaneous characteristics. Gwynn's .338 career batting average is the highest in the expansion era -- and it's not even that close, as Gwynn sits 10 points ahead of Boggs, in second. April 11, 2020 6:05 AM PT. . (posted by /u/Gimmie_dat_cookie on r/cubs). Only Warren Spahn (363 wins) had more wins than Maddux (355) during that era. So mind-blowing, in fact, that it seems too good to be true. He is ranked 74th on the Baseball Reference website on position players, he also had a relatively long career. 25 bids - Price: $170.50 - Watchers: 86. Sa fortune s lve 2 000,00 euros mensuels Theres no need to add myths to the equation. Its really hard to pick a periodin one of Gwynns 20 seasons and say definitively that it was the hottest stretch of his career. The baseball world is mourning the loss of Hall of Famer and "Mr. Padre" Tony Gywnn the best way it knows how: by remembering how incredible a player he was. In those three seasons, Maddux faced 3,060 batters, and 158 roughly 5.1% saw a 30 count. The Padres' Hall-of-Fame right fielder faced the Braves' Hall of Famer more than any other pitcher in his career . Position: Pitcher Bats: Right Throws: Right 6-0, 170lb (183cm, 77kg) . #Padres Tony Gwynn faced Greg Maddux 107 times in his career, more than any other pitcher; Gwynn batted .415, Maddux never struck him out. "When he strikes out swinging," his old hitting coach, Merv Rettenmund, once told me, "the pitcher's shocked. Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine have been two of the game's greatest pitchers for more than a decade because they work with their strengths. MLB: Tony Gwynn y sus increbles nmeros vs Pedro Martnez y Greg Maddux. Only once. He also had the second-most regular-season . Hit .372 at the age of 37 in 1997, and only struck out 28 times in 592 at-bats. As if to show everyone what theyd missed in the summer of 94, Gwynn came out swinging a red-hot bat. Against Randy Johnson, however, Gwynn slashed .111/.111/.167 for a .278 OPS with no walks and five strikeouts in 18 PAs. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. Chipper Jones pummeled Randy Johnson. A few moments later, Pedro Martinez (not THAT Pedro, the other Pedro Martinez), laid down a suicide squeeze that scored Ricky Gutierrez with the winning run from third. So maybe we never saw Hornsby or Wagner or Tris Speaker hit a baseball. Scherzer tries to test pitch clock limits, gets balk, 7 Cubs combine for 1st spring no-no since 2017, Jays 'playing it safe' after Guerrero tweaks knee, PitchCom-tipping: Loud device leaks Twins calls, Eflin's first start after $40M deal impresses Rays, Rangers' Leclerc to miss WBC with neck injury, Rockies' Rodgers may need surgery, '23 at risk. In fact, Maddux saw Gwynn more than anyone. I did a cursory study of different good hitters vs. good pitchers on several dimensions. Gwynn batted .331/.371/.426. Then again, he also didn't play baseball in an age when we were obsessed with walks, or on-base-percentage, or wRC+. Despite the respect shown in the above comment, Tony Gwynn faced Greg Maddux 103 times in regular-season games - and never struck out (and another four times in the post-season without a whiff. In the 73 years since Ted Williams last hit .400, all the other hitters who passed through the big leagues -- a group that includes Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Wade Boggs, yadda, yadda, yadda -- combined to do it only eight times. Here's how WBC offenses stack up with MLB's best. Sithi select. With Maddux it always seemed that batters were either being fooled as they watched a pitch nip the corner of the plate, or they were getting a bad swing on a pitch that dove away from their bat at the last second. He was the second batter in the top of the first inning, as his Giants took on the Houston Astros. Against Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Smoltz . My Have List is linked in my signature. That jump-started arguably the hottest 20-game streak of his career. Tony Eusebio gives Houston an early lead with an RBI single off Greg Maddux. However, since this is speculative, we cannot include that in the verdict. He didn't play baseball in an age when men routinely hit .424 or .404. Madduxs walk rate during those two seasons was 10.1%, more than twice as high as the rest of his career. July 12, 2016, 10:48 PM. On 45 separate occasions, Gwynn recorded four hits in a game -- 11 more times than he recorded a multi-strikeout game. Maddux is a Hall of Famer and he struck out more than 3,000 batters in his career, but the one batter he faced the most often San Diegos #19 never fanned against him. Greg Maddux vs. Tony Gwynn. Defensively Wade was very underrated as a third baseman. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. On Monday, ESPNs Ethan Strauss reminded us about a fantastic quote that Maddux once had about Gwynn that summed up his sensational career. Aztec Game Videos. * Andy Van Slyke, now an ESPN announcer, batted .343 (23-for-67) with four home runs and 11 walks. Gwynns career worst strikeout rate was 6.9% in 1988 when he struck out 40 times in 578 at bats. Mets fan tries to induce balk by incorrectly counting down p Blue Jays' Guerrero leaves spring game with knee discomfort. From 1993-2001, the last nine years of his career, when he was 33-41 years old, Gwynn hit .349 against left-handed pitching. Except for that (expletive) Tony Gwynn." -Greg Maddux. Aztec Ticket Exchange. During his 20-year career, he struck out 434 times, an average of 21.7 K% At the end of April, 129 players had struck out 22 times, a 49% increase from the previous year.