17 facts I didn't know about the 2024 MLB season -

Even casual baseball fans will know that Aaron Judge led the league in homers, the Chicago White Sox were diabolically bad, and Detroit’s starting pitcher Tarik Skubal is an absolutely brilliant pitcher. However, you have to be a bonafide baseball nerd – looking at you, Russell Eassom/Darius Austin – to know stuff like Brent Suter wasted the least amount of time between pitches or that Freddie Freeman led the league in Launch Angle Sweet-Spot percentage.

Here are 17 stats about the 2024 season that surprised me.

The Sacremento-bound Athletics demonstrated extremes of base stealing, with Lawrence Butler having the best-unblemished record of 18 stolen bases in 18 attempts, while his teammate Brett Harris is the only player in MLB to have attempted three steals and been caught every time.

Staying with base stealers, the leaders in both leagues were both caught 16 times. José Caballero in the AL (60 attempts) and Elly De La Cruz in the NL (83 attempts). Amazingly, De La Cruz’s 67 bags are more than the whole Minnesota Twins roster managed during the entire season (65).

I don’t know how many times this has happened before, but it seems incredible that the highest-scoring team of the regular season failed to make the playoffs. Perhaps the Arizona Diamondbacks should request a transfer to the AL Central.

Undoubtedly, Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium are intimidating venues for visiting teams, but the Red Sox and Yankees were two of six teams that won more games on the road than they did at home. Boston (6), Yankees (5), Padres (3), Orioles (3), Miami (2), and Diamondbacks (1).

For the third straight season, although only marginally, sacrifice hits (bunts) across the league increased. St Louis’ Michael Siani led MLB with 11 bunts. To be honest, I had no idea whether or not 11 bunts were a lot, so I checked it out. Over the last 10 years, the highest number of bunts by a player in a single season is 15… by Francisco Lindor in 2016. What an utter waste of talent.

Marcell Ozuna has the slowest average home run trot; he is the only player who averages more than 30 seconds to round the bases. It blew my mind to calculate that Ozuna’s slow jog is the same pace as my flat-out speed for a 25-minute Park Run. Yes, I know he is only running 110 metres, but still, he looks like he is hardly moving, whereas I feel like I’m sprinting at Ingebrigsten speed.

These days, you get far fewer instances of retribution for breaking baseball’s unwritten rules, yet the last four years are the only seasons in history with more than 2,000 hit-by-pitches. Does that mean that pitchers have less control? For the second straight year, the Seattle Mariners were hit by more pitches than any other team (111), helped by the acquisition of the walking-bruise Randy Arozarena, who led the league with 22.

I certainly didn’t expect to mention Jake Bauers in a positive manner, but he had the most plate appearances (346) without grounding into a double play. In fact, there are only a handful of players, most notably Cavan Biggio and Mr Swing for the Fences Joey Gallo, who have a better career rate than Bauers 6 GDP / 1000 PA.

Grounding into double-plays is usually the calling card of the elder statesmen in the league, but Justin Turner, Carlos Santana, and Paul Goldschmidt were all “bested” by Manny Machado with 25 GIDP. The Padres’ third baseman now leads all current MLB players, with (surprisingly imo) Jose Altuve in second.

Corbin Carroll had the biggest differential between runs and RBI, with the Diamondbacks’ lead-off hitter scoring 47 more runs than he had RBI. This was just ahead of Salvador Perez, who had a 46-run differential, but in the other direction, with 104 RBI to just 58 runs.

Unsurprisingly, the Yankees duo of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto led MLB with 133 and 127 walks, respectively. Also, unsurprisingly, Judge had the most intentional walks (20), whereas Soto only had two. So, the Dominican outfielder drew the most non-intentional walks last season.

The Cardinals’ Ryan Helsley led the league with 49 saves but also had the most save opportunities (53). Yankees’ Clay Holmes secured 30 saves but blew a league-leading 13 save opportunities. No one has endured a season with so many failed save attempts since before the start of the century.

ERA-wise, Emmanuel Clase had a historic season with a measly 0.61 ERA – just five earned runs in 74 appearances. However, using an advanced metric like xERA, Mason Miller was the best reliever, ahead of Kirby Yates, Raisel Iglesias, Griffin Jax, and then Emmanuel Clase.

Four players appeared in every game: Marcell Ozuna, Nick Castellanos, Matt Olson, and Pete Alonso. Matt Olson hasn’t missed a game for three years. He hasn’t missed a game since joining Atlanta!

Someone who did miss a couple of games, was Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran. He was suspended for two games for directing a homophobic slur at an Astros fan. Despite the missed time, Duran led the league with 735 plate appearances.

With Judge, Soto, and Giancarlo Stanton, the Yankees had three players (but only three) hit more than 20 home runs, but they led MLB with 237 homers. This is 70 (SEVENTY) fewer than the league-leading Braves hit in 2023.

Five teams were dreadful on the basepaths, getting caught stealing in more than one-third of their attempts. Four of these teams (Angels, White Sox, Rockies, Marlins) finished bottom of their division. Causation, correlation etc etc.

And finally, 20 players finished 2024 with more than 95 RBI. Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm registered an impressive 97. What made this feat extraordinary was that the 28-year-old only hit 15 home runs to get the 97 RBI. This isn’t unique, but it is mightily unusual; It hasn’t been done since 2013.

Featured image of Brent Suter by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Article by Gav Tramps. Gav quit Twitter X with frustration at the platform’s unwillingness to address its promotion of toxic content, but you can still find him on Instagram and Threads, and of course, via the website.

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