FanPost

Some facts and figures about 2022 season

Facts and figures I came across or calculated while updating nearly 300 spreadsheets to include final data from the 2022 regular season.

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MAXIMUM MANPOWER

303 players made their Major League debuts this year.

That number is 38 more -- 14 percent higher -- than the previous record of 265, set a year ago.

Way back in 1912, teams in the 2 leagues used 221 new players, a total not surpassed until 1995, when they used 247.

Two decades passed, then the record fell in 3 straight seasons: 2015 (255), 2016 (257) and 2017 (262).

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FIRST-GAME CUBS

17 of the 303 newcomers in 2022 were Cubs, from Seiya Suzuki on Opening Day, April 7, to Esteban Quiroz on Sept. 17.

The others, in order of date they played their first game: Ethan Roberts, Christopher Morel, Brandon Hughes, Matt Swarmer, Nelson Velazquez, Anderson Espinoza, Caleb Kilian, Narciso Crook, Erich Ulemen, Nicholas Padilla, Javier Assad, Brendon Little, Jeremiah Estrada, Hayden Wesneski and Jared Young.

6 of the 17 were position players: Crook, Morel, Suzuki, Quiroz, Velazquez and Young.

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ALL-TIME ROSTER

Quiroz became the 2,200th player to appear in a regular-season game for the Cubs since the National League' first season, 1876.

It took until their 84th season to reach 1,000. Billy Williams earned the honor on Aug. 6, 1959.

Then it took 56 years, until their 140th season, for Clayton Richard to become No. 2,000, on July 4, 2015.

So they have used 200 more in just 7 1/2 years.

If they maintain that pace, the total will reach 2,500 in 2034.

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Any Cub who played 292 games, less than 2 full seasons, is in the top 10 percent of games played. 3 players had exactly 292: Davy Jones, Jerry Kindall and Jerry Mumphrey.

Just 41 games puts a player in the top 50 percent. 12 players had exactly 41, most recently Tom Gorzelany.

Ildemaro Vargas appeared in only 25 games over 3 seasons, but that was enough to put him in the top 60 percent.

In all, 662 players, 30 percent of all 2,200, reached 100 games, including 31 who reached 1,000.

561, 25.5 percent, played 10 or fewer games. Those 561 played in a total of 2,398, which is just 130 fewer than the 2,528 by all-time leader Ernie Banks.

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2022 ROSTER

The Cubs used 64 players in the season that just ended, 5 fewer than their MLB-record 69 in 2021.

The 2022 Pirates fell 1 short of tying the Cubs' mark.

The Angels, Giants and Reds all used 66. Then came the Cubs, tied for fifth most with the Athletics.

Only 3 teams used fewer than 50 players, and they were a mixed bag in terms of success on the field. The Astros (106-56) used 45; White Sox (81-81), 44; and the Rockies (68-94), 43.

The Cubs have used 110 different players in the past 2 seasons, as only 23 made appearances in both seasons.

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GAMES BEHIND

The third-place Cubs (74-88) finished 19 games behind the champion Cardinals (93-69) in the Central Division standings.

In all seasons in which they did not win a division or league title, the Cubs have trailed by an average of 19.5 games.

In their title-winning seasons, the Cubs won by an average of 7.5 games.

On average, they were in first place for good in those seasons after 83 games.

In their non-title seasons, on average they never were first after just 27 games.

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1-RUN GAMES

The Cubs were 26-27 in 1-run games in 2022.

Through all 147 regular seasons, beginning in 1876, the Cubs have played 6,462 games decided by 1 run. That is just below 30 percent of their 21,779 that reached a decision.

They have won exactly TEN more games by 1 run than they have lost: 3,236 wins and 3,226 losses!

They have won 542 more games than they have lost in games decided by multiple runs, a winning percentage of .518, compared to .501 in 1-run games.

From 1876-1939, their percentage in 1-run games was .536, as they won 174 more games than they lost.

Since 1940, their percentage is just .480, as they have lost 164 more than they have won.

From the 1870s through 1930s, they have a winning record in 1-run games in every decade except the 1920s, when their percentage was .491.

Since 1940, they have had a winning record in just 1 decade, the 1970s, when their percentage was .506.

It was .485 in the 1980s, .477 in the 1990s, .470 in the 2000s and .473 in the 2010s. It is .488 so far in the 2020s.

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3 TRUE OUTCOMES

In 2022, players on all Major League teams hit 5,215 home runs, drew 14,853 walks and struck out 40,812 times.

All 3 of those numbers were down from the previous year: 5,944 homers, 15,794 walks and 42,145 strikeouts.

The differences: 729 homers, 941 walks, 1,333 strikeouts.

Those are reductions of 12.3, 6.0 and 3.2 percent, respectively.

They add up to more than 3,000 fewer occurrences of the "3 True Outcomes" -- 3,065, to be exact, 60,818 to 63,883.

There were 182,052 plate appearances in 2022, a mere 234 more than in 2021.

So, the percentage of "3 True Outcomes" fell by a significant 1.7 percentage points, to 33.4 from 35.1.

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The Cubs hit 52 fewer homers, drew 5 more walks and struck out 148 fewer times.

They had 2,308 occurrences in 2021 (210, 502 and 1,596), then 2,114 in 2022 (159, 507, 1,448).

They had exactly 100 more plate appearances in 2022, 6,072 to 5,972.

That made their percentage of 3 True Outcomes 34.8 this year, compared to 38.6 the previous year.

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WINS AND HOMERS

When a team homered at least once in 2022, it won 59.6 percent of games, precisely the same percentage as in 2021.

When it homered exactly once, it won 51 percent of games, up from 48.9 a year ago.

When it homered more than once, it was 70.1 percent, nearly the same as 70.3 in 2021.

But when a team did not hit a home run, it won 33.1 percent of games in the season that just ended, up from 29.3 percent the year before.

In 2021, teams were 450-1,086 when they hit no home runs. In 2022, they were 595-1,202.

The number of games in which a team hit no homers increased to 1,797, from 1,536.

There were 1,677 games in which it hit 1 homer, about the same as 1,662 in 2021.

But there were only 1,386 games in which it hit multiple homers, compared to 1,660 a year earlier -- a drop of nearly 20 percent.

The Cubs' wins and losses in 2022 and 2021:

0 homers: 12-35, 16-43 (.255, .271)

1 homer: 23-34, 33-30 (.404, .524)

2 or more: 36-22, 25-15 (.621, .625)

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CYCLE SILLINESS

If you've heard it once, you must think you've heard it 1,000 times:

"And with that (insert type of hit), he's just a (insert another type of hit) short of the cycle!"

In fact, from Opening Day of 1901, first season of the Modern Era, through their final game of 2022, Cubs batters have missed a cycle by one type of hit exactly 1,070 times.

That is an average of nearly 9 times per season, or once every 18 games.

Meanwhile, they have completed a cycle exactly 9 times, or once every 13.5 seasons!

May 9 of next year will be the 30th anniversary of the last time a Cub accomplished the feat. Mark Grace did it by blasting a 3-run homer with 2 out in the bottom of the ninth. The next batter lined out and the Cubs lost to the Padres, 4-5.

That was the 288th cycle in MLB history. There have been 111 since then, including 5 in 2022, all between May 11 and July 1.

Since Grace's cycle, a Cub has fallen 1 hit short of a cycle 321 times.

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Of all 1,070 times that a Cub lacked 1 hit for a cycle, he failed to hit a home run 277 times (25.9 percent of the total), a triple 673 times (62.9 percent), a double 92 times (8.6 percent) and a single 28 times (2.6 percent)

NO HOMER

Most recent: Zach McKinstry, Sept. 11, 2022, in 2-4 loss at home to Giants

Previous: Jon Jay, Aug. 14, 2017, in 15-5 win at home vs. Giants

Players with most such misses: Heinie Zimmerman (9) and Phil Cavarretta (8)

NO TRIPLE

Most recent: Seiya Suzuki, Aug. 21, 2022, in 2-5 loss at Milwaukee

Previous: Christopher Morel, June 30, 2022, in 15-7 win at home vs. Reds

Players with most such misses: Billy Williams (29) and Sammy Sosa (20)

NO DOUBLE

Most recent: Ian Happ, June 12, 2022, in 4-18 loss at New York to Yankees

Previous: Willson Contreras, May 7, 2022, in 2-6 loss at home to Dodgers

Players with most such misses: Ernie Banks (7) and Sammy Sosa (5)

NO SINGLE

Most recent: Ian Happ, May 19, 2018, in 4-5 loss at home to Reds

Previous: Aramis Ramirez, July 1, 2006, in 6-8 loss at home to White Sox

Player with most such misses: Manny Trillo (2)

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