LAD First half leaderboards – On Base Percentage

Phil Gurnee ♦ July 10, 2017 ♦ 1 Comment

How about the more celebrated OBP leaderboard. We used .350 as the batting average cutoff, for OBP, we will move the criteria up to .400. Whoops, too many seasons using .400, we will need to raise it to .425.

Justin Turner once again on top but he had to work at it to beat out Junior Jim Gilliam. There is a reason that Junior Gilliam has his number retired even though he’s not in the Hall of Fame. Besides the dying unexpectedly thing.

“Jim Gilliam was my great friend for nearly 30 years, and a great guy to everybody who knew him,” said Alston, who managed Gilliam every day of his 16 pro seasons in the minors and majors, then had Gilliam for a coach for 10 more years.

“Jim was the kind of man who’d make you a good neighbor,” said Alston. “Gilliam never made too many headlines. He was always under-rated and didn’t get the credit he deserved. . . If he’s getting some of it now. . . ” Alston paused. He was never going to say that anything about Junior. Grilliam’s death Sunday night at 49 was good.

“Well, Junior’s got it coming.”

Gilliam, a popular Dodger outfielder and then first-base coach since 1953, died at 10:55 p.m. (PST) Sunday of cardiac arrest at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood, Calif

Didn’t expect to see Wally Moon on this list. I only knew him from his reputation for Moon Shots not for getting on base. I guess he was a much more rounded player than I gave him credit for.

Of course, my man Billy Grabarkewitz is on this list. His first half of 1970 was one of my favorite seasons.

Usual suspects like Reggie Smith, Gary Sheffield, Mike Piazza dot the list.

I’m not surprised to see Jimmy Wynn on the list but I was surprised to see it was 1975 and not 1974.  1974 was his MVP season that they gave to Steve Garvey, but 1975 was generally considered a down year for Wynn. But man,  that Wynn could take a walk.

Mike Sharperson had his all-star season. A good man, gone too soon for those of us who got to watch him play.

Player                  Split Year  OBP  PA   OPS
Justin Turner        1st Half 2017 .473 274 1.056
Jim Gilliam          1st Half 1959 .462 318  .892
Wally Moon           1st Half 1961 .449 296 1.020
Billy Grabarkewitz   1st Half 1970 .445 341  .944
Gary Sheffield       1st Half 2000 .440 368 1.093
Reggie Smith         1st Half 1977 .436 352 1.021
Mike Piazza          1st Half 1996 .432 336 1.055
Jim Wynn             1st Half 1975 .429 360  .900
Nomar Garciaparra    1st Half 2006 .426 303 1.004
Mike Sharperson      1st Half 1992 .424 242  .857
Mike Piazza          1st Half 1997 .424 342 1.004

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/10/2017.