The Consistent Slugger Nick Swisher

Very few power hitters have been as consistently good as Nick Swisher. Yesterday the Cleveland Indians first baseman reached the twenty-homer plateau for the ninth time in his career. Considering that Swisher has only played nine full seasons this is quite remarkable.

Swish has added twenty or more doubles in each of these seasons as well.  Doing a quick B-R Play Index search we find the short list of players who have done 20 HR/20 2B at least nine times in their first ten total seasons.  Nick was called up with Oakland for a cup-of-coffee in his third pro season before becoming an MLB starter in his fourth year out of college.  Hence we are looking at most 20/20 years during a players first 10 seasons as opposed to 9.

Here is the full list:

Rk		Yrs
1	Mark Teixeira	10
2	Albert Pujols	10
3	Ted Williams	10
4	Joe DiMaggio	10
5	Nick Swisher	9
6	Miguel Cabrera	9
7	Carlos Lee	9
8	Lance Berkman	9
9	Chipper Jones	9
10	Cal Ripken	9
11	Eddie Murray	9
12	Orlando Cepeda	9
13	Frank Robinson	9
14	Hank Aaron	9
15	Bob Johnson	9

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 9/16/2013.

So we’ve got three hall-of-famers, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Albert Pujols, plus Mark Teixeira as the only players in baseball history with more 20 HR/20 double seasons than Nick Swisher during their first decade in the major leagues. Quite impressive and a bit surprising.  

“Catching for the Junior Circuit”

Prospect mavens need not worry, the projected All-Star caliber bat of Carlos Santana has come alive.  The Indians catcher raised his slugging % nearly 200 points in the 2nd half thanks to a 28 HR/550 AB pace.

250 ABs does not a career make but when it’s someone of the skill-set of Santana I’ll bet Cleveland is thrilled to have him locked up through his age 31 season.

Congrats Carlos for being selected to your first MLB All-Star team.