Tony Gwynn

One of the game's greatest players passed away last Monday. Tony Gwynn was a lifelong San Diego Padre, and was known for both the impact he made on the field and off the field.

Speaking of the former, here are some ridiculous stats on Gwynn:

• Tony Gwynn struck out 434 times in 10,232 plate appearances (PA). He faced Pedro Martinez 36 times, and never struck out. He faced Curt Schilling 43 times, striking out only twice. Both pitchers are members of the 3000 K club. Greg Maddux never struck him out.
• Tony Gwynn lifetime only had 434 strikeouts in 10,232 PAs over 20 years. For some perspective, Mark Reynolds had 434 strikeouts in 1258 PAs in 2009-10.
• Select 3000 hit club members, % of PA's they struck out:
• Tony Gwynn 4.2%
• Craig Biggio 14.0%
• Derek Jeter 14.6%
• Wade Boggs 6.9%
• Rod Carew 9.7%
• Pete Rose 7.2%
• Paul Molitor 10.2%
• Tony Gwynn could have gone 0-for-4 in another 295 games and still had a lifetime batting average over .300.

It's also well known that Tony Gwynn is the only player to seriously come close to batting .400 for a seaon since Ted Williams did it in 1941. The guys over at Baseball Reference actually broke down a stretch of 162 games (the equivalent of a season) where Gwynn hit over .400. Had it not been for the baseball strike in 1994, we may have seen it occur during a standard season.

RIP Tony.