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Who is the most underrated franchise in baseball history? The Giants certainly come to mind. Originated in 1883, the Giants started off in New York and then moved to San Francisco in 1958. This franchise has won 8 world championships (5th all time) and 23 pennants (3rd all time). Remember this team won three World Series titles in a five-year span (2010, 2012, & 2014). With team accolades like that, you know they have had some iconic players. That is particularly true in the power department. Four studs who played the majority of their careers with the Giants slugged over 500 homers. Now let’s feel the breeze and look at the all-time leaders in home runs for the Giants franchise.

The Baltimore Orioles are in the middle of a renaissance. After some down years, last season the O’s won 101 games, and their young core appears ready to reestablish this franchise as a force in Major League Baseball. This team by the harbor has been around since 1901, and they have produced six 100-win seasons, seven pennants, three World Series titles, and a dugout full of Hall of Famers. Let’s look at some big fish of Baltimore and see the leaders in home runs for the Orioles franchise.

As far as basic, unweighted pitching stats are concerned, strikeouts are the standard for demonstrating a pitcher’s performance. A single game performance with a large number of Ks can be enough for a starting pitcher to make a highlight reel but it is very difficult to maintain a high level of strikeout consistency against Major League hitters across an entire season.

What is the single-season strikeout record in Major League Baseball? Let’s have a look and count down the top 10 most strikeouts in a single season. For the purposes of this list, we will only be including strikeout records recorded in the live ball era, defined by Baseball Reference as 1920 onward. 

Unlike some other notable MLB franchises, the New York Mets haven’t been around for well over a hundred years, so their team history may not seem as storied as some others. Their first season was 1962. That 40-120 year was a rough start for New York’s second team at the time. Only a few years earlier, the Dodgers left for Los Angeles and the Giants moved to San Francisco. After a rough start to the decade, the Miracle Mets of 1969 won a World Series in only the franchise’s eighth season. Then the ‘86 Mets had one of the wildest seasons in baseball history on their way to the team’s second world title. Since 1962, the Mets have supplied the sport with many memories and some potent sluggers. Today we are going to look at the leading home-run hitters that launched bombs in Queens.

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“A walk is as good as a hit.” Who hasn’t heard that from a baseball coach growing up? Generally speaking, that adage tends to be true. When you think of it in terms of on-base percentage and how it positively influences your team’s chance of winning, the difference between a walk and a single is negligible. Of course, continuously walking without getting many knocks won’t allow you to hit .300, but it can definitely help your team notch victories. So, those Little League coaches across America are basically correct. But what is on-base percentage in baseball? Is it some too-hard-to-decipher-only-baseball-nerds-get-it stat? The answer is no. On-base percentage is relatively easy to understand, and we’re going to prove that today. Let’s call this on-base percentage 101.

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