Advanced Baseball Assorting! Trivia Quiz

Answer: 2000+ wins as a manager

Francona was a player in the MLB, a journeyman first basemen, before he became a manager. He won two World Series titles with the Boston Red Sox in 2004 and 07, took the Cleveland Indians to one in 2016, and enjoyed a lot of success in general with both teams, before he would then move on to the Cincinnati Reds in 2025.

Answer: Hit 50+ Home Runs in a season

Bautista had a strong career with the Jays in general (2008-2017), but his 2010 season was without question his best. He hit 54 homers, which would go down as his career best for a single season. He did this while being remarkably durable and consistent, playing 161 games in this season with a strong batting average of .260 and 124 RBI to boot.

Answer: Pitchers who won 20+ games in a season

Oswalt did this in 2005 with the Houston Astros. It was an incredible year for the right hander, as he had a sub three (2.94) ERA, started 35 games and pitched a career best 241.2 innings. That said, he did not win the NL Cy Young, as fellow 20 game winner Chris Carpenter of the St Louis Cardinals took home this honor.

Answer: 2000+ wins as a manager

Baker did have a strong playing career before becoming a skipper himself. He hit 242 homers and had a stout .278 batting average in nineteen years, in time spent with the Atlanta Braves (1968-75), LA Dodgers (1976-83) and spending the last three seasons of his career as a Giant (1984) and Athletic (1985,86).

His playing stats are strong, but Baker's historical impact has been even stronger as a manager. He has managed ten teams which won their division, including three which went to the World Series, with the 2022 Houston Astros squad finally winning him a World Series title.

It was also in Houston, just the year before, where he won his 2,000th game.

Answer: Hit 50+ Home Runs in a season

Kiner achieved this feat twice - the first time in 1947, when he hit 51 homers, then again in 1949 where he hit 54, both as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He threatened the 50 mark the next season in 1950 with 47, then once again the following year with 42, then his power numbers hit a gradual decline for the remaining six seasons of his career.

Answer: Pitchers who won 20+ games in a season

Not to be confused with slugging great David Ortiz, Russ Ortiz broke the 20 win plane in 2003 with the Atlanta Braves. He almost did it four years prior, winning 18 with the San Francisco Giants. Ortiz had a pretty exciting start to his career, but horrendous play in the last six seasons which inflated his career ERA to a mediocre 4.51.

Answer: 2000+ wins as a manager

Mack became the first manager to ever reach 3,000 wins. Within those wins were five total World Series victories in eight trips. His first three seasons were spent in Pittsburgh (1894-1896) before spending an iconic forty nine entire seasons as the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics (1901-1950), by far the absolute longest anyone has ever stayed with one team, not just in MLB history, but in all of pro sports history as well!

Answer: Hit 50+ Home Runs in a season

When he wasn't striking guys out and retiring entire sides, Shohei Ohtani could more than capably put the ball over the wall using his bat. In 2024 with the LA Dodgers, he did this 54 times, a season removed from a 44 homer campaign with the LA Angels.

He came back just a season later to blast off 55 times. This incredible feat becomes even more mind boggling when you consider that, as a pitcher over that time, he held an ERA of 3.01; this was better than more than 90% of the league's starting pitching talent, and from a guy who hit 50 homers too!

Answer: Pitchers who won 20+ games in a season

Scott pulled this off in 1989 with the Houston Astros. He came reasonably close to this metric the previous four seasons, amassing 66 wins from 1985-88, an average of just over sixteen a season. That said, his 1989 season was actually his statistically worst by a hair over that stretch, so Scott simply was luckier getting impactful run support in 1989 than he was the previous five years.

Answer: 2000+ wins as a manager

Durocher was a relatively average player, spending time with the NY Yankees (1925, 28 and 29), Cincinnati Reds (1930-33), St Louis Cardinals (1933-37) and then-Brooklyn Dodgers (1938-41, 43-45). In this time, he hit an unexciting .247 with 24 homers. He carved out a Hall of Fame career as a manager.

He guided the then-New York Giants to a World Series in 1954, then did so later as an LA Dodgers assistant in 1963. He spent six seasons with the Chicago Cubs, from 1966-72, and in doing so was named to the Chicago Cubs Hall of Fame.

Then, in 1994, he was formally elected to the Hall of Fame posthumously.

Answer: Hit 50+ Home Runs in a season

Not to be confused with former Atlanta Brave pitcher Russ Ortiz, who once won 20+ games in a season. Big Papi is an all time Boston Red Sox legend who played the first five years (1997-2002) as a Minnesota Twin before the final thirteen years of his career were spent in Beantown.

As a member of the Red Sox, Ortiz put one over the wall 54 times in 2006. Sadly, the feat came a year too early, as the team missed the postseason only to win the World Series the following year.

Answer: Pitchers who won 20+ games in a season

Ian Kennedy was a longtime journeyman pitcher. His 21 win season was unsurprisingly his statistically strongest, as a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2011. Here, he pitched to a sharp 2.88 ERA which featured one complete game shutout, his first of two he'd go on to pitch in his career.

In total, the journeyman began his career with the Yankees (2007-09), went to Arizona (2010-13) before a mid-2013 trade sent him to the San Diego Padres, where he'd spend the next two and a half seasons with. In 2016, Kennedy joined the Kansas City Royals where he'd stay until 2020, tied with Arizona for his longest stay with a team yet. He'd end his career spending half of 2021 with the Texas Rangers and Philadelphia Phillies, returning to Arizona in 2022 before ending off in 2023 back with the Rangers. In all, he pitched seventeen years in the league as a general solid presence wherever he went, with a respectable career ERA of 4.16 and a lot of work on his arm of 1,904 innings pitched.

Answer: 2000+ wins as a manager

Joe Torre is one of the most experienced managers in MLB history, amassing a total of 29 years as a skipper between the New York Mets (1977-81), Atlanta Braves (1982-84), St Louis Cardinals (1990-95), his finest work with the Yankees (1996-2007) and he had one final go of it with the LA Dodgers from 2008-2010. In that time, he won a total of six Pennants and four World Series titles, all of which came when he wore pinstripes.

Although he was an elite manager, one of the game's best and longest tenured, Joe Torre was also a sturdy player for a significant length of time as well. He played eighteen seasons, nine with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves (1960-68), six with the St Louis Cardinals (1969-74) and three seasons with the New York Mets (1975-77). He also won NL MVP in 1971 with the Cardinals. As a catcher, first basemen and third basemen, he held a very solid career batting average of .297 and hit 252 home runs over the course of his career.

Answer: Hit 50+ Home Runs in a season

Anderson hit exactly 50 homers in 1996 with the Baltimore Orioles. This was ultimately very out of character for him, as he never even hit half of that figure, 25, in a season again. His batting average of .297 in this season was as well. He spent sixteen years in the league and, of course, it is natural to view this one singular season of his, especially since he was not a prolific power hitter outside of it, with peculiarity.

Unfortunately, the MLB has had an extensive history of players who did utilize performance enhancing drugs, so one may assume Anderson could have partaken. However, it's worth noting that he was never linked to any type of PED in any official MLB investigation. Additionally, he was omitted from the infamous Mitchell Report, a 409 page document that accused 89 separate players of doing so.

Answer: Pitchers who won 20+ games in a season

Morris achieved this mark in 2001 with the St Louis Cardinals. He won 22 games in this season with a 3.16 ERA that was only bested by his 1998 campaign. He threw for far more innings in 2001 than that year, or any year other than his rookie year in 1997, with a total of 216 1/3.

He totalled twelve seasons in the league, eight with the Cardinals (1997-2005), two with the San Francisco Giants (2006-07) and then he spent most of 2007 and a piece of 2008 with the Pittsburgh Pirates before calling it a career.