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 It's Pi Day, the geekiest holiday of the year (that's 'pi' as in π = 3.14 = March 14 = 3/14)! As such, I thought I'd continue the Wezen-Ball tradition of honoring any ballplayers who had a 'Pi (π) Career' – that is, they ended their careers with "314 career _____".

As I have in the past, I've included any pitchers who ended their career with a 3.14 ERA (minimum of 1,000 IP), or with 314 career wins, saves, quality starts, or complete games. I've also included any position players who ended their career with a .314 batting average, on-base percentage, or slugging percentage (minimum of 1,000 games played) or with 314 career home runs, doubles, or stolen bases. I chose these stats because they were all positive stats that a long-time player could all realistically achieve (though a .314 OBP or SLG isn't very great). There are actually only a very few players who meet any of these criteria, so it works out well for us here.

I'm also including players who managed a .314 OBP or SLG (or 3.14 ERA) in the 2010 season, as well as a few players with Pi BPro stats (like True Average and SIERA). I'm still new to all the stats here, so if anyone has any other suggestions for stats to include, I'd be happy to hear them.

Without further ado, here are this year's 'Pi (π) Players':

2010 Season
.314 On-Base Percentage
: Jose Guillen, Seth Smith, John Buck
.314 Slugging Percentage
: Nyjer Morgan
3.14 ERA: Matt Cain, Brett Myers
.314 True Average
: Evan Longoria
3.14 SIERA: (none)

Career Pitching
3.14 ERA (min. 1,000 IP): Bert Gallia, Leon Cadore, Tug McGraw, Mike Marshall, Mike Cuellar, Al Orth
314 Wins: Gaylord Perry
314 Complete Games: Joe McGinnity, Burleigh Grimes
314 Quality Starts: Kevin Brown
314 Saves
: Robb Nen

Career Batting
.314 Average (min. 1,000 Games): Bibb Falk, Cecil Travis, Derek Jeter*
.314 On-Base Percentage: Mookie Wilson, Marlon Anderson, Bobby Tolan, Terry Kennedy, Don Kessinger and 8 others
.314 Slugging Percentage: Otis Nixon, Abraham Nunez, Jose Uribe, Jimmy Austin, Miller Huggins
314 HR: Reggie Smith, Alfonso Soriano*
314 Doubles
: Pete Fox
314 Stolen Bases
: Andre Dawson

Personally, I think that these players should be remembered every Pi Day (especially the less familiar names, like Bibb Falk or Bert Gallia). I'd love to hear any other 'Pi (π) Career' values that others might be able to come up with.

Thank you for reading

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mmcma007
3/14
I believe there is also a "mol day". Not sure which is geekier though.
dianagramr
3/14
I've got your Avogadro number right here, fella. :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_Day
Michael
3/14
Accurate data reporting prevents us from honoring those who ended their careers weighing 314 pounds.
dianagramr
3/14
Walter Young promises to lose 6 pounds and make a baseball comeback
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/y/youngwa01.shtml
pmatthews
3/14
As long as we're approximating pi to 3.14, how about some pitchers with records of 22-7?
dianagramr
3/14
Here you go:
http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/BFslt
myshkin
3/14
Or K/BB ratios of 355/113?
dianagramr
3/14
I checked all pitchers with either single season or career marks between 350-360 Ks and 110-120 BBs .... no dice.
dianagramr
3/14
OK .... I was geeky enough to check this ... you used 404 words to do this. (alas, exceeding the target by 90)

Fun article .... as always!
lgranillo
3/14
Ouch. That would be a tough assignment. Something to keep in mind for next year, I suppose...
dianagramr
3/14
And for completeness sake, here are the games in major league history to end 22-7:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/COL/COL200107210.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN198706030.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO193607291.shtml
jhardman
3/14
Is Pie Traynor anywhere on the career pi list?
lgranillo
3/14
Sadly, no. If we could somehow come up with a way to drop his career average by 6 points, though, it'd be perfect...
zasxcdfv
3/14
Why do some of the names have asterisks?
ostrowj1
3/14
Active players that are likely to drop out of the Pi day festivities next year.
dianagramr
3/14
Card MLB.com reporter with the tweet of the day:

"Outstanding that on Pi Day our two leadoff hitters wear No. 3 (Theriot) and No. 14 (Prado). #StLCards #Braves #geek"
lgranillo
3/14
I really wanted to find a picture of Evan Longoria and David Price standing next to each other, but I failed. How sad.
lgranillo
3/14
Someone asked this on Twitter, and I thought it'd be something worth adding here.

Of all pitchers (no innings limit), the player with the career ERA closest to pi is Mike Marshall. His 3.141346 is a bit closer to pi than Wayne Granger's 3.142484
dianagramr
3/14
Here is the list of single season ERAs of 3.14
http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/RRgPz

The ones who come CLOSEST to 3.1415927 (each finishing with 3.141509434) all pitched 212.0 innings and gave up 74 ERs:
Mel Parnell 1948 BOS
Jerry Koosman 1970 NYM
Paul Foytack 1957 DET
batts40
3/14
I really enjoy the content Larry has added to the site. Good work, it's always a fun and interesting read.
NYYanks826
3/15
Larry,

Fun article. Keep up the great work!

Just a sidenote. Otis Nixon is just a prime example of how far speed and defense can get you in the Major Leagues.

He had 5,000+ AB in his career, and he managed a mere .044 ISO.

Any idea if that's some kind of record for lowest ISO (min 5,000 career AB)?
collins
3/15
But what is even geekier than Pi Day is to call it Half Tau Day:
http://halftauday.com/

It is argued that pi's mathematical significance is exhausted by its being half the value of tau. I guess tau day would be June 28.