Abreu consistently excellent, but not spectacular

Originally Published: August 2, 2006
By Rob Neyer | ESPN Insider
Editor's Note: After receiving reaction to the story posted below, Rob Neyer sends along the following statement:

Postscript: My apologies to the good people at the YES Network. When I looked up Max Bishop in baseball-reference.com, I found him with 97 walks in 1928. When I double-checked Bishop's numbers in the most recent edition of Total Baseball, which was published in 2004, I found the same number: 97. I do know that researchers are finding errors in the "official" stats every day, but I doubted if Max Bishop's walks in a single season could be off by three. So I assumed that YES's source was wrong.

And maybe it is. But according to The 2006 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia -- by the way, it's "the game's best value since the Yankees bought Babe Ruth!" -- Bishop did indeed draw 100 walks, on the nose, in 1928. So there's at least one source that does agree with YES: Bobby Abreu, if he reaches 100 walks this season, would be the third to accomplish that in eight straight seasons, after Bishop and Frank Thomas. (I'm still trying to find out why the sources list the different numbers, and if you're interested, I'll let you know.)


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