Things You Didn't Know About Jose Canseco's Baseball Career

With Jose Canseco in the news constantly today with one accusation after another concerning steroids in baseball and even appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman, many people must wonder what kind of numbers he put up over the course of his 17 seasons in Major League Baseball. Jose Canseco had a borderline Hall of Fame career, for what good that will do him now as he squeals out one steroids secret after another in his books. He has no chance of being elected to the Hall of Fame in his lifetime, if ever, because of his own steroid admissions. Jose Canseco had Cooperstown worthy statistics in many ways, but in the post-season he was a wreck. Here are some things you may not have known about Jose Canseco's baseball career.

1. Canseco only hit .300 twice!

If you discount his first stint in the big leagues with Oakland in 1985 when he batted .302 in 96 at-bats, Canseco had just a pair of years when he eclipsed .300. He hit .307 in his MVP campaign of 1988 and then hit .306 in 102 games with the Red Sox in 1995. A lifetime .266 batter, Canseco hit under .260 for a season 8 different years.

2. Jose rarely played a full season!

If Canseco used steroids, as he admits to, they sure didn't help to keep him on the field. He managed to play in at least 150 of his club's games just 5 times out of 17 years and he appeared in less than 120 contests an incredible 10 times after 1985. If he had played in just 20 more games in each of those years he would have easily reached 500 homers and probably would have collected over 1,600 runs batted in. Canseco was in less than 120 baseball games for 6 straight years in the middle of his career.

3. Canseco is fifth all-time in strikeouts, but only led the league once!

This is as amazing a fact as you will find in baseball. Canseco struck out almost 2,000 times, 1,942 to be exact, yet he led the American League in this dubious category just once. In 1998 Jose played in 151 games and fanned 158 times to lead the circuit. In his lifetime Canseco played in 1,887 games, so you can see he averaged over a strikeout per. He was successful in whiffing over 100 times in a campaign on 11 separate occasions. Had he played in more games he would have certainly moved up to no worse than second in career strikeouts behind Reggie Jackson and he would have been the league leader several more times as well.

4. After 1991 Canseco had only one more 100 RBI season!

He didn't retire until after the 2001 season, meaning in his last 10 years of playing Canseco had just one outstanding year, in 1998 with Toronto when he hit 46 homers and had 107 runs batted in. Prior to 1992 he had knocked in over 100 for 5 out of 6 years, with the only time he failed to do so coming in an injury-riddled 1989 campaign when he played just 65 games.

5. Canseco hit dismally in the post-season!

When all the marbles were on the line Canseco choked big time. He accumulated 103 at-bats in the playoffs and World Series, but had just 19 hits. He did clobber 7 homers among those, but his average for all these games was only .184 for 8 post-season series. In the World Series he was even worse, going 7 for 46, a .152 clip.

6. In 17 years Canseco had just 14 triples!

This is another odd fact about Jose's baseball adventures since he had good speed, enough to be baseball's first 40 homer-40 stolen base man in 1988. But despite having over 7,000 at-bats he could only garner 14 triples, 3 of those coming in '88. In contrast, the lead-footed Brooks Robinson had 68 triples and even the notoriously slow Jim Thome has more, with 24, in less at-bats than Canseco.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/cansejo01.shtml