FIRST CAST : JOEL SHANGLE
numbers to marvel
You can probably blame former Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett for this , but I picked up a fierce obsession with sports statistics somewhere in my preteen years , and I haven ’ t been able to shake it since .
Brett – a Major League Baseball Hall-of-Famer , 13-time All- Star and three-time batting champ – made a ferocious run at hitting . 400 in the summer of 1980 , holding at . 400 in early September with only 12 games remaining before faltering slightly and finishing at . 390 . It was big news at the time – Brett was the first to flirt seriously with . 400 that late in an MLB season since Ted Williams hit . 406 in 1941 – and I followed it voraciously through box scores in the daily newspaper ( yes , I ’ m that old ). Brett ’ s numbers told an enchanting story and kick-started my interest in players of yore like Ty Cobb , Joe Jackson , George Sisler , etc ., whom Brett was chasing into MLB history .
I brought this obsession with statistics into my former life as a sportswriter , and now – some 20 years later – I have one of the most interesting statistical anomalies I ’ ve ever seen happening before my eyes : 2022 Bally Bet Angler of the Year Jacob Wheeler .
You probably digested our live coverage of Wheeler ’ s AOY victory as it happened at Bass Pro Tour Stage Seven at Mille Lacs Lake , Minnesota , and have read up on his dominating season at MajorLeagueFishing . com . Wheeler wrapped up a truly great season with a 70-point cushion over Jordan Lee to claim his second Bally Bet AOY trophy in a row , making him only the eighth angler in bass fishing history to earn major tour-level back-to-back AOYs .
But Wheeler ’ s excellence extends beyond just the seven tournaments on the 2022 Bass Pro Tour season . The Tennessee pro has been on a 2 1 / 2-year tear that has produced the kind of statistics that even the Elias Sports Bureau would marvel at . To get a true appreciation for just how otherworldly Wheeler ’ s performance has been in recent years , noodle with a few of these numbers :
76.7 % - In his most recent 30 tour-level events ( Bass Pro Tour and Pro Circuit ), dating back to the middle of the 2019 season , Wheeler has finished in the Top 10 an astonishing 23 times . That ’ s a Top 10 rate of 76.7 %, which is frankly unheard of ( Bill Dance had an impressive career Top 10 rate of 66.7 %).
10 for 10 - If you ’ re looking for a number that best explains Wheeler ’ s back-to-back AOYs in 2021 and 2022 , look no further than his most recent results : Until his 11th-place finish at Stage Seven at Mille Lacs , Wheeler had finished in the Top 10 in 10 consecutive events dating back to Stage Four in 2021 .
94.3 % - Wheeler has missed the cut only two times since the inception of the Bass Pro Tour in 2019 . Counting REDCRESTs , Heavy Hitters and Pro Circuit Super Tournaments , he ’ s advanced past the cut 33 times in 35 tour-level tournaments ( 94.3 %). That ’ s right up there with Jack Nicklaus ’ 39-for-40 PGA Majors cuts in the 1970s .
4-5-4 - In his last 23 events ( dating back to the last half of the 2020 season ), Wheeler has collected four wins , five second-place finishes and four third-place finishes . That means he ’ s finished in the top 3 in 56.5 % of the major tournaments he ’ s fished in that time .
Wheeler ’ s story is about more than numbers , of course . It ’ s about desire and dedication and talent , as you ’ ll see in Rob Newell ’ s rundown of Wheeler ’ s AOY season on pages 34 – 38 . But from a numbers geek ’ s perspective , Wheeler ’ s two-year run has been fun to watch and assess … and he shows no sign of slowing down .
It ’ s a short offseason , and I for one look forward to the start of the 2023 schedule – I have no doubt that Wheeler ’ s numbers will continue to evolve , and there ’ s a good possibility that we ’ ll be discussing them again in this column at the same time next year !
joel shangle , editor-in-chief
6 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2022