Why is nearly every Zach in history a pitcher?

When the Tigers called up a rookie named Zack Short this week, it was an unlikely arrival … and not just because they put a guy named “Short” at third base.

No, what’s unusual about Short is that he is a Major League position player named Zachary (or some variant thereof) -- an occurrence rarer than a perfect game (23 times), a four-homer game (18 times) or an unassisted triple play (15 times).

A non-pitcher named Zack, Zach or Zac has only happened 12 times out of 46 total Zacks, Zachs or Zacs (the Majors have, sadly, not yet seen a Zak). We’re talking 73.9% pitchers within this particular subset of human beings. The tradition was extended this season when Marlins reliever Zach Pop -- another rookie with a pun-ready last name -- debuted on April 3.

If you’re wondering why this appellation oddity popped (or Popped) on our radar, you can credit/blame Royals radio broadcaster Steve Stewart.

“I got here in 2008, and we had a budding team and one of our big building pieces was Zack Greinke,” Stewart says. “So I started noticing other Zacks on other teams. It just seemed like there were a lot of them, and it struck me that most of them were pitchers. My mind wanders into some weird places sometimes.”

The idea stayed with Stewart for more than a decade. Finally, last season, he began keeping a running notation every time the Royals faced a Zack/Zach/Zac. Then he started jotting down every Zack/Zach/Zac from recent baseball history that he could remember. And while the list is occasionally broken up by a Zack Cozart (infielder) here or a Zach Walters (utilityman) there, the overarching trend could not have been more clear.

Pitchers, pitchers and more pitchers.

Stewart knew just where to go with this ridiculous revelation -- me. And after spending, well, way too much time studying Baseball Reference’s database, I am able to confirm that for 73.9% of a given name to be held by pitchers and not position players is unusual.

Zachary is 59th on the Social Security Administration’s list of the top 100 male names used in the United States in the last 100 years. Looking just at those names (and combining Dave with David, Billy with William, Edward with Eddie, etc.), Zack/Zach/Zac is the only one to have been used at least 25 times in the Major Leagues with a pitcher percentage higher than 65.2%.

The only comparable percentages belong to names used much less frequently. The name Jeremy also has a 73.9 pitcher percentage, but that’s only among 23 players in history. And the only Noahs in Major League history -- Noah Syndergaard and Noah Lowry -- are/were pitchers.

(It should also be noted here that I have lumped all the Zack/Zach/Zacs together, even though some of them, including Zachery Pop, don’t have the traditional Zachary as their birth name.)

At this point, you are probably wondering what on earth you are supposed to make of this observation.

Understandable.

So consider it a public service. Naming a child, after all, is an integral -- and intimidating -- element of becoming a parent, and baseball fans expecting babies ought to be aware of the potential destiny they are delivering should they bestow the name Zachary upon their sons.

Take it from Dr. Frank Nuessel, a professor of modern languages and linguistics at the University of Louisville and the former editor of “Names: A Journal of Onomastics.”

“There’s a Latin phrase ‘nomen est omen,’ which basically means, ‘Your name is your future,’ a prediction about your future,” Nuessel says. “Parents sometimes take that into consideration if they want their child, be it a daughter or a son, to have certain qualities.”

If you want your child to avoid the elbow and shoulder issues often associated with pitching, some of the more mathematically sound common name options include Joseph/Joe (only 39.5% pitchers), Thomas/Tom (39.1%), Charles/Charlie (35.9%), Anthony/Tony (34.7%), Samuel/Sam (34.6%) and Jerry (31.5%).

Or if you are especially adamant about raising a non-pitching ballplayer, take note that there has never, ever been a big-league pitcher who goes by Harold (just don’t call him Harry, because 75 pitchers have answered to that one).

Should you already be set on Zachary but are unsure if the pitching path is the right one for your family, you should definitely be aware that 100% of Zacs (6-for-6) and 76.9% of Zachs (20-for-26) have been pitchers, yet only 57.1% of Zacks (8-of-14) have toed the rubber (from this perspective, Zack Short’s arrival is not quite as odd).

(The above, by the way, only makes it more fascinating that Yankees reliever Zack Britton played along when the Orioles mistakenly listed him on rosters as a “Zach”… for 12 years.)

But if you want a good shot at raising a pitcher, Jeremy, Justin (65.2%) Kyle (64.3%), Jesse (63.9%) and Scott (61.2%) are all fine selections.

Nothing tops Zachary, though.

Try as we might, we could not find any linguistic logic as to why Zack/Zach/Zacs tend to operate from a pitching persuasion. The name Zachary is a variant of Zechariah, a name of Hebrew origin that means “God has remembered.” But God did not remember to leave a note of explanation on this one.

“If there were pitchers [named Zack/Zach/Zac] who were excellent and maybe wound up in the Hall of Fame historically,” says Nuessel, “there might be a trend by parents to give their male children that name, perhaps in the hopes that their son would become a famous pitcher.”

Nope. The irony in all of this is that the only Hall of Famer named Zack/Zach/Zac is Zack Wheat, a left fielder and career .317 hitter who played from 1909 to 1927.

The position-player spirit of Wheat is still ingrained in modern baseball thanks to Short, as well as White Sox catcher Zack Collins (who caught Carlos Rodón’s no-hitter) and Dodgers rookie outfielder Zach McKinstry (who has helped the defending world champs account for the absence of Cody Bellinger).

Take note, too, that the only Zack/Zach/Zac on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 prospects list is also a position player -- outfielder Zac Veen, the Rockies’ first-round Draft pick from 2020.

So perhaps the position-player Zack/Zach/Zacs will one day make their mark … like Mark, a name that has gone to a pitcher only 48.7% of the time!

But until that day comes, we have Zack Greinke, Zach Davies, Zach Eflin, Zac Gallen, Zack Wheeler, and, of course, our new friend Zach Pop keeping this bizarre trend intact here in 2021.

And it’s too late to turn Zack now.