Baseballminutia

I’m not a DH fan, nor am I big fan of the game that pours out of the league that uses it. My first DH experience was with the 1973 Tigers and they used Gates Brown and Frank Howard, both were at the DH stage of their careers and gates it could be argued was always in that stage (Gates only topped 370 ab’s in a season 2 times, yet was on the Tigers for 12 straight years) I found it uninspiring. However the league was different back then and it was lagging behind the faster paced NL game. The DH was never a gimmick and it was suggested as far back as the 1890’s by Connie Mack and others who found the hitting of the pitcher to be nothing to look forward to, nor count on.

I think they were thinking of this when they first proposed the move.

Aaron Harang currently ranks as the worst hitting player in the history of the game if we set the bar at 375 plate appearances, if we drop it to 350 he’s a hair behind Doug Davis. (ops plus -53 to -54)

Nevertheless he’s mired in a reality that screams OUT!!!!

Aaron Harang is the reason the AL has the DH, he’s pitiful… striking out 44% of the time he comes to the dish and he has exactly 2 walks. Any manager who worries about Harang at the plate should be placed under immediate observation. He’s made an out 92.5% of the time he’s approached the plate in major league baseball.

OPS                         OPS      PA       RB       SO       BB       EBH
Aaron Harang               .182      388       33      170        2        3
Dean Chance                .183      759       79      420       30        2
Ben Sheets                 .196      492       51      204       18        3
Bob Buhl                   .220      952      116      389       38        2
Ron Kline                  .222      548       62      221       15        3
Al Benton                  .223      579       58      200        7        7
Ryan Dempster              .224      434       42      154        8        8
Hank Aguirre               .225      427       47      236       14        8
Jose DeLeon                .226      490       56      171       16        2
Jim Deshaies               .230      440       56      186       23        0
BTW here's the list of the best hitting pitchers
OPS                         OPS      PA       RB       SO       BB       EBH
Babe Ruth                  .828      405      139       68       31       38
Tom Parrott                .810      563      194       29       30       49
Wes Ferrell                .797     1345      458      185      129      107
Jack Stivetts              .791     2022      696      136      123      161
Tom Brown                  .759      996      364        0       90       55
Bob Caruthers              .758     1712      644       48      245      107
Erv Brame                  .755      416      133       32       10       31
Charlie Ferguson           .735     1078      392      119      113       56
Ad Gumbert                 .731     1048      352      153       80       67
George Uhle                .722     1498      495      112       98       90

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 11:04 pm and is filed under Baseball History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.