19 Responses to “Pitchers with 100 ERA+ and 100 OPS+”

1. Library Dave Says:
   June 20th, 2011 at 1:31 pm

   Babe Ruth's years as a pitcher (1915-1919) give him an OPS+ of 192 and an ERA+ of 127. OPS+ is by far the best, and ERA+ is over 1200+ innings, putting him ahead of Earl Jones and Pedro Dibut in my book, since they pitched a combined 65 innings.

2. Andy Says:
   June 20th, 2011 at 1:33 pm

   Good point, Dave. To qualify for this list, the player had to have at least half of his plate appearances coming as a pitcher.

3. Doug Says:
   June 20th, 2011 at 2:34 pm

   Discounting Boone and Matthews (35 PA combined), the most recent pitchers on this list are Ken Tatum and Terry Forster, who both started their careers just before the DH came in.

   No surprise there, since pitchers no longer have any minor-league hitting experience before they get to the bigs.

4. Doug Says:
   June 20th, 2011 at 3:35 pm

   Another take on good hitting pitchers are those who have received an intentional base-on-balls. Eleven pitchers (50% appearance rule) have had an IBB (10 of them between 1956 and 1970), led by Gary Peters with 3 and Mickey McDermott with 2. The details for those two guys (both of whom had 100+ ERA+) are kind of interesting.

   Peters got all his IBBs as a pinch-hitter. For his career, Peters was used 75 times as a pinch-hitter, going .235 / .293 / .471 with 4 HR and 13 RBI in that role.

   McDermott was also used a lot as a pinch-hitter, but without much success (.576 OPS in 143 times as a PH). He got both his IBBs for the '57 As, one as a PH and one as a pitcher. In the latter game, he batted 8th, ahead of shortstop Joe DeMaestri (career 62 OPS+ in 11 seasons, mostly as a regular or semi-regular guy). For the record, after McDermott was walked (to load the bases), the As pinch-hit for DeMaestri. In the 4th inning! Talk about a Rodney Dangerfield moment.

   http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE195705121.shtml

   The last pitcher to get an IBB was Don Robinson in 1984, also in a pinch-hitting role.

5. Lawrence Azrin Says:
   June 20th, 2011 at 3:37 pm

   @1/ Is there any doubt that Wes Ferrell is the best-hitting pitcher of the live-ball era who had a real career? All the other pitchers ahead of him by OPS% didn't have anywhere as long a career; of those that did, Reb Russell pitched in the dead-ball era (before being converted to an OFer), and Terry Forster didn't have that many AB.

   I am not making a statement, just curious and throwing the question out. There are other pitchers frequently cited as good hitters, such as Don Newcombe, Earl Wilson, Don Drysdale, and Warren Spahn, who did not make this list.

6. Troy Says:
   June 20th, 2011 at 3:37 pm

   . . . as an aside, Terry Forster has the highest career batting average (.397) of ANY player with 75 or more at-bats.

7. Doug Says:
   June 20th, 2011 at 4:02 pm

   @5. No doubt at all, Lawrence.

   @6. Cool little factoid, Troy.

8. Doug Says:
   June 20th, 2011 at 4:07 pm

   @6.

   Forster is still number 1 in BA even at a 50 AB threshold, and in the top 10 (number 8) at a 25 AB threshold.

   The man could hit!

9. Bip Says:
   June 20th, 2011 at 4:07 pm

   @4

   The Dodgers have put Aaron Miles in the leadoff spot in 8 games this year. If there was a runner on 2nd and Chad Billingsley was coming to the plate (159 OPS+ in 33 PA) I would intentionally walk him to get to Aaron Miles.

10. Doug Says:
    June 20th, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    Whoops. Don't know where the "cool face" came from. For the record, Forster is number 8 in career BA for all players with 25 or more AB.

11. nwicubfan Says:
    June 20th, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    Wow. Shows who extremely rare it is to have a pitcher who can hit. Carlos Zambrano has a career .240 avg, 22 HRs, 68 RBIs in almost 700 PA's, but that translates into just a 62 OPS+.

12. Whiz Says:
    June 20th, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    Doug, this has happened to me on bbref before, an "8" immediately followed by a ")" is interpreted as a smiley face 8)

    I wonder if you can use square brackets... 8]

13. Dvd Avins Says:
    June 20th, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    @5 The only reason Red Ruffing's ERA+ is too low is because he played well past his hitting prime (until he was 42). He has an incredible 13.7 batting WAR to Ferrell's 12.0.

14. Artie Z Says:
    June 20th, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    @13 - Looking at Ruffing's cumulative batting stats he never ended any season with an OPS+ greater than 100. It was 99 at the end of 1932, the highest it would be at the end of any season, and he was 27 at the time. Ruffing had 700 more plate appearances in which he accumulated the extra 1.7 batting WAR. Through age 33 (which is when Ferrell retired), Ruffing's OPS+ was "only" 88. Which is certainly fine, as is his career OPS+ of 81.

    Ferrell's OPS+ was as high as 107 (at the end of his age 27 season).

15. Johnny Twisto Says:
    June 20th, 2011 at 10:54 pm

    pitchers no longer have any minor-league hitting experience before they get to the bigs.

    I believe they hit when NL affiliates play each other.

16. Jeff Says:
    June 21st, 2011 at 12:03 am

    Terry Forster had a .397 lifetime BA? That's incredible! I had no idea. And I don't think he was just lucky, since he had only 9 SO in 86 plate apperances.

    If I were him I'd pay someone to follow me around and break into my conversations with fans. "Sure, you pitched for a long time, but I'll bet you weren't a very good hitter, like most pitchers. What was your batting average?" Then I'd say sort of offhandedly, "Aw, shucks, it was .397" and watch people's mouths drop open.

17. Gerry Says:
    June 21st, 2011 at 12:28 am

    Doc Crandall was used as a pinch-hitter. His pitching line for 1913 is very odd: it shows him pitching for two teams, both of which were the New York Giants. Back in the days before this website, when pitcher batting data was hard to come by, this was very puzzling, but now you can look at his batting stats, and transactions, and dispel some of the mystery. The Giants sent him to the Cardinals, where he didn't pitch but got two at-bats (as a pinch-hitter, I believe), then the Cards sent him back to NY less than two weeks later. Of course, it's still a bit of a mystery why the Cardinals didn't pitch him, and why he went back to the Giants in under two weeks.

    Oh, I almost forgot the other interesting thing about him; more than half of his 300+ pitching appearances were in relief, highly unusual (unique?) for the period.

18. Richard Chester Says:
    June 21st, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    On 8/6/13 the Giants traded Crandall to the Cards for C Larry McLean. The Cards discovered afterwards that Crandall had a sore arm and claimed that they received damaged goods. The Giants compensated by buying back from the Cards a couple of weeks later. Players being returned after a trade has happened quite a few times.

19. Gerry Says:
    June 22nd, 2011 at 1:50 am

    Richard, thanks. Players being returned after a trade may have happened quite a few times, but I think players like Crandall with adjacent lines in their records for one team in one year are rather rarer.