Appearances as Pitcher and DH June 17, 2010
Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.Tags: baseball-reference.com, Cardinals, designated hitter, Diamondbacks, Felipe Lopez, Jeff Kunkel, Mark Loretta, pitcher, Wade Boggs
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Earlier this year, Felipe Lopez pitched in relief for the St. Louis Cardinals in their 20-inning game against the Mets. Last year, he also played DH during an interleague game for Arizona. That made me curious how many players have at least one appearance each at DH and pitcher. I generated this table at Baseball Reference to check.
Several of these – for example, the bottom two in the list – were pitchers who started games at DH to allow their managers to insert hitting specialists when the DH came up. This led to a rule that the DH has to come to bat at least once unless the opposing team changes pitchers.
More interesting are the three at the top of the list – Jeff Kunkel, Wade Boggs, and Mark Loretta – all of whom have two seasons in which they both DHed and pitched. Loretta pitched an inning in 2001 and a single out in 2009, with Kunkel pitching for Texas in 1988 and 1989 and Boggs pitching for the Yankees in 1997 and the Rays in 1999. Hopefully the Cards will find an excuse to DH Lopez at some point this year just to even things out.
So why doesn't Nick Swisher pitch every night? April 15, 2009
Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.Tags: Cardinals, Cody Ransom, comparative advantage, Economics haiku, emergency relievers, Gabe Kapler, Joe Girardi, market for pitchers, Moneyball alumni, Nick Swisher, position players pitching, Rays, Scott Spiezio, Wade Boggs, Yankees
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Nick Swisher pitched for the first time in the major leagues on Monday night during the Yankees’ 15-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. As you can see from the box score, Swish pitched pretty well. In fact, in 22 pitches, he gave up only one hit and one walk, threw 12 strikes, and struck out a major-league batter (left-fielder Gabe Kapler). So, will Yankees manager Joe Girardi tap him in relief again soon?
No, of course not. Find out why behind the cut.
Quickie: The World Series NL DH October 23, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.Tags: Braves, Cardinals, Chris Coste, designated hitter, Lonnie Smith, Marlins, Phillies, quickies, weird lines, world series
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Things are fairly busy – it’s midterm time, and in my spare time I’ve been crunching numbers on the Canadian federal election. I’ve also been following Theron over at Recondite Baseball, who did a very interesting post about pitchers responsible for a high percentage of their team’s wins. I’d like to take a look at something that I consider to be the opposite: the poor guy who ends up playing DH for the National League team.
