Tuesday, January 9

The Ultimate Pat Burrell Post Part 4- Meaningless Home Runs

While Skeeter is hanging out with the oldheads and apparently talking some trash, here is part 4 of our Pat Burrell topic:


How many times have you heard, “Yea, sure Pat the Bum can hit homeruns when the Phillies are winning 23-2 in the 9th inning!” Well, I have heard that quite a bit. Let’s be honest, Pat isn’t Albert Pujols or David Ortiz, but he does not run his numbers up on bad pitching or meaningless situations. Let’s analyze his home runs from his “terrible” 2006…


Noteable pitchers he hit home runs off of:


Chris Carpenter
Chuck James (2)
Dontrelle Willis (2)
Tom Glavine
Chris Capuano
Livan Hernandez
Roger Clemens


A lot of the pitchers noted here are the cream of the crop (especially Willis, Carpenter, and Clemens).



ERA’s of the pitchers who hit HR’s off of:


ERA Under 3.00- 2
ERA Under 4.00- 8
ERA Under 5.00- 10
ERA Over 5.00- 9


I feel that this would fall in line with most other players in the majors. Every hitter has hit a few homers off of the guy who pitches 10.2 IP and lets us 13 runs giving him an ERA of like 13.43 or something outrageous like that.


Situations of the Home Run:


Tied- 9
Down- 14
Ahead- 6


Almost one-third of Pat’s homers occurred when the Phils were tied. Not bad in my opinion.


Only 4 of Pat’s home runs occurred in meaningless situations (times when after the home run is hit the team is still down more than 4 runs or when the home run is hit when the Phillies are already ahead by 5 or more runs). Now some might think hitting a solo home run in the 3rd inning down 5-0 is meaningless, but if you know baseball then you know how fortunes can change with one swing of the bat. There is also a whole other argument about “meaningless” runs, but any run scored early in the game is important and also one where it gives your team the potential chance to tie the game with one swing of the bat.


Plus, who can forget the Grand Salami Burrell hit off of Mr. Clemens last September!


This post could have been about 10 pages long, analyzing each and every one of Pat’s HR’s, (baseballreference.com has some amazing data) but let’s save that for another time. We just want to point out that the Burrell haters have a field day tearing this guy apart, and while they do have some valid points, some (like this one) appear to be myths.

8 comments:

GM-Carson said...

what the hell is up with all the weird stuff on the post...tough to read.

Skeeter said...

nice one pat. shut me up good.

Tough to read?... I liked it. Basically shows that Burrell can hit homeruns when it matters and doesn't only use crap relief pitchers to raise his numbers. No run scored in baseball is a 'meaningless' run.

Good stuff man

furiousBall said...

Well even if he did only hit deep balls when we're ahead, so what? You don't want a player to hit when you're winning?

I think Pat's a good player, the dingers isn't the problem, it's the strikeouts. If he trimmed 20 strikeouts off his season total, he'd be such an asset to this team.

Skeeter said...

Very nicely put.

I am not looking forward to doing the strikeout post.

Patrick said...

Yea, I basically agree that a run is a run, but it does get tiring hearing about Pat piling up the runs in a blowout. So I thought I would try to shed some light on the situation and show that is isn't necessarily the case.

GM-Carson said...

A run is a run, but is a kiss always just a kiss? Riddle me that.

Skeeter said...

What is up with this new name?

GM-Carson?... now u have gone and confused me. Good job dick.


And no...a kiss is not always just a kiss. Being kissed by a Jeff Garcia and being kissed by Carmella DeCesare is completely different.

GM-Carson said...

The Ultimate Pat Burrell Post Part 5- The Booze, The Strippers, The Fame.