Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Just drafting in a NL-only, no DH league. Anybody got a handle on the better hitting pitchers in the 2009 set?

tws

carpenter, wainwright, malholm, chan ho park, gallardo, billingsley, wolf, hampton, ortiz, josh johnson, harang, owings, zambrano, hudson, haren.

This is all a matter of perspective, however. I personally could care less about pitcher hitting. It's far more important that they can get hitters out than be able to swing it themselves. Only if two guys look dead even on every other metric would I care how well they can hit. The difference between an "8" and a "1" isn't enough for me to worry.

That's just me, though. I'm sure others may see it differently.

Couple thoughts:

It looks to me like Strat takes pitchers' hitting into account when figuring out salaries.

I agree it doesn't make a BIG difference -- I'm not going to pick some dud with a 6.87 ERA because he's an 8N at the plate -- but it can be an inflection point when you're on the fence between two guys. Also, I've seen long games where HAL pinch hits a pitcher who can hit a little when all the bench guys are depleted. Again, this is rare, and not worth making a pick specifically for, but another straw on the camel's back, so to speak.

Thank you for your help and perspective, JunkfoodJohnny and AeroDave.

tws

I actually pay more attention to bunting ability for pitchers in non-DH leagues than I do hitting ability. I'd just rather see the pitcher bunt a runner over than strike out or ground into a double play.

See what I had to say last year. I had a team with all pitchers capable of good hitting. I think hitting is a part to consider, when all things are equal on other issue.

My own guess is that the hitting capability of a 8N pitcher is worth 1M in a good hitting stadium.

http://forums.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?p=5024423

Just for fun, here were the top 4 hitting pitchers in a fairly recent league. CC obviously went nuts, and was completely lucky. Tossing him out, one of the top 3 was a #1, Lester. Go figure.

So, it makes a difference, but even a dominant stater rarely gets more than 100 PAs. If it's a reliever or someone who usually gets knocked out early, luck might be just as big a factor as which card they use.


Sabathia, CC DRA 100 13 30 3 0 4 14 9 37 0 .300 .358 .450 .808 7.41M
Hernandez, Felix FOR 76 6 20 3 1 3 15 8 23 0 .263 .333 .447 .781 2.69M
Zambrano, Carlos FOG 59 9 16 4 0 0 2 6 17 0 .271 .338 .339 .677 3.90M
Lester, Jon FOG 71 3 15 3 0 0 5 4 28 0 .211 .253 .254 .507 3.81M