Friday, January 2, 2009

O-Par, Abreu-cadabra and Karl



O-PAR, ABREU-CADABRA AND KARL
First Ten Seasons Dominated By Handful of Superstars
(Philadelphia, PA) Well, that’s a wrap on the first ten seasons of Camp. We saw damn fine baseball year in and year out from numerous major league greats; but I don’t think it a reach to say a handful of superstars have dominated the game. Names like Gabriel, Abreu, Parent and Adams were consistently acheiving excellence that far surpassed their peers. In honor of their feats I put together a sampling of the offensive leaders to date, according to WIS Sabremetrics, and verified by yours truly:

• AVERAGE: Felipe Abreu -- .388
• HOME RUNS: Otis Parent – 600 (nice average of 60/per, eh? Eat your heart out Babe)
• RBIs: Otis Parent -- 1,618
• RUNS: Felipe Abreu -- 1,477
• OBP: Felipe Abreu -- .511
• SLG: O-Par -- .678
• OPS: Jim Drese -- 1.107
• SB: Marty Schneider (Who???) Marty Schneider -- 395
• TIMES REACHING BASE: Felipe Abreu -- 3,834
• EXTRA BASE HITS: O-Par -- 951
• HITS: Felipe Abreu –2,351
• SINGLES: Felipe Abreu – 2,108
• DOUBLES: Jim Hardy -- 408
• TRIPLES: DeWayne Long -- 103
• WALKS: Felipe Abreu -- 1,427
(Minimum: 4,000 plate appearances.)

What is most obvious to you? To me, it’s that Felipe Abreu and Otis Parent are first ballot Hall of Famers. What is less obvious is that they’re both afraid of heights and Hillary Duff. Who knew?

Keeping with a theme, here are a few of the pitching leaders from the past ten seasons, again according to WIS Sabremetrics and researched thoroughly:


• WINS: Earl Gabriel -- 216
• ERA: Karl Piersoll -- 2.99
• STRIKEOUTS: Karl Piersoll -- 1,880
• INNINGS PITCHED: Abdul Wallace -- 2,501 2/3
• SAVES: Charlie Winston -- 287
• SHUTOUTS: Karl Piersoll -- 24
• QUALITY STARTS: Abdul Wallace -- 237
• COMPLETE GAMES: Karl Piersoll -- 75
• WHIP: Karl Piersoll – 1.09
• BATTING AVERAGE ALLOWED: Karl Piersoll – .228
• WINNING PERCENTAGE: Earl Gabriel -- .828
• SAVE PERCENTAGE: Darrell Baez -- .892 (166/186)
(Minimum: 1,500 innings pitched. Excluding Save %)

Jumping out and slapping you in the face is the consistent brilliance of Karl Piersoll. Before sitting down and crunching the numbers I went into this expecting Gabriel and Adams to dominate these stats, but it was quickly apparent I forgot about Piersoll. Could it be a two-time Cy Young winner is under-rated as an all-time great? I say yes.

Don’t believ
e it, here is his actual career stat line:


Other than O-Par I think the player of the first ten seasons is Karl Piersoll. If I can successfully learn how to do it, I will post a poll and see who agrees....and no Marty Schneider (who?) Marty Schneider will not be finalist.

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