| As a Cubs fan the hitting pitcher thing has been of interest to me cause we've had some good ones. Z obviously could have been a successful power hitter if he'd spent his whole career training at it. He had years where he actually hit for a good average, too, but mostly he had typical pitcher stats, except huge power numbers. So he'd swing and miss a ton, but when he'd connect it would go. Woody was similar, albeit a worse every at-bat hitter, and with less pop. He hit a huge homerun during game 7 of the '03 NLCS. Mark Prior was also touted coming up as a great hitting pitcher, and we expected him to be a threat for an occasional homer like Z and Woody, but I don't think that part of his game ever materialized at the big league level. We also had Jason Marquis for a bit, and I wasn't that impressed. He's probably technically a relatively competent hitter (the numbers and his plate approach bear it out), but he never felt like a threat at the plate - credit for making the pitcher work tho. Anyway Z is the best hitting pitcher I've seen (I don't consider Owings a hitting pitcher, he's really just a hitter to me), and he takes pride in it - unfortunately he probably takes more pride in it the last several seasons than he does in his pitching. And we've seen how it's turned out. |
Multiple Cy Young Winners
Most Saves in a Season
MLB Win Leaders A-Z
