Thursday, May 1, 2014

Take the H-Train

The Giants rode to victory last night on another strong outing from Tim Hudson. He pitched into the 9th, facing 31 batters, and only threw 22 balls. Out of his 89 total pitches there were 9 swing-and-miss strikes, 21 looking strikes, and Padres hitters produced 17 ground balls. It's Rick Reuschel reincarnated! A fit and trim Big Daddy, that is. Reuschel's career batting line was .168/.202/.217 and Hudson's is .170/.205/.222 after his 1-for-2 performance. Reuschel didn't walk many guys, didn't give up the long ball, pitched to contact, threw the sinker over and over again, and fielded his position well. Sound familiar? Even though Big Daddy sported a beer belly he was very graceful and moved like a cat. He was an all-around ballplayer who retired with 68.2 WAR and a lifetime 3.22 FIP, both outstanding marks, better than some Hall of Famers. Hudson is the active major-league leader in pitcher-WAR (56.3), just ahead of Mark Buehrle and CC Sabathia. Keep it rollin', Huddy.

The Giants travel today and Tim Lincecum gets the call in Atlanta Friday night.

--M.C.

2 comments:

Ron said...

Whoa there ... Big Daddy, who I nearly ran over on a street in downtown St. Louis (but that's another story for another day) compiled those gaudy hitting numbers over twice as many AB's as Tim Hudson, so I think that comparing their offensive prowess may be a bit deceptive.

The rest of your comparison is very interesting & shows what great players both of them were/are - both of them have had long careers, too.

obsessivegiantscompulsive said...

I was thinking of the Big Daddy connection during spring training, so that got me looking into Big Daddy's numbers, and, even though I remembered a lot of games where he struck out a bunch of guys, apparently he had a lot where he just got them to hit the ball and into an out, as his K/9 was horribly low, at least by today's standards.

Though, I suppose since today there is more K's, maybe Hudson's numbers normalized to Big Daddy's days might equalize them.

While Hudson might have less ABs, that's not his fault, he was forced to play in the AL early in his career. I've read from the beats that he was a hitter in college and so I dug around.

WOW! At Auburn, he was like Babe Ruth there, pitching and playing the OF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hudson

While going 15-2 with a 2.97 ERA, he hit .396 with 18 homers and 95 RBI. And he was the first player named First Team All-SEC at two positions (P, OF) in the same year. So he has hitter creds, don't be dissing him! :^)

I've been hoping that he pushes the pitchers to become better hitters. But heck, he should be a better hitter, he should work on it, maybe he and Bumgarner, who also thinks of himself as a good hitter.