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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
George Brett v Bert Blyleven
George Brett said this about Blyleven:
Bert is up there with the toughest four or five guys I faced in my career.
A look at Baseball-Reference tells us that:
Of the 42 pitchers Brett faced the most, Blyleven was 5th toughest (according to OPS) against Brett. Good for you George. Good memory. Of course, Brett’s toughest pitcher to face was Mark Langston and Geoff Zahn. So, who really cares what George had to say about it?
A good thing the writer didn’t ask Eddie Murray what he thought of Blyleven. Or Ron Kittle.
The author would have had a better case asking Robin Yount, not only about Bert, but about Clemens, Jimmy Key, Eck, and Fergie Jenkins.
George was actually doing a regression to the mean. If you add just 38 PA of George-Brett-average performance to every pitcher, Blyleven has the lowest OPS against. And Blyleven got Brett out more often (84 times) than any other pitcher (next best was Nolan Ryan and Mike Flanagn with 58)