Comments on: Gruds

By: Bird Land » Blog Archive » Clip Job: Must sees, Waino’s role & must reads

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:46:44 +0000

[...] A new stat named for a former Cardinal, a “Gruds”. [...]

By: Wookster

Wookster — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 23:15:26 +0000

As a Giants fan, the Grud I remember most was against my favorite player: Eric Karros OWNED (.429/.429/.762) Robb Nen. He could strike out anyone, but whenever Karros came up, I was always praying for a walk.

By: Shonepup

Shonepup — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:30:37 +0000

Duane Kuiper got drafted 6 times as well, and while Mark Hendrickson getting drafted 6 times is incredible, they were usually late round picks (from 13th to 32nd round). Look where Kuiper was getting drafted, from 1968 – 1972, in order.

12th Round
9th Round
1st Round
3rd Round
4th Round
1st Round

That is incredible. The scouts really loved him. I’d love to see Joe do an entry on the story behind that.

And I love him now…Kruk and Kuip, the best announcing tandem in the bigs, bar none!

By: Owen

Owen — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:07:45 +0000

Gotta get this one out of my system. Maybe someone won the Hamilton-Volquez trade, but I refues to say anyone lost it. Maybe Texas won more, but do you think either side would undo it if given the chance? Maybe it’s just a word choice thing. A winner implies a loser. Can we say “Who is even happier than the other guy that they made that trade?”

One more example: The Astros lost the Randy Wolf trade. I don’t know if the Pads won it or not, but the ‘Stros lost that even if the guy they traded swears off baseball and becomes a poet.

By: ethegolfman

ethegolfman — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:40:45 +0000

OK, we have a serious Gruds in the making. I’m watching the DBacks/Giants and Conor Jackson has a double and a homer in the 1st 3 innings against Jonathan Sanchez to make his career line against Sanchez: 9-11,1 2B, 2 HR, 2 BB and 1 HBP for a 818/857/1455 line or a 2312 OPS. . . .

OK maybe Sanchez isn’t good enough to have a Gruds but that is serious ownership

By: Brent

Brent — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:02:30 +0000

My favorite pitcher to do this with is Quiz. All of his Grudz are LH and mostly low ball hitters. Ben Oglivie is the one I remember, but I think that could just be because he hit a mammoth HR off Quiz in his first AB ever against him to win a ballgame at County Stadium in 1979. But the batters with 15 Plate Appearances against Quiz whose lifetime OPS is over 1.000 is a Who’s Who List of LH batters in the AL in the 1980s.

Whitaker: 32 PA, .429/.469/.643; Eddie Murray, 27 PA, .364/.444/.591 (1 HR); Lloyd Moseby, 26 PA .458/.500/.500; Kent Hrbek, 22 PA, ..632/.636/1.105 (2HR); Cecil Cooper, 21 PA, .500/.524/.800 (2 HR); Upshaw, 20 PA, .500/.500/.600; Oglive 18 PA, .400/.500/.800 (2HR); Pat Putnam, 17 PA, .500/.528/.938 (1HR);

By: Friday Links! « First Time Caller, Long Time Listener

Friday Links! « First Time Caller, Long Time Listener — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:36:15 +0000

[...] Seriously, Joe Posnanski is the best. [...]

By: Butch

Butch — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:23:25 +0000

I love Ellis Burks, who probably could have been a Hall of Famer with better health. (Couldn’t the same be said of Mattingly?)

But don’t forget Burks played an awful lot of games at Coors Field, including his one truly monster season in 1996.

Career home: .304/.375/.542
Career away: .279/.352/.480

By: BIP

BIP — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:30:01 +0000

Damon,

It’s almost certainly all small sample size. But the problem isn’t just the small sample size, it’s the fact that the data is acquired after the fact. Pitchers face hundreds of different batters over their careers, so just by random variation alone, it’s guaranteed that some guy will have hit .500 against them over a small number of plate appearances. If you could predict who the Gruds would be BEFORE their plate appearances happened, that’d be quite impressive, but good luck with that.

I’m not trying to be negative, though… it’s a great article as always, Joe.

By: EdB

EdB — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:39:06 +0000

Love this topic…. I recall that Tom Hutton used to club Tom Seaver. Always got up in a tough situation, and it felt like he always doubled into the gap. Though, a lot of guys did that to the Mets when I was a kid.

I like the idea of team-killers too. You could fill a nice roster with guys who owned the Mets (Stargell, Chipper Jones would both be captains).