If you simply want to see who the best hitting pitcher in the National League is, that's easy. The answer, this year, is Mark Mulder of the St. Louis Cardinals. By a lot.
Here's ESPN's listing of runs created per 27 outs as a batter for pitchers. That would tell you how many runs a theoretical lineup of nine of those guys would score per game.
I set it to a minimum 25 plate appearances just to weed out relief pitchers who are 1-for-1 or something. Mulder created 6.00 runs for every 27 outs he made before shutting down for the season. Jorge Sosa of St. Louis is second at 3.03. That's not second place. That's Mondaling.
Mulder was the early-century Barry Bonds of pitchers this year, or the circa-1917 Babe Ruth, if you'd like, except for one thing, which I'll get to in a second.
To give you an idea of what 6.00 runs created per 27 outs looks like, if Mulder were a position player and had enough plate appearances, that 6.00 would put him 36th in the league in RC/27. Nothing special -- the league leader is Ryan Howard of Philadelphia at 10.11, and there are seven players over 8.00. But pretty solid.
If talent were distributed evenly in the National League, being the 36th best hitter would mean you'd be somebody's third-best bat. Mulder would be behind Florida shortstop Hanley Ramirez and just ahead of San Diego outfielder Mike Cameron in N.L. RC/27. These are legitimate big-league sticks. Small sample size and everything, only 36 plate appearances, but still. Good hitting.
Mulder had two doubles and a homer, plus five walks. Any pitcher with any walks beyond a random accident or two is getting some respect.
But here's that one thing I mentioned: Mulder's job is to pitch, and unlike Babe Ruth circa 1917, he stunk at that this year. His earned-run average was 7.14, speaking of Babe Ruth, and not Babe Ruth the pitcher.
Even with his runs created per 9IP of .39, which is almost twice as good as the league leader among pitchers with enough innings pitched to qualify for the ERA title, Eric Milton of Cincinnati at .23, Mulder was still responsible for giving up 6.75 earned runs per nine innings, about twice as many as a typical No. 1 starter.
Among pitchers with enough innings to qualify -- one inning for each game played by his team -- the leaders in RC/9IP after Milton are Livan Hernandez of Arizona and Jamey Wright of San Francisco, tied for second at .22, Jason Marquis of St. Louis, fourth at .21, and Andy Pettitte of Houston, fifth at .20.
Like Mulder, all five of those guys would help their teams much more by pitching better than by hitting even twice as well as they already are. But thanks to PRV, now we know exactly what they're doing in both sides of the game. Tell your friends.
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Put the B-team in, ESPN [PERMALINK]
The nightcap of ESPN's "Monday Night Football" double-header looked like it was going to be a pooch of a game, and the San Diego Chargers' rout of the hapless Oakland Raiders certainly lived up to the billing. So I didn't plan to watch much of it and I followed my plan quite well.
But I watched just long enough hear how much better the new "Monday Night Football" would be with ESPN's B-team of announcers, Brad Nessler on play-by-play with Ron Jaworski and Dick Vermeil doing color.
Holy cow, these guys made Mike Tirico, Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser, the A-team that did the Washington-Minnesota game earlier in the evening, sound like a bunch of chattering chipmunks.
Jaworski is hands down the best football analyst on television. He's terrific on ESPN's wonky "NFL Matchup" every week, and it's a shame he's not in the booth at games more often. Unless you've played quarterback in the NFL, I defy you to listen to Jaworski talk about football for five minutes and not learn something.
I didn't stick around long enough to get much of a handle on Vermeil, but I remember him as a solid, interesting analyst in the '80s and '90s, before he returned to coaching. Nessler is a total pro who does a lot of good work on college basketball and football for ABC and ESPN.
Listening to these three for even a few minutes, I found myself weeping openly that we're all consigned to 15 more weeks of Kornheiser yammering on about his fantasy team, Theismann trying to one-up Kornheiser and Tirico being Tirico.
Maybe that team will grow on me, and I'll give them a full review later in the year, but I can tell you now that if anybody's listening, I vote for the B-team.
Previous column: As the Mannings turn
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About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. Visit his column archive. You can e-mail him at king at salon dot com or visit his MySpace page.
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