A couple of weeks ago, I went to a sports card shop with a friend and found that there were many packs of 2021 Topps Archives. I decided to buy some. Luckily, I got a hit, which is an autograph card. On the front, we can clearly see Carlos Zambrano’s autograph. Zambrano is well known for his “temper”. However, his career in the majors wasn’t a bad one. He earned 132 wins over the 12 seasons. Additionally, as a pitcher, he’s not bad at hitting. I do remember that Zambrano crushed some home runs.
Now, two-way player Shohei Ohtani is a household name in baseball. And, I was just wondering whether Zambrano was the best hitting pitcher before Ohtani came to America.
To understand a little bit more, I went to check on the FanGraphs website.
Shohei Ohtani joined the Angels in 2018, so let’s see the stats before 2018.
From 2000-2017, Carlos Zambrano is the home run leader among MLB pitchers. He had 24 home runs and he’s the only pitcher with 20+ home runs during this period. Moreover, we know that Madison Bumgarner would like to participate in the home run derby. He has 19 home runs in his career so far and 17 home runs were hit between 2012 and 2017. As a pitcher, Mike Hampton was not bad at hitting. He played 16 seasons in the majors and he had 16 career home runs. These home runs all came from 2001 onwards. In particular, Hampton crushed 7 home runs in 2001 and back then, he was playing for the Rockies. It’s definitely worth noting that Mike Hampton slashed .337/.367/.570 over 48 games at Coors Field in his career.
Moreover, Carlos Zambrano had 71 RBI in his career. Over his 12 years in the MLB, he finished 3 seasons with 10+ RBI. Additionally, don’t forget Livan Hernandez, who made a big impact in the 1997 postseason. Livan Hernandez was named the 1997 NLCS MVP and the 1997 World Series MVP. In his career, he collected 85 RBI and 69 RBI came from 2000 to 2017. Furthermore, the 2022 season will be Adam Wainwright’s 17th season in the majors. By far in his career, he already collected 75 RBI. In particular, he had 18 RBI in 2016 and collected 11 RBI in 2017.
Finally, let’s look at the number of stolen bases. We don’t see that many stolen bases in today’s baseball games. However, Shohei Ohtani did run a lot last season. In 2021, Ohtani had 26 stolen bases. Before Ohtani arrived in the big league, it was very rare to see a pitcher run. From 2000 to 2017, Hall of Famer Greg Maddux stole 7 times and in his career, he had 11 stolen bases. Well, Carlos Zambrano had only one stolen base in his career.
We should be able to say that Carlos Zambrano was the best hitting pitcher before Shohei Ohtani played in the big league. Nonetheless, with a .238/.248/.388 slash line, it’s really hard to say he’s a good hitter. Additionally, we might see a pitcher crush a home run occasionally, for example, Madison Bumgarner blasted a home run, however, it just happens once in a while. It seems that the universal DH rule will come in 2022, we probably won’t see a pitcher hit again.
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