Monday, August 08, 2011
Carlos Zambrano and the all-time homer list for pitchers
Posted by Chris JaffeThis Saturday, Cub starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano blasted a home run against Johnny Cueto of the Cincinnati Reds. It’s hardly surprising that he’d go deep. After all, it’s his 23rd career homer, easily the most by any current pitcher. In fact, it’s more than the next two combined.
Heck, Zambrano's lifetime .154 isolated power (which is slugging percentage minus batting average) is higher than the career marks for Omar Vizquel, Johnny Damon, Orlando Hudson, and yes even Derek Jeter.
And that's just contemporary players. Zambrano's .154 ISO also tops that of Paul Molitor, Rickey Henderson, Paul Waner, Honus Wagner, Brooks Robinson, Home Run Baker, new Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar, and all-time triples king Sam Crawford.
This is the ninth straight year Zambrano has bashed as least one homer. The last man to do that? Gary Peters, an American League pitcher in the pre-DH days.
In other words, Zambrano is quickly becoming a historically great homer hitter for a pitcher. Where does he rank overall? Let’s find out.
For this list, we’re looking only at how many homers a guy hit as a pitcher. That knocks out a pair of guys because of what they did while playing another position or pinch hitter. We’ll discuss them in a bit.
For now, here are the top ten all-time at hitting homers while pitching:
HR Pitcher 37 Wes Ferrell 35 Bob Lemon 35 Warren Spahn 34 Red Ruffing 33 Earl Wilson 29 Don Drysdale 24 Bob Gibson 24 John Clarkson 23 Walter Johnson 23 Carlos Zambrano
Zambrano is tied with Walter Johnson for ninth.
Sort of. Johnson actually has a 24th homer, but it was a pinch-hit homer and so doesn't count here. In fact, half the list hit pinch-hit shots that don't count here. Aside from Johnson, Wes Ferrell hit one while Bob Lemon, Red Ruffing, and Earl Wilson each had two. The Cubs have used Zambrano as a pinch hitter on occasion, but he's never gone deep in the role.
Also, two guys hit more homers overall, but many were hit as position players. Pre-WWII ace Bucky Walters began as an infielder with the Phillies, and showed some power, but then transferred to pitcher where he was much better.
In the 1890s, Jack Stivetts was such a great hitting pitcher his team had him play the field on some off days. Four-tenths of his homers came away from the mound.
But if you look just at homers hit while pitching, Zambrano just crashed into the top 10.
Zambrano: the most dangerous hitting pitcher of his generation.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail. Oh, and now he's on twitter.
How about the season record? Sonny Siebert’s 6 in 79 AB in ‘71 with Boston would seem to be a candidate. He is the last AL pitcher to hit 2 in 1 game that year, as I recall.