This is our old blog. It hasn't been active since 2011. Please see the link above for our current blog or click the logo above to see all of the great data and content on this site.
«
»

Julio Franco

Posted by Andy on August 1, 2007

48-year-old Julio Franco was released by Atlanta yesterday to make room for their new acquisitions.

Here's a bit of trivia for you. How many different pitchers do you think Franco has faced in his career?

Really think about it and make a guess before clicking past the jump for the answer.

The answer, thanks to Franco's batter-vs-pitcher PI page, is 1167 different pitchers. That's 1167, folks. Wow.

If you restrict it to just the active pitchers, that's 310. That means that he's faced 857 pitchers who have already retired.

He's faced 8 players already in the Hall of Fame:

                    PA  AB  H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS   SH  SF IBB HBP GDP G_miss YR_miss
+-----------------+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+-------+
 Steve Carlton       3   3   2  0  0  0   0   0   0  .667  .667  .667 1.334   0   0   0   0   0
 Dennis Eckersley   26  25   7  2  0  0   2   1   4  .280  .308  .360  .668   0   0   0   0   1
 Rollie Fingers      3   3   0  0  0  0   0   0   1  .000  .000  .000  .000   0   0   0   0   0
 Phil Niekro        20  19   7  3  0  1   1   1   3  .368  .400  .684 1.084   0   0   0   0   0
 Jim Palmer          3   3   2  0  0  0   0   0   0  .667  .667  .667 1.334   0   0   0   0   0
 Gaylord Perry       8   7   1  0  0  0   1   1   1  .143  .250  .143  .393   0   0   0   0   2
 Tom Seaver         15  15   6  0  0  0   1   0   0  .400  .400  .400  .800   0   0   0   0   1
 Don Sutton         46  45  15  1  0  1   2   1   8  .333  .348  .422  .770   0   0   0   0   1

And of course he's faced many more who will be in the Hall one day.

I did a little searching, and I found another stat. Because it's morbid and disrespectful I will not post the list, but suffice it to say he's had a total of 128 plate appearances against 15 pitchers who are now deceased...also quite amazing.

Anyway, here's hoping that the Braves re-sign Franco when the rosters expand in September. He's still productive and I'd love to see him keep on playing.

Related posts:

    Julio Borbon
    Total pitchers faced
    Jim Rice stuff
    Johnny Podres

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 8:43 pm and is filed under Pitcher vs. Batter, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Julio Franco”

  1. Andy Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 9:01 pm

    I got curious so I looked up the next-oldest position player I could find, who is Ruben Sierra.

    Sierra faced 1004 different pitchers. 243 are still active, so 761 are not.

    He faced 6 current HOFers. These are the same who Franco faced, except for Fingers, Palmer, and Perry, and he faced Nolan Ryan (whom Franco did not...which is extremely difficult to believe.)

  2. superk Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 10:46 pm

    Looking at Julio Franco's career, it makes sense that he never faced Nolan Ryan. Franco came up in 1982 with the Phillies but only had a handful of at-bats. He was then traded to the Indians that off-season, away from the NL and Ryan's Astros. They both stayed with those teams through the 1988 season after which Franco was traded to the Rangers and Ryan signed with the Rangers as a free agent. They were then teammates until Ryan retired.

  3. cchien Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 12:15 am

    I also remember, when Nolan Ryan pitched his seventh no-hitter in 1991, Julio Franco is 2B of Rangers, and Ruben Sierra is RF of Rangers.

«
»