PA	AB	HR	HR/AB
Don Buford	21	20	5	0.250
Ron Kittle	50	44	9	0.205
Oddibe McDowell	37	32	5	0.156
Cory Snyder	31	28	4	0.143
Bob Horner	22	22	3	0.136
Kent Hrbek	43	40	5	0.125
Johnny Grubb	30	24	3	0.125
Jose Canseco	28	24	3	0.125
Daryl Boston	20	16	2	0.125
Eddie Murray	67	62	7	0.113

54 Responses to “Ron Kittle vs. Bert Blyleven”

1. Raphy Says:
   February 2nd, 2011 at 9:54 am

   Almost half of Kittle's homers off Blyleven came in one week in 1986. On June 18 Kittle went 3 for 4 with 2 homers and a double off of Blyleven. 5 days later they matched up again and Kittle hit homers in both the first and second innings.
   http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/AGkt9

   Kittle's home runs were 4 of the 50 that Blyleven allowed that season.

2. Chris Castonguay Says:
   February 2nd, 2011 at 10:15 am

   You seem to be trying pretty hard to tell us that 9 HR in 44AB is not significant.

3. Hartvig Says:
   February 2nd, 2011 at 10:20 am

   Bobby Ojeda was actually worse than any of them: 4 home runs in 17 plate appearances, which works out to .235HR/AB.

4. Andy Says:
   February 2nd, 2011 at 10:22 am

   #2, I'm not trying to sell that at all--in fact I say at the very end that it's clearly not just a random event.

5. Raphy Says:
   February 2nd, 2011 at 10:41 am

   Another thing that needs to be considered when discussing match-up results is timing. Kittle's career really only started when Blyleven was 32 and he didn't hit a lick off of him until Blyleven was 35.

6. Dr. Doom Says:
   February 2nd, 2011 at 10:49 am

   Andy, I'm not so sure 50 PA is enough to say it's more than a random event. Tangotiger usually says you need about a season's worth of plate appearances to make an conclusions, and if that's the case other than like Hank Aaron and Robin Roberts, almost no one has reached a statistically significant number of PAs to draw any such conclusions. Obviously, Kittle hit Blyleven well, but that doesn't mean he would have continued to have done so if given 50 more PAs, which is what your comment seems to be saying. I would disagree.

7. Andy Says:
   February 2nd, 2011 at 10:59 am

   Dr. Doom, all I said is that it wasn't random. By no means do I think Kittle would have maintained his 0.20 rate over 500 at-bats, meaning 100 HRs. If Kittle had 100 plate appearances against Blyleven, I would bet big that he wouldn't reach 18 HRs (double what he did in 50 PAs) but 12 or 13 seems possible.

8. barkie Says:
   February 2nd, 2011 at 11:09 am

   I'm not starting an anti-Bert rant, I swear. It's just that Bert gets a LOT of face-time in this page.

   Is he your favorite player?

9. Chuck Says:
   February 2nd, 2011 at 11:12 am

   "Tangotiger usually says you need about a season's worth of plate appearances to make an conclusions"

   Dr. Doom, you clearly misunderstood what Tango said.

   The most PA's in a single season against Blyleven was the 25 by Mike Epstein in 1971, and Reggie Jackson's 140 is the most against Blyleven for any player for his career.

   Twenty-five PA's is actually two seasons worth, which is more than enough.

   Cory Snyder is fourth on the list of HR/PA against Blyleven, and he is the other player in the picture above with Kittle.

10. Andy Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 11:25 am

    #8, He's not my favorite player although I did campaign heavily for him for the HOF. I wrote this just because McCombe emailed in the idea...he might have been researching Blyleven because he was in the news. There is no ulterior motive.

11. barkie Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 11:49 am

    there's a lot of Blyleven fans on this page (I'm one too).

    And, as for ulterior motives, that ship has sailed. He's in the Hall. Your work is done.

12. Tmckelv Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 12:11 pm

    I think that Buford's performance vs. Blyleven is way more "impressive" than Kittle. Considering that Don's HRs were off of a much younger Bert and Bufod was not a HR hitter.

    Blyleven:
    1970-1975 133 ERA+ 19 HR/Year
    1983-1988 111 ERA+ 29 HR/Year

    @8, This is not exactly a glowing report for Blyleven. So I doubt Andy was posting this solely because of his fondness for Bert, unless you REALLY subscribe to the philosophy of "There is no bad publicity".

13. Andy Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 12:32 pm

    There seems to be a bit of "reading in" to my post. I was only trying to comment on Kittle's HR rate against Blyleven. I am not trying to draw any conclusions about the careers of either guy.

14. Larry R. Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 12:35 pm

    I can't believe it! My two favorite Bermanisms in the same blog. Bert (Be Home) Blyleven and Oddibe (Young Again) McDowell. My day's complete.

15. John Autin Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 12:40 pm

    Andy, are you really saying that, since Blyleven is in the HOF, and Kittle owned Blyleven, therefore Kittle must be elected to the HOF as well? And, by extension, any pitcher who dominated Kittle must also be a HOFer? Are you really saying all that?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

    🙂

16. Andy Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    LOL 🙂

17. Atom Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 12:48 pm

    Kittle had back to back insane minor league seasons in 81 and 82.

    1981: 109 Games, 40 HR, 103 RBI, .326/.425/.694

    1982: 127 Games, 50HR, 144 RBI, .345/.442/.752

    Too bad it didn't translate to the majors that well.

18. JDV Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    Enjoyable post...great to read a piece that mentions Buford, one of my favorites from the Orioles glory years.

19. Andy Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 12:55 pm

    BTW I just noticed that i had mis-labeled my final table as HR/PA in the last column. It's actually HR/AB and I have corrected the label.

20. birtelcom Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 1:13 pm

    Re the randomness question. If I'm using BINOMDIST in Excel correctly, the chances of a player who hits homers in 5.8% of his PAs randomly hitting 9 homers in 50 PAs is roughly one in 450. But 107 guys had at least 50 career PAs against Blyleven, and it's not that unlikely that one of those 107 guys would, just as a matter of random chance, hit homers against him at a rate that would likely only be seen once in 450 chances.

21. birtelcom Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    Re my note above and my reference there to a 5.8% homer rate: that's Kittle's career rate.

22. Wine Curmudgeon Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 1:23 pm

    Let's not miss the most important point. Jack Brohamer is on this list.

23. John Autin Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    @22, Wine Curmudgeon: Excellent point about Brohamer. His HR rate off Blyleven was 8.5% of PAs (4 HRs in 47 PAs) -- almost 8 times his career rate of 1.1% (30 HRs in 2795 PAs).

    Two of Brohamer's HRs came in his first game against Blyleven, in Brohamer's rookie year of 1972. It would be the only 2-HR game of his career.

    The 4 HRs all came in Brohamer's first 26 PAs against Blyleven.

    On 6/26/76, Blyleven tossed a 10-inning, 10-hit, 1-0 shutout against Brohamer's White Sox. Brohamer singled in each of his first three trips, but in the 8th inning, with the bags loaded and 1 out, he bounced into a DP.

    Blyleven threw 6 shutouts in 24 starts with Texas that year and posted a 2.76 ERA -- but his record was 9-11. (Oh, wait, I don't have to make those points any more....)

24. Wine Curmudgeon Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    @23, John Autin: Or, as Harry Carey used to call him, Jack Bro-himer, as in "Boy, oh boy, that Bro-himer."

    Yes, it's 19 degrees in Dallas, we're having rolling blackouts because there isn't enough electricity in the state because of the cold, and I'm going a little stir crazy.

25. Jeff Wise Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    Ron Kittle is one of them best baseball names out there. There are a lot of good "Ron's" in baseball period. How about Ron Hassey!

26. WanderingWinder Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    44 PA does seem a little too few to say it's not random very conclusively. Birtelcom did the test and it apparently shows up as ~.2%; this is unlikely, but then again there are lots of batter/pitcher matchups to analyze, SOMEONE ought to have these crazy kinds of numbers by random luck. It would be interesting to see applying such kinds of tests on a grand scale, over many seasons with the tens of thousands of batter/pitcher matchups you'd need to get anything near conclusive. I think they did something somewhat to that extent in The Book, but I'm looking for more direct and larger scale. Of course, that would take forever, so I don't expect it to be done any time soon.

27. John Autin Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 2:45 pm

    More on Brohamer (and wouldn't that make a great movie title for Will Ferrell or Seth Rogen?) --

    Fourteen of his 30 career HRs came off just five pitchers:
    -- 4 HRs in 47 PAs vs. Bert Blyleven (287 career wins)
    -- 3 HRs in 18 PAs vs. Dave Lemanczyk (37 career wins)
    -- 3 HRs in 49 PAs vs. Catfish Hunter (224 career wins)
    -- 2 HRs in 15 PAs vs. Jim Perry (215 career wins)
    -- 2 HRs in 37 PAs vs. Joe Coleman (142 career wins)

    That's 14 HRs in 166 PAs, a HR rate of 8.4%.
    Against all other pitchers, Brohamer had 16 HRs in 2629 PAs, a rate of 0.6%.

    P.S. On 9/24/77, Brohamer went 3 for 3 with a HR and 2 doubles against Seattle reliever Greg Erardi. He then collected a single against the second reliever, Bob Galasso, and came up in the 9th against Galasso needing the triple to complete the cycle -- and he got it. It was the first cycle by a second baseman in 7 years (Rod Carew); the next two cycles by a second sacker came in 1979 and '82, both by Frank White.*

    For the game, Brohamer was 5 for 5 with 12 total bases and 4 RBI, all personal game highs. For that entire season, Brohamer had just 2 HRs, 3 triples, 10 doubles, 20 RBI and 39 hits.

    * Frank White's 1982 cycle is probably one of the most dramatic ever. On August 3 against Detroit, with KC tied for first place with the Angels, White put the Royals ahead with a 2-run HR in the 1st; hit a 2-out double in the 3rd (but was stranted); reached on a 2-out error by the pitcher in the 5th which plated the tying run; tied the game again with a 2-out single in the 7th (after Willie Wilson reached on a 3-base error by CF Glenn Wilson); and capped it all with a 2-out, walk-off RBI triple in the 9th, giving KC their 6th straight win and giving them sole possession of first place.

    White's WPA for that game was 0.978; he also turned 2 DPs. The 4 hits raised his season BA to .325 and his SLG to an even .500. He slumped down the stretch, but still wound up with career highs of .298 and .469.

28. Dan W Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    Ron Kittle was traded for Phil Bradley in 1990. That day, I sent a baseball card of both players to their new teams to be signed and received both cards back a week later on the same day signed by both guys. That's what I think of when I hear either one of those names. Little interesting tidbit.

29. Andy Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 2:57 pm

    Regarding both of those guys--Kittle and Bradley--I have often heard that they are very nice and well-liked guys. Your story is great if unsurprising.

    Those two guys also share the fact that they showed a lof of talent at the major-league level but didn't stay around for too long. Bradley was awesome with the Mariners earlier in his career but was done by the age of 31. Unlike Kittle, Bradley showed way more power in the majors than in the minors, where he never hit more than 2 homers in a season.

30. John Autin Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    @25, Jeff Wise:

    Here's a "Ron" All-Star team:

    LF -- Rondell White
    CF -- Ron Leflore
    RF -- Ron Gant
    1B -- Ron Fairly
    2B -- Ron Hunt
    3B -- Ron Santo, Ron Cey (collectively, 15 All-Star appearances from 1963-79)
    SS -- Ron Hansen
    C (platoon) -- Ron Karkovice, Ron Hassey
    DH (platoon) -- Ron Kittle, Ron Blomberg

    UT -- Ronnie Belliard
    UT -- Ron Coomer

    SP -- Ron Guidry
    SP -- Ron Darling
    CL -- Ron Davis
    SW -- Ron Reed

    (Each player above was an All-Star at least once, except our catchers. Karkovice could have made it in 1993, when he hit 20 HRs and led the league with a 54% CS rate. Hassey could have made it in 1985 or '86, with a 140 OPS+ each year -- except that he was lousy behind the plate.)

    Gant is playing out of position in RF, but at least he did play 8 games there in his career. For a true RF, we could bring in Ron Northey, who should have been an All-Star in 1944, when he was all over the NL leader board (3rd in HR & RBI) and led the league with 24 OF assists.

    Or we could put Fairly in RF and play Kittle at 1B [shudder].

    Manager -- Ron Washington
    Bench Coach -- Ron Gardenhire*
    Pitching Coach -- Ron Perranoski
    GM -- Ron Schueler
    Trainer -- Ron Taylor

    * Sorry, Twins fans; Gardy has a better career record, but Washington has won a pennant.

31. Dan W Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 3:39 pm

    Kittle was an interesting guy. Had a great rookie season, winning ROY and each year was progressively worse. Never lived up to that first great season.

32. barkie Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    OhmiGod! If we take Andy's "suggestion" that Kittle deserved to be in the Hall since he "owned" Blyleven, then what is the most absurd example of a pitcher who belongs in the Hall due to their mastery of Kittle?

33. barkie Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    That was easy....

    Dave Steib. Held Kittle to a .211 OBP in 28 ABs.

    Steib for the Hall!

34. Hazy Nichols Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 4:07 pm

    I would have to say that 9 home runs in 44 at-bats is a ton. Maybe two tons. Even in little league.

35. Andy Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 4:08 pm

    Stieb was a damn fine pitcher actually. He's 68th career in WAR for pitchers--not Hall-worthy necessarily but really really good. He led the AL in WAR in 1982, 1983 and 1984.

36. John Autin Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 4:20 pm

    @31, Dan W --
    Actually, Kittle's most efficient years (by far) were 1987-89, when he hit a combined .277 with 40 HRs in 623 PAs, and a 140 OP+. He just didn't get enough playing time to make a big impact -- either because of injury problems, defensive limitations or his prior reputation.

    Take a look at his yearly stats.
    http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kittlro01.shtml

37. barkie Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    that's why I picked Steib. At times looked like he'd be Hall-Worthy. Never panned out.

38. John Autin Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 5:36 pm

    Andy, Barkie -- Dave Stieb led the majors in combined WAR for the period 1980-89, and by a large margin -- 45.2 for Stieb, 35.1 for Bob Welch. (Jack Morris was 12th at 27.9.)

    Stieb was 2nd to Morris in IP and Wins in the '80s.

39. Andy Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    JA, it ain't me you need to convince. Ironically, given #8 above, Stieb is actually one of my favorite players, and I was not the one to mention him on this post. I didn't even know how to respond to #37's notion that he "never panned out" because he had a huge amount of major-league success.

40. Michael E Sullivan Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    he's not exactly an absurd choice for the hall, though, Barkie. I wouldn't put him in the hall, and think that's a clear choice, but I would say he's better than some pitchers who are in, and better than his contemporary Jack Morris who's getting 50% of the vote these days.

41. barkfart Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    Hey, in defense of Barkie...

    He only meant that Steib never "panned out" as a Hall of Famer.

42. DavidRF Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    Kittle had a lot of power and Bert had days where his famous curve would hang (especially in his second Twins stint). I took the list as more of a "fun" list than anything else.

    There are stranger batter vs. pitcher results out there.

    Gene Oliver owned Sandy Koufax .392/.426/.647 in 54 PA.

    There has to be some stranger pairs out there. I found some non-obvious ones (Monday/Seaver, Hebner/Gibson). Can anyone find a case of a batter who simply wasn't very good but had the number of a HOF-er?

43. barkfart Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 8:33 pm

    great challenge DavidRF

44. John Autin Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 11:55 pm

    Andy, Barkie -- Just to be clear, I didn't think either of you was saying that Stieb wasn't terrific. I just wanted to pile on. Actually, I didn't even realize that Stieb was (by WAR, anyway) the best pitcher of the '80s until Andy's note about him leading in WAR in 1982-83-84 sent me to the P-I.

45. John Autin Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 12:20 am

    Taking up DavidRF's challenge @42 (and using a 30-PA floor)....

    -- Rick Cerone vs. Nolan Ryan: 1.213 OPS in 33 PAs; 11 for 29, 2 HRs, 1 triple, 3 doubles.

    -- Abraham Nunez vs. Greg Maddux: 12 for 28 (.429), 3 doubles, 1 K.

    -- Trot Nixon vs. Roger Clemens: 1.450 OPS in 48 PAs; 16 for 40, 5 HRs, 5 doubles, 1 triple, .950 SLG. Trot Nixon was a good hitter, but that SLG is more than twice his career mark. (However, the individual game-by-game breakdowns for Nixon vs. Clemens show 1 less HR (and 1 less PA, etc.) than the initial batter-vs-pitcher report.

46. Dan G Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 7:30 am

    Gee Whiz Guys,

    I thought that this was an interesting piece of analysis. I did not feel that the analyzer had an ax to grind. If we jump all over a guy just because we feel he is slighting our hero then nobody will do any analysis any more. Thanks for an informative read. It is totally appropriate to analyze Blyleven right now because he is in the news. Who better than all of us to evaluate his career and see what happened when and who did what? Maybe one of you was sitting in the stands or watching on TV one day when Kittle took Blyleven deep and you said to yourself "am I imagining this or is Kittle banging Blyleven around these days" well we just found out that your powers of observation were correct as a kid and you were not imagining this. What could be better than that?? Lighten up guys.

47. shoewizard Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 9:40 am

    McCombe35

    I know that White Sox homer from way back at CBS message boards. Big shoutout for him if he reads this. The guy always had a great sense of humor.

    Ron Kittle.......you gotta love it.

48. John Autin Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 11:43 am

    Here's a bit of quirkiness in Kittle's career splits:

    -- 8.2% HR rate with a runner on 1st base only (49 HRs in 596 PAs)
    -- 5.9% HR rate with the bases empty (96 HRs in 1,631 PAs)
    -- 5.8% HR rate in all situations except a man on 1st (127 HRs in 2,417 PAs)
    -- 3.9% HR rate with runners in scoring position (31 HRs in 786 PAs)

49. Kahuna Tuna Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 11:44 am

    Mike Pagliarulo hit five HRs off Don Sutton, the most off any pitcher he faced. And he did it in only 18 at-bats.

50. Dan W Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 11:55 am

    And Stieb - here's another little interesting tidbit about Stieb since you guys brought it up - he went to a high school in San Jose (Oak Grove) that was a rival of mine (before me though). One time, years ago when Stieb was still active, I was driving in San Jose and this black Porsche zips up behind me and pulls up next to me and the license was something like Steib 44 (or something like that, I don't remember exactly, this was like 25 years ago or so) and it's Steib. So we're sitting there at the light and I look over and wave and try to get across that I went to a high school near him, but it was real hard to convey that, and I was young and stupid and he's just looking at me like I'm an idiot, which I really was and then there was this long awkward wait for the light to turn green. So I edge up about a foot just so he cant' see my face now and we just sat there and it was really awkward. Another intersting tidbit for ya...

51. Mike Felber Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 8:36 pm

    I think Dr. Doom meant a full season of PA that a batter would rack up against all pitchers, not one.

    Blyleven had those & very big HR surrendered years. He still pitched decently those 2 campaigns. Even including those years, his HR allowed per IP was not that high. we could find those who had a 'surprisingly' low HR rate against him, again due to the random factors in a small sample size mostly.

52. mccombe35 Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    Awesome. Thanks for looking into this Andy! Very appreciated!

53. mccombe35 Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 10:39 pm

    @47

    Hey Shoe!

    Been a long time. Hope you are doing well!

    Don't forget:

    Robin Ventura > Matt Williams

    haha

54. shoewizard Says:
    February 4th, 2011 at 2:22 am

    Knew that was coming,
    and of course you are right.