Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Glavine Dual Relic - Pitchers and Game Used Bats?

So as I was browsing through my local card shop I found this nice looking card: a 2004 Diamond Kings Tom Glavine Dual Relic numbered 12/100.  Between the low numbering, the awesome design, and dual relics I decided to pick it up.


Now, I have always found game used bat cards of pitchers to be a bit odd, but Glavine did have a reputation for being a better than average hitter for a pitcher.  His career OPS was .454, he hit one homerun in his career, and had 90 RBIs.  However, it is hard to tell from those numbers how good he was compared to other pitchers.

This is where those new statistics become a bit more useful.  I am going to use oWAR: Offensive Wins Above Replacement.  This statistic is supposed to measure the number of wins above or below average this player contributed to his team offensively. Glavine totaled 5 over his 22 year career (all in the NL).  Compare that a terrible hitter like Al Lieter who compiled -2.4 over 10 years in the NL.  For a more modern example look at Cole Hamels who has .2 in his five year career which would extend to .88 if he played seventeen more years.

The moral is, that Glavine was a decent hitter for a pitcher, but he was no Babe Ruth or Carlos Zambrano (the later of which already has 4.6 in 10 years).

4 comments:

  1. I've never seen that card before, but it is beautiful! I love it when pitchers are shown doing something other than pitching on their cards. Add a piece of bat and it makes the card that much more entertaining. Congrats on a awesome pick up!

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  2. I've seen a lot of Glavine and Maddux bats which I can deal with. But I've also seen a lot of Randy Johnson bats which I can't figure out. He didn't really get to bat consistently until 1999, owned a .125 career avg, and using your stat, has an oWAR of -2. Go figure...

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  3. I've got a Donruss Diamond King Kaz Ishii bat card. Ishii was not a good hitter at all.

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  4. It's true, what would I want a Randy Johnson or Kaz Ishii bat card for, besides the comedic effect.

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