Good Hitting Vintage Pitchers
 

Obviously, the designated hitter rule change had a major impact on baseball. But, I was wondering who were the best hitting pitchers in the vintage era?
The best I could come up with are:
1. Robin Roberts - Phils
2. Don Newcombe - Dodgers
3. Tom Seaver - Mets
I actually attended a game with my Dad at Ebbets Field where they used Newk as a pinch hitter.

Ken Brett

Wes Ferrell...

Bob Lemon

1,185 at-bats, 37 homers, 147 RBI, .232 batting average.

Many decent-hitting pitchers had outlier great seasons . . .

Walter Johnson hit .433 in 107 PA in 1925

I think Wes Ferrell was the best ever. Was used a pinch hitter regularly and had a career slash line of .281/.351/.446 with 38 Home Runs and over 200 RBIs.
In 1931 his slash line was .318/.373/.621 with 9 Home Runs. Oh, and he won 22 games that year.

Others not mentioned:
Bob Gibson career BA of .206 and 24 Home Runs
Warren Spahn career BA of .194 and 35 Home Runs
Don Larsen career BA of .242 with 14 Home Runs
Dizzy Trout career BA of .213 with 20 Home Runs
Schoolboy Rowe career BA of .263 with 18 Home Runs.

Not sure that Robin Roberts or Tom Seaver should be on the list. Roberts career BA of .167 with 5 HRs, Seaver Career .154 hitter with 12 HRs.

In 1965, Don Drysdale hit .300

Ditto on Ferrell as my pick if we're not counting Ruth. I suspect, on the basis of no actual evidence, that the Hall of Fame voters accidentally elected the wrong Ferrell brother. The alternative of course if that they elected the wrong Ferrell brother on purpose.

Needles Bentley
 

John "Needles" Bentley. Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1913-1916. 46 wins and 8 saves in 9 MLB seasons. His most productive season was 1924 with the New York Giants as he posted a 16-5 record with a 3.78 ERA in 188 innings pitched. Was a good hitter with a career OBP of .316 in 616 plate appearances. Gave up World Series winning-ground ball single to McNeely in the 1924 "pebble" game.

Between his MLB pitching stints in Washington (1913-1916) and New York (1923-1927), Bentley played on the great Baltimore Oriole teams: In his first two seasons with the Baltimore Orioles of the International League, 1917 and 1919 (he was in the US Army in 1918), with the exception of a lone pitching appearance in his first year, Bentley played exclusively at first base and in the outfield: In 185 games, he posted averages of .333 batting and .510 slugging. Then he really caught fire. From 1920 to 1922, Bentley’s numbers were staggering, as he batted .378 in 439 games, scored 340 runs, drove in 399, and had a slugging average of an astounding .590. In both 1920 (161) and 1921 (120), Bentley led the league in RBIs; in 1921, he won the league Triple Crown, batting .412 (the league’s highest season average in the 20th century), with 24 home runs and 120 RBIs. His 246 hits that season remain the league’s single-season record.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1682710080

Warren Spahn
 

35 career homers

I also vote Wes Ferrell if you do not include the Babe

Some interesting Spahn career stats.

Pitching: 363 wins — 356 with Braves, 4 with Mets, 3 with Giants
Batting: 363 hits — 356 with Braves, 4 with Mets, 3 with Giants
Playoff pitching: 4 wins
Playoff batting: 4 hits

Spahn’s streak of consecutive seasons with at least one home run is actually longer than his streak of seasons with at least one shutout, which is a bit surprising. He hit homers in 17 consecutive seasons (1948-1964), but only had shutouts in 15 consecutive seasons (1947-61).

As a Mets maniac (with no actual evidence to back this up), it seems Tom Seaver only got hits when he went up there and squared around to bunt a runner over, but as the pitch was released and the infielders raced in to field said bunt, he would pull the bat back and slap/swing at the ball for an 'easy' hit past them.

Perhaps
 

Babe Ruth

I will go with Ferrell as well but here are two Reds:

Red Ruffing: Used as a pinch hitter 260 times (Ferrell was used 163 times). Career 36/273/.269. Career WAR as batter 13.3 (Ferrell was 11.3). Ferrell has him in OPS .797 to .695.

Red Lucas: Used as a pinch hitter 506(!) times. Not a lot of power 3/190/.281. OPS .687. WAR as batter 12.0.

There are also some Negro Leaguers and 19th century players that could be in the discussion.

best
 

Yea,
Seaver was good at the ole - butcher boy !

Tommy Byrne
https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...eestiptop6.jpg


Tommy batted .238 BAvg during his career; however, he had a .378 SLG avg, with 14 home runs (including 2 grand slams) and 98 RBI in 377 games.
He was such a good-hitting pitcher, Stengel would put him in the game as a pinch-hitter (in which he got 80 hits). His W-L pitching record was 85-69.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Earl Wilson had 35 HRs and 111 RBSs in 11 years. 195 batting average isn’t horrible for a pitcher either.

Great Ernie Shore card!

I was looking for pinch hitting stats for Ruffing and Lucas but can't find them on Baseball Reference, they only show appearances by position. I do see that his Wikipedia article says that Byrne had 80 pinch hits, but that does not seem likely given that he had only 93 appearances as a pinch hitter. But I can't find a source that has his full pinch hitting numbers.

Wilson twice hit 7 homers in a season. Only Ferrell ever hit more in a season and Wilson is the only guy to hit 7 twice (Drysdale did it once).

Wilson had enough power that he was used as a pinch hitter 28 times in his career.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Carl Scheib yet. He hit .396 in 1951, and .250 over his career.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6ef928f7_z.jpg

Didn’t Drysdale hit 7 in both ‘58 and ‘65?

Ferrell hit 9 in ‘31, 7 in ‘33, and 7 in ‘35.

Ken Brett:

For all the talk of Shohei Ohtani being the best two-way prospect ever, Ken Brett came first. He was a phenom on the mound and in center field before he became a journeyman. About 30 years ago, John Garrity wrote a book called "The George Brett Story." This was shortly after George almost hit .400 and was one of the biggest sports stars in America. Garrity quoted George's father, Jack:
"I went to a game one time," Jack said, "and somebody said, 'Casey Stengel is in the stands today to see him.' Yogi Berra was there. Carl Hubbell came to see him. I thought, 'God. Maybe he's good.'
"He was Mister America -- it was almost like he was a man among boys. I thought he could be a decathlon athlete. ... And he had a knack for doing the right thing. He was very modest. He was quiet. He was somebody you could be proud of. ... I always wanted him to play for the Yankees. I wanted him to replace Mickey Mantle."
Only after a little while did Garrity reveal that Jack was not talking about George. He was talking about Ken Brett.
"To this day," George says, "people just flat out say that he may be one of the best all-around athletes to ever come out of Southern California. ... He could have gone to any college in the country on a football scholarship or baseball. And academically."
Mister America. Future Major League All-Star Scott McGregor grew up in the same neighborhood; he said that Ken was his idol. But he was everyone's idol, really. Ken was the fourth pick in the 1966 MLB Draft. Here's how different it was then, The Associated Press story that introduced him to America said this:
"Boston snatched Ken Brett, a 17-year-old schoolboy from El Segundo, Calif., who was recommended by scouts."
That's a weird line, right? Recommended by scouts? Why did they put that in there? Were other players in the draft NOT recommended by scouts?
But there is some underlying truth to it because scouts adored Ken Brett. He was the perfect prospect. He was smart. He was a good student. He was an incredible athlete. And he was equally gifted as a pitcher and a hitter; going into the Draft, nobody knew which way he would go. Joe Stephenson, the legendary Red Sox scout (and father of Jerry Stephenson, a big leaguer and himself legendary scout for the Dodgers), saw Brett hit and wanted him to play center field.
"Kemer [Ken Brett's nickname] was the best prospect I ever saw," Stephenson once told Peter Gammons. "Kemer was a combination of George, Fred Lynn and Roger Maris."

“H ow good a hitter could he have been?
"What you have to understand," Ken Brett's close friend, 1980 American League Cy Young winner Steve Stone, says, "is that when you have a brother like George Brett, a Hall of Famer, an all-time great, you become the other brother in the relationship. But what they don't understand is that Ken Brett could hit better than George. He could throw better than George. He could run better than George. He did just about everything better than George."
George concurs.
"Whoever was drafting fifth [Cubs] was taking him as a center fielder," George says. "Whoever was drafting sixth [Washington] was taking him as a center fielder. Whoever was drafting seventh [St. Louis] was taking him as a center fielder. I don't know how many teams there were in 1966 [20], but he was everybody's choice as a left-handed-hitting center fielder. He could run. He had a great arm, obviously. But the guy could frickin' hit "

On Baseball Reference, you have to go in Advanced Batting to the Situational Batting stats; that is where the pinch hitting records are listed.

Dode Criss led the American League in pinch hits in each of his four seasons with the St. Louis Browns, 1908-1911. According to my Baseball Encyclopedia (because Baseball Reference does not have individual pinch hitting stats from that time period), Criss was 35-for-147 as a pinch hitter in his major league career. He batted .341 in his rookie season and had a career average of .276. He pitched in 30 games during his career, with 21 of those in relief, and also played 26 games at first base and eleven in right field. His pitching stats are 3 wins and 9 losses with a 4.38 ERA, which is pretty bad for the deadball era.

Those are awesome stats and amazing

Thanks for sharing

Thank you, I knew it had to be there somewhere. Of some of the people mentioned:

Red Lucas was 117 for 430 (.272) with 2 HRs and 68 RBIs.
Red Ruffing was 56 for 214 (.262) with 2 HRs and 44 RBIs.
Wes Ferrell was 30 for 139 (.216) with 1 HR and 30 RBIs.
Tommy Byrne was 6 for 75 (.080) with 2 HRs and 11 RBIs.

I am not sure why Wikipedia says Byrne had 80 pinch hits. Maybe someone confused his batting average as a pinch hitter with the number of hits he had?

and he sat behind me in 1977 at the old County Stadium for a Yankee-Brewer game. Fortunately he didn't recognize me.:D

Michael

I have followed the Yankees from age 9. I have seen Tommy Byrne pinch-hit many times (1947 - 1957). If it is said that he hit safely 80 times pinch-hitting, then I tend to believe it.
Perhaps the "93 appearances" is considerably less than his actual pinch-hit At-Bats.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Ted, with all respect, I found Byrne's lifetime pinch hitting stats on Baseball Reference and he was 6 for 75. Also, his appearances as a pinch hitter (93) would have to be greater than his ABs, due to walks, sacrifices, etc. I guess it just depends on which source you trust more...I will take Baseball Reference over Wikipedia.

However, a pinch hit grand slam is nothing to sneeze at!

Michael

Where you there to see (or hear) Tommy Byrne pitching and/or pinch-hitting) ?

I was an avid Baseball fan at a young age. If I wasn't watching BB on our TV, then I was listening to it on the radio. And, once in a while my folks would take us to Yankee Stadium.

Furthermore, my nearby neighbor in Hillside, NJ was Phil Rizzuto. Who would drive down our street to get to Yankee Stadium. Many times during that trip, Phil would stop and talk
with us kids.

For your information, the quote regarding Tommy Byrne' s pinch-hit grand slam HR was from SABR (not Wiki).

Tommy was one of my favorite Yankees. The memories of him have endured. Therefore, unless, you are as old as I am who saw Tommy Byrne play.....this discussion ends here.


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

My old Baseball Encyclopedia indicates that Byrne had 80 pinch at-bats, with just 6 hits. In any case, he clearly did not accumulate 80 pinch hits.

Some I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Johnny Marcum, 1933-39, .265/5/70, 533 at-bats, 65-63 4.66 ERA
Chubby Dean, 1936-43, .274/3/128, 1047 at-bats 30-46 5.08 ERA
Fred Hutchinson, 1939-53, .263/4/83, 650 at-bats 95-71 3.73 ERA
Dizzy Trout, 1939-57, .213/20/110, 961 at-bats 170-161 3.23 ERA
Erv Brame, 1928-32, .306/8/75, 396 at-bats 52-37 4.76 ERA
Bucky Walters, 1931-50, .243/23/234,1966 at-bats 198-160 3.30 ERA

Chubby Dean played a few years as a first-baseman at the start of his MLB career, and Bucky Walters started out as a third-baseman in the majors. Walters hit .376 with 16 homers and 32 doubles in 362 at-bats for Mission in the Pacific Coast League in 1933.

Brandon Backe, 2003-09, .256/4/16, 133 at-bats, 31-29 5.23 ERA
Bullet Joe Bush, 1912-28, .253/7/140, 1239 at-bats 196-184 3.51 ERA
Yovani Gallardo, 2007-18, .201/12/42, 427 at-bats 121-101 4.06 ERA
Zack Greinke, 2004-23, .225/9/35, 521 at-bats 223-145 3.45 ERA
Mike Hampton, 1993-10, .246/16/79 725 at-bats 148-115 4.06 ERA
Jack Harshman, 1948-60, .179/21/65 424 at-bats 69-65 3.50 ERA

Jack Harshman, who is second only to Babe Ruth in home-run hitting prowess as a pitcher, was a first-baseman in the minor leagues, and hit 47 home runs with 141 RBI for Nashville in the Southern Association in 1951.

Don Larsen, 1953-67, .242/14/72, 596 at-bats 81-91 3.78 ERA
Jim Tobin, 1937-45, .230/17/102 796 at-bats 105-112 3.44 ERA
Jimmy Zinn, 1919-29 .283/2 /15 120 at-bats 13-16 4.30 ERA
Carlos Zambrano, 2001-12 .238/24/71 693 at-bats 132-91 3.66 ERA
Dave Ferris, 1945-50 .250/1 / 52 372 at-bats 65-30 3.64 ERA
Jack Scott, 1916-29 .275/5 /73 680 at-bats 103-109 3.85 ERA

I'm surprised no one mentioned Don Larsen yet.

Over Jimmy Zinn's minor league career, which lasted from 1915 to 1939 and was spent mostly in the high minors, he had a 295-197 record, and 747 hits in 2482 at-bats for a .301 batting average with 44 home runs.

An honorable mention is Frank Shellenback. He spent just two years in the majors, but won 315 games against just 189 losses in his minor league career, all spent in the high minors. He hit 73 home runs in his minor league career, including an incredible 55 over the seven-year period from 1927 to 1933.

I never questioned that he hit a pinch-hit grand slam, nor your memories of him, nor whether he was a good hitting pitcher.

I questioned that he had 80 career pinch hits, which (I assume) came from Wiki. Maybe it is mentioned in other places, but that's where I saw the number.

Other sources say he had six. This seems to be the correct number, no matter how many games you saw or heard, or who your neighbor was.

I am unaware of the rule that someone can only discuss players they saw play. Considering that this is a vintage forum, there wouldn't be much for anyone to discuss!

Walter Johnson was one of the better/best hitting pitchers. His career-homer total is 24, which I assume would have been much higher if he hadn't played most of his career during the dead-ball era.

In my opinion the clear cut answer for the best hitting pitcher in the vintage era would be Bob Caruthers.

In 1886, he hit .334/.448/.527 -.974 OPS..21 doubles, 14 triples, 4 hr in 382 PA.
In 1887, he hit .357/.463/.547 -1.010 OPS 23 doubles, 11 triples, 8 hr in 436 PA.

I don’t know of any pitcher who put up better numbers with that many plate appearances. It’s even more impressive when combined with how dominant of a pitcher he was those seasons too.

Fergie Jenkins

Everybody is missing the "right" answer.... ;)

It is obviously Lefty O'Doul... by far!

Rick Rhoden 238 with 9 hrs - 3 Silver Sluggers

Don Robinson 231 with 13 hrs - 3 Silver Sluggers

Terry Forster

16 seasons, mostly as a reliever.

.397 lifetime batting average (31 hits in 78 ABs)

Only struck out 9 times in his career.

1972 with the White Sox, he appeared in 63 games; he went 10 for 19, for a .526 batting average.


Steve

Wasn’t one of the mid-late 1960s KC/OAK A’s pitchers a pretty good hitter. Catfish or Linblad? Someone from this generic group?

I had totally forgotten about Terry Forster.

I will throw in Gary Peters, 1959-72 .222/19/102 807 at-bats 124-103 3.25 ERA.

Pretty good power for a pitcher...he had at least one HR each season from 1963-1971. And some of those were tough seasons to be a hitter.

Ken Brett had pretty good power:

“ (Ken) Brett demonstrated what they saw when he hit a home run in four consecutive starts with the Phillies in 1973. He outhit six of eight everyday players with a .310 (27 for 87) batting average as a pitcher who also pinch-hit 16 times with the 1973 Pirates. His impressive career .262 batting average would have been much more impressive had he not spent much of his time in the American League, where the designated hitter rule prevented unimaginative managers from taking advantage of his bat when he was not pitching.

There were four Brett brothers: John, Ken/Kemer, Bobby and George. Baby brother George’s bat took him to baseball’s Hall of Fame.

“Kemer was a better hitter than George,” Stevenson said.

Bobby Brett was a fine player at El Segundo High and Cal Poly Pomona who has had a long association with professional baseball as president and owner, with his brothers, of the Spokane Indians of the Northwest League and the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes of the California League.

“Kemer was a natural,” he said. “He could pick up a bat and swing. George had to work at it.”

What about big brother as Ohtani before Ohtani?

Bobby did not blink or hesitate.

“There is no doubt,” he said.”

https://www.mlb.com/video/the-legend...ge_video-share

Caruthers is a great 19th century example. I am not sure how to group him because he was more than a good hitting pitcher, he was a two-way player (366 games in OF, 340 as a pitcher).

Along those lines I will add Guy Hecker as a 19th century two-way player. Here are some of Hecker's accomplishments:

--175-146 2.93 in 336 games as a pitcher
--19/278/.282 as a batter, including 322 games at first and 75 in the outfield
--Led the AA in several pitching categories in 1884 (52 wins, 1.80 ERA, 385 strikeouts, 72 complete games)
--Threw a no-hitter in 1882
--Led the AA in batting with .341 in 1886

And there is this, as per SABR:

Not true vintage, but uou can win some money with this trivia question -

Who holds the Major League Record for highest batting average, minimum 600 games played?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...orstte01.shtml

Listen, if you want me to actually be accurate, you're gonna have to pay me more.

Also, thanks for the correction. :)

I don’t know his overall batting stats but Tony Cloninger hit 2 grand slams in one game.
No one mentioned Joe Wood yet. Haven’t looked up his stats recently, but he was a good enough hitter to play the outfield after he stopped pitching.

Joe Wood
 

Just looked up his hitting stats, quite a good hitter as a pitcher and then even better as outfielder.
His great 1912 season, he was 34-5 pitching and hit .290, with 36 hits.

Bullet Rogan!