Lookout Landing

I refer to this as Today's Other Fun Fact instead of Today's Fun Fact because I already posted Today's Fun Fact over here. It was not on this website and it does not have anything to do with the Mariners. The Mariners do not have a monopoly on fun facts. If they did, they would have a lot more fans, because they would be a lot more fun! Although in fairness I guess a lot of the fun facts I write aren't "fun" in the normal sense of the word. They're frequently more like Today's Interesting Facts, but people are more likely to read Today's Fun Fact than Today's Interesting Fact. People like fun. People are fun-loving people.

We were talking about Trayvon Robinson earlier. When you think Trayvon Robinson, you can't help but think about strikeouts. I can't help but think about strikeouts, anyway, and I'm the one writing. This is a fun fact that in part has to do with strikeouts.

Back in 2009, we had a little section along the left-hand sidebar. Within this section, we tracked the running walk totals for Yuniesky Betancourt and Jamie Moyer. That last sentence put the word "running" right next to the word "walk". Haha, English. The reason we were tracking this was because it took a long time for Yuniesky Betancourt to pull away from Jamie Moyer. In walks drawn, as a hitter. Yuni didn't draw his first walk until May 4^th. Moyer drew his sixth walk on May 25^th. Yuni drew his sixth and seventh walks on May 24^th. Yuni ultimately won, but they were neck-and-neck for two months.

On Jamie Moyer hitting: when you imagine Jamie Moyer hitting, you might imagine Mr. Burns hitting. This is because Jamie Moyer is old and it's weird to consider that Jamie Moyer was ever not old. Moyer's certainly never been much of a hitter, even for a pitcher. He's batted 485 times in his career. To his name he has 44 singles and five doubles. He also has 34 walks and 142 strikeouts. This is good enough for a BB/K ratio of 0.24.

Miguel Olivo has a career BB/K ratio of 0.15. Exclude intentional walks and that drops to 0.13.

Okay, so maybe Olivo took a little while to get comfortable in the Majors. Maybe he was overwhelmed at first, or something. Over the last five years, he's posted a BB/K ratio of 0.15. Nevermind.

Now take Moyer at his most feeble. For our purposes we'll say that Moyer at his most feeble is Moyer at 40+ years of age. A 40+-year-old Jamie Moyer has posted a BB/K ratio of 0.22.

Obviously, there's a lot more to hitting than walks and strikeouts. Namely, power. Miguel Olivo has power. Jamie Moyer has drank milk before. In terms of productivity, it's no contest.

But in terms of approach? I'm pretty sure what the numbers are telling us is that Miguel Olivo has had a worse approach to hitting than Jamie Moyer, who is a soft-tossing pitcher who I can't even picture holding a bat. Olivo has a worse career BB/K ratio than Kirk Rueter and Barry Zito too. He has a better career BB/K ratio than Jim Abbott but Jim Abbott had one hand.

Miguel Olivo batting can be such torture on the eyes, but he's captivating on paper.