Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
June 24, 2008
Guillen's Streak

Thanks to Joe Posnanski for linking to the Lineup Analysis Tool in this blog entry. He uses it to look at what might be the best Kansas City lineup.

He also notes Jose Guillen's walkless streak and how amazing it is:

The second point, though, is that I would suggest that Jose Guillen is doing something that is probably pretty close to unprecedented -- he is about as hot as you can possibly be and at the exact same time he has now gone 156 plate appearances without walking. I mean, that's just flat incredible. Over that time, he's hitting .359/.365/.634. But he has not walked even once. He's had Miguel Olivo, Mark Teahen and Mark Grudzielanek hitting behind him. And he has still not walked. It's an amazing streak, much more amazing than other great non-walk streaks like Tony Pena Jr.s' or Mark Quinn's or Pudge Rodriguez or whoever. There is absolutely NO REASON for pitchers to pitch to Jose Guillen. And they still can't walk him.

I could imagine Joe Carter or Kirby Puckett having such a streak. (Carter did not draw a walk until his fortieth game.) Here's a pretty good 98 AB streak by Joe Carter in 1985. I don't think Joe had much behind him in that lineups, either.


Posted by David Pinto at 12:36 PM | Players | TrackBack (0)
Comments

The no-walk thing is an amusing fluke. But Guillen's streak, though welcome to KC, is hardly unprecedented. Over about six weeks he's hitting a couple hundred points above his career OPS.

Again, a nice stretch. But lots of guys have hit a couple hundred points above their career mark for six weeks. And considering that Guillen's career OPS is an unimposing .776, that's far from "as hot as anyone I've ever seen", as the blogger puts it.

Posted by: Casey Abell at June 24, 2008 03:50 PM

Another funny point is that Teahen, one of the three hitters mentioned so disdainfully by the blogger, has a very similar career OPS mark: .766 vs. Guillen's .776. The other two guys are worse, but not hundreds of points worse.

Guillen is a so-so hitter having a moderate hot streak. He's not Babe Ruth, so pitchers don't lapse into fear and trembling when he steps into the box.

Posted by: Casey Abell at June 24, 2008 04:00 PM
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