Richie Sexson vs. Carlos Zambrano
Here's an interesting stat for you: Richie Sexson (1B for the Mariners) is batting 0.218 this year. Carlos Zambrano (pitcher for the Cubs) is batting 0.358. Crazy, eh? Over the past two years, Carlos has batted 0.291 and Richie has batted 0.210. If you go back four years, Carlos still wins 0.258 to 0.244. In fairness, Carlos gets about 1/6th of the at bats that Richie does, but he has enough at bats to be statistically significant. In fact, he's such a good hitter, that he is sometimes used as a pinch hitter on his off days. If you don't follow baseball, it's incredibly unusual for a pitcher to be a good batter.
Seattle sports fans love to boo Richie Sexson. He gets paid $15.5 million per year and barely bats above the Mendoza line. I'd love to see a dollar/hit calculation across all players. He has to be near the bottom.
Whoa! As I was writing this post, the news came out that the Mariners released Sexson! The article is full of more unflattering stats. He had the lowest batting average of all AL regulars since the beginning of the 2007 season. He also has the second most strikeouts of all AL hitters since 2005. (Grady Sizemore is #1.) In fact, Richie was 11% more likely to strikeout than to get a hit in that same period.
See ya Richie. I know Tim won't miss you.