More Moyer Facts

In case you missed it, the Philly Inquirer ran an insightful interview with the Phils' 45 year old lefty Jamie Moyer today. The article pointed out that over his career, Moyer has faced a challenging group of Hall of Fame hitters and he reviewed his perspective of facing each one. Some of the names on the list include Mike Schmidt, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, and some other pitchers' nightmares.

I'd like to add on to that list with a few facts and some names of players Moyer has faced over the years...

-According to Baseball Reference.com, my calculations show that Moyer has faced a total of (get this) 2,149 different batters in his career. There's no other way to say that that is an insane number of batters to face.

-Furthermore, Moyer has faced a whopping 15,102 batters in his career during the regular season

Now, here are some other results he's had against various batters throughout his career:

-He has faced Garrett Anderson the most times (107 plate appearances), and Moyer has not fared well, allowing him to hit .317 with 5 homers and 17 RBI's.

-Scott Brosius has the distinction of having the lowest batting average against Moyer out of any player who has faced him 50+ times (currently listed as 50 plate appearances), and having an average below .200. He's hit a meager .146 against Moyer throughout the years.

-Moyer has never faced Nick Punto.

-In 50 plate appearances, Juan Samuel had Moyer's number, hitting .364, compared to a .259 career average.

-Steve Jeltz faced Moyer 13 times and managed a Mendoza line against him. He hit .200 on the button against the veteran lefty.

-The highest batting average against Moyer for any player with a minimum of 10 at bats goes to Alan Ashby, who had 11 plate appearances and hit .636 against the lefty. Ouch.

-The most home runs agains Jaime Moyer by any one batter is 10 by Manny Ramirez in just 57 appearances. Wow.

-Tim Salmon struck out the most times out of anybody with 17 K's in 99 at bats. Scott Brosius is second with 16 in half as many appearances. Back to the batting cage fellas.

-In all, Moyer has faced 18 current Hall of Famers. Taking out the pitchers on this list (Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, Don Sutton), the 15 remaining Hall of Famers hit a total of .331 with 8 homers and 44 RBIs and 1 triple against him in a total of 284 at bats. All things considered, that's not too bad. That's 1 homer in 35 at bats and not a ton of RBIs. It appears that Moyer has managed to make his living by allowing the "big dogs" to basically scatter around some hits, but not do a ridiculous amount of damage against him. That's cool.

So there's your update on our favorite 40-something fella on the Phils. I hope he's able to continue his consistent pitching this year, and maybe in a few years we'll be able to go back and look at the numbers again to see how things have changed.

Phillies Quote of the Day

The quote of the day comes from an excellent article in the Philly Inquirer about the extraordinary feat of the Phillies' upcoming 10,000th loss. Summarizing the Phils' futility, here's the sad status of the team over the past 124 years:

In fact, the franchise's win-loss mark (8,805-9,995) has slipped so far below the break-even point that in order to get back to .500, the Phils would need to win 1,190 games in a row, a winning streak of seven-plus seasons.

If that doesn't sum up this team, I don't know what does. I highly encourage you to read the entire article for an enlightening history of our beloved, beleaguered Phightins'.

On a side note, Steve Jeltz and Sil Campusano were chosen as the team's Runner Up Worst Shortsop and Centerfielder, respectively. Ouch.

Steve Jeltz Gets a Shout-out

Just a heads up for the Steve Jeltz fans out there (is there a name for Jeltz groupies? Jeltzies, perhaps?)... according to the Philadlephia Daily News' Bill Conlin, the Phils' Steve Jeltz is in a 9-way dead heat for the competition to be considered the 3rd best shortstop in Philadelphia history. Number 1-- Jimmy Rollins, Number 2-- Larry Bowa, Number 3-- pretty much anybody else!

Go Phils...

Steve Jeltz: International Man of Mystery

My recent post (sorry for the delay since I last wrote, my loyal fan[s]), discussed the unassuming Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Steve Jeltz. Never did I realize he had a pretty strong little following out there in cyber-world (and out in the real world, by extension). In fact, since writing, I received two very kind and interesting comments, both by people who have previously met Steve and were impressed by his friendliness and, in one case, his looks! ("Hot, hot, hot" were the words of one adoring fan.) They even put out the smoke signals for Steve to contact them if he's so inclined. Well, no guarantees on that one, but I'd be happy to be the conduit if it works out as such! Steve-- if you're out there, drop us all a line, we'd love to hear from ya!

I suppose that's one of the great things about the internet... People from all walks of life and from all countries (including Canada, where one fan checked in with a comment) can unite on a common topic and discuss it at their leisure and with passion. Turns out that my fondness for all things Philly Sports coincides with the fondness that others have of one of the lesser-known Philly athletes from two decades ago. Pretty cool!

So to all of you Steve Jeltz fans, I'm excited to hear from you and perhaps we can keep the discussion going. And perhaps we can celebrate some Phillies' victories along the way. No guarantees on that one either.

Steve Jeltz Shoutout in Today's Phillies' Game!

For those of you watching today's wacky Phils/Giants game on the boob tube in the Philly market, you probably caught the Aflac trivia question of the day. It went something like this:

Name the only two French-born players to record a stolen base in either the AL or NL.

Answer:

Bruce Bochy (current San Francisco Giants coach)
Steve Jeltz (ex-Phillie extraordinaire)

Upon further inspection on Baseball-reference.com (search Jeltz, click on France), it turns out that Mr. Jeltz is actually the all-time stolen bases leader for players born in France. As a matter of fact he leads all French players in several other categories, including doubles, triples, and RBIs, to name a few. Who knew?

Jeltzy sure could swing a mean baguette!