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Baseball Card of the Week: With news of Anthony Burruto, the pitcher with two prosthetic legs, getting cut from his varsity team, I thought there was no better time to post a Jim Abbott baseball card. Somehow, despite lacking a right hand, Abbott found a way to pitch for ten Major League seasons, posting double digit wins in four different seasons. For all the jokes one can make about all you need to is to be lefthanded to be a big league pitcher, it’s pretty amazing when to watch how quickly Abbott needed to switch his glove to get into a fielding position. Abbott’s incredibly luck that UZR didn’t exist when he was pitching as he would grade extremely poorly, which only underscores how good of a pitcher he was to make up for his defensive shortcomings. Rob Neyer recently went through Bill James’ Baseball Book 1990 and found that Abbott’s long-term success was doomed, not because of his disability but for three wholly separate reasons: “One, Abbott threw a ton of innings before he turned 22. Two, Abbott’s strikeout rate was not impressive, at all. Three, Abbott’s mechanics included a small flaw that would cause problems, eventually. After 1992, Abbott’s strikeout rate went from problematic to nearly untenable. That he was still pitching six years later was due partly to luck, and largely to everybody so desperately hoping he would succeed. In 1996, the Angels let Abbott start 23 games and pitch 142 innings; he went 2-18 with a 7.48 ERA. Three years later, the Brewers let Abbott start 15 games and pitch 82 innings; he went 2-8 with a 6.91 ERA.” Abbot managed to win 87 games in his career, something that was only exceeded by 626 two-handed pitchers in the history of the sport.

Baseball Card of the Week:

With news of Anthony Burruto, the pitcher with two prosthetic legs, getting cut from his varsity team, I thought there was no better time to post a Jim Abbott baseball card.

Somehow, despite lacking a right hand, Abbott found a way to pitch for ten Major League seasons, posting double digit wins in four different seasons. For all the jokes one can make about all you need to is to be lefthanded to be a big league pitcher, it’s pretty amazing when to watch how quickly Abbott needed to switch his glove to get into a fielding position. Abbott’s incredibly luck that UZR didn’t exist when he was pitching as he would grade extremely poorly, which only underscores how good of a pitcher he was to make up for his defensive shortcomings.

Rob Neyer recently went through Bill James’ Baseball Book 1990 and found that Abbott’s long-term success was doomed, not because of his disability but for three wholly separate reasons:

“One, Abbott threw a ton of innings before he turned 22.

Two, Abbott’s strikeout rate was not impressive, at all.

Three, Abbott’s mechanics included a small flaw that would cause problems, eventually.

After 1992, Abbott’s strikeout rate went from problematic to nearly untenable. That he was still pitching six years later was due partly to luck, and largely to everybody so desperately hoping he would succeed. In 1996, the Angels let Abbott start 23 games and pitch 142 innings; he went 2-18 with a 7.48 ERA. Three years later, the Brewers let Abbott start 15 games and pitch 82 innings; he went 2-8 with a 6.91 ERA.”

Abbot managed to win 87 games in his career, something that was only exceeded by 626 two-handed pitchers in the history of the sport.

  1. oldtimefamilybaseball posted this
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