Tuesday, January 29, 2008

#82 Darrel Akerfelds



Why this card is awesome: Because nobody told Akerfelds that when you only wear your warmup jacket for running and not for tossing, so everybody realizes that this is a staged shot.

Cool stat: Akerfelds was a hot prospect who didn't pan out, but he did have an amazing year in 1990, pitching 93 innings and allowing only 65 hits. That's a low enough rate to make the top 25 seasons in hits/9 in the last 20 years. Of course, he also walked 54 that year while striking out just 42. OK, so maybe it wasn't quite an "amazing" year. This reminds me of a problem the Phillies are likely to have with J.C. Romero in 2008. In 2007, he allowed just 15 hits in 36.3 innings with the Phillies, helping him to compile a 1.24 ERA. But he'll never be able to maintain that low hit rate, and I bet he gets hit hard this year. Shout out to Tim at MLBtraderumors.com for being the one to make me aware of that.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Cool. Akerfelds has been the Padres' bullpen coach for the past several years.