The Case of Wilson Valdez

Brian Cavanaugh posted a question on Facebook that raises an interesting point:

"Wilson Valdez pitched a scoreless 19th for us last night and got the win……will he get a *A pitcher rating as well as a 2B, SS,and 3B rating????"

I read about that today.  Ryan Howard had a case of the giggles it seems from the matter. 

My quick answer:  Dream on. 

I’ve had a few non-pitchers on my APBA teams who have come in for an inning or so and done fine but still gotten the D.  Just last year, Felipe Lopez confirmed his status as a versatile player by coming in and pitching an inning.  He did fine (for a non-pitcher) just giving up a walk and a hit but no runs.  He still got a DW on this year’s APBA card. By the way, that’s eight positions on Lopez’ card.  Only catcher is missing.

However, Brian does bring up a good point.  Valdez got the win. Will APBA factor that in when giving out the grades?  I’m thinking no.  On a similar vein, Baseball Reference just did a posting that lists all of non-pitchers who pitched AND got the win. 

This doesn’t apply to Valdez but I do believe APBA applies strikeout ratings if a non-pitcher who pitches happens to get lucky enough to strike a batter out.  Somebody correct me if I’m wrong.  As we’ve seen with Lopez, the W comes into play often.

This matter reminds me of when I had Todd Zeile (who when I drafted him, was told he would be a superstar by a Cardinals fan, of course).  Later in his career, the same thing happened to him.  He pitched an inning for Colorado in 2002.  One hit and one strikeout and no runs.  APBA may have even given him a strikeout letter.  He was a D pitcher and by our league rules, D pitcher limits are doubled so if I wanted to, he could pitch two innings for my team.  At the time, I didn’t really think much of it. 

On a lark (or maybe out of need), Todd Zeile came in to pitch for my team.  Wouldn’t you know it but he struck out the side!  Dang, ol’ Todd missed his calling, I thought.  I didn’t think I was going to use his two innings but after his first performance, I thought, what the heck?  Later that season, Zeile saw the mound again and this time struck out two batters. 

So for the season with my team, Todd Zeile had 0.00 ERA with 5 strikeouts in 2 IP.  Shoot, that’s better than Kirk Ruetter.