One more from Scott Fennessy’s 1993 set. It’s Paul “Killer” Kilgus who was finishing up his career with the St Louis Cardinals.
Aside from sharing his name with one of my favorite baseball stat trackers, there are few oddities with Kilgus’ card. One, I don’t know of many split grade pitchers with a relief grade above an A*. Kilgus is graded as a B (A&C*) His Master Game grades are 14 (24*).
But let’s look at his splits for the 1993 season:
| Split | W | L | G | GS | CG | SV | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| as Starter | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | |
| as Reliever | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 0.76 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 23.2 | 16 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 17 |
With five shutout innings, Paul Kilgus actually pitched better in his one start than he did in his relief appearances.
Is it time for split grades like A&C (B*)? If I had my druthers, pitchers like Kilgus would just receive a straight A grade. My guess is that APBA rated Kilgus as they did so that he wouldn’t be overused as a regular starter by those who didn’t know (or care) about his actual usage.
thanks Scott!
