Bill Conlin wrote an article for the Philadelphia Daily News recently that was largely pro-Pat Burrell, with the premise that Burrell couldn’t be faulted for few wins in past Aprils, but he finished the column off with a nice little jab:
Burrell went into a .194 June free fall but hit six mostly window-dressing homers with 16 RBI.
A poster at backshegoes.com wondered whether this was actually true, and dove into the game logs. He found that this just wasn’t true:
1 HR while the game was tied, 2 HR when the phillies were down by one (both of which gave them the lead), 2 HR in the same game which turned what could’ve been a blowout into a one run game, and 1 HR to begin a rally which turned a 7 run deficit into a 3 run game! WAY TO HIT THEM WHEN THEY DONT MATTER, PAT!
So Conlin, and many fans, was simply wrong. But he didn’t stop there. This fan took it upon himself to spread the good news to the rest of the Phillies faithful, this time via YouTube. Enjoy it, share it, just make sure you watch it:
BRILLIANT!
Thank you very much for posting this. I have talked about Burrell numerous times trying to tell Philadelphia he isn’t bad. It gets very frustrating. I am going to post this on my site but obviously give you all the credit for it. Great work with this find.
What really gets me about things like this is that in this day and age, it isn’t hard to check if Pat Burrell actually did only hit homers in blowouts. You don’t need to save 162 newspapers and take 3 hours going through box scores to find out. Even if you feel that the 10 minutes it might take to go through online gamelogs is too much, you can just spend 30 seconds on baseball-reference.com, where you’d learn Burrell hit 20 of his 29 homers last year when the Phils’ lead/deficit was 3 runs or less.
But I guess it’s just easier to state what you thought you saw as absolute fact, without bothering to check if it’s actually true.
That is a great YouTube clip…thanks!
Pat Burrell isn’t Albert Pujols, but he isn’t slouch either.
Kudos to you! I’ve been a huge Pat Burrell fan for years and agree that he’s been criticized way too much by everyone in this area!
Pat’s an o.k. player. He is way overpaid for the player he is, which is the reason he catches so much flack.
The thing with stats is, you can twist them any way you want, Since Soriano was used as an example in the video, here are the numbers you didn’t see:
Runs: Burrell – 80 Soriano – 119
hits: Burrell – 119 Soriano – 179
2B : Burrell – 24 Soriano – 41
HR : Burrell – 29 Soriano – 46
SB : Burrell – 0 Soriano – 41
Pat Burrel is absolutely terrible.
While it’s great that you cite how he did indeed have some clutch HRs last season, what about all the strikeouts and outs with runners on base?
I agree Conlin is a lousy reporter. Burrell is a lousy player. No wonder the Phils couldn’t trade him and his overpriced salary away this offseason.
i think that this is a pivotal year for pat. its obvious that he can be a really good hitter. this year he can’t blame a slump and he can’t blame injuries. this year is the year the team looking the best it has in a while. its his chance to either prove his is or isn’t worth the money
Wow! I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I was so swayed by media and their aparent lies. Thanks so much for posting this. You really did Philadelphia a favor.
Tim, those are counting stats. Soriano led off and played just about every game. Plus, runs is highly team-dependent. Leading off simply lead to more.
thanks… i’ve talked bad about burrell before, and i think its the WAY he strikes out that draws so much attention. he’s not as bad of a player as we all thought.
thank you for informing me that u r a complete idiot… you conpelled me to go buy a pat burrell jersey.. dumbA**. Dane u are the most gullable person I ever met.
Chris – My point was you can make stats say whatever you want to make a point. If you watch the Phils you know what Pat does.
He’s an o.k player that’s way overpaid. Watching him bail on pitches over the heart of the plate dosen’t exactly endear him to Phils fans either.
I’M AFRAID HE IS ALL WE GOT…..AND HE’S GETTING MARRIED…..MAYBE HE WILL STOP STAYING OUT ALL NIGHT AND WORK HARD. HE’S GOT THE ABILITY….NOW I WANNA SEE IT ON THE FIELD
[...] panel seem to be just as divided as anyone else about Pat. (Pro…Con) What often goes unmentioned, however, is the fact that dear old Pat is a former Miami [...]
Tim from Mayfair says it best. It’s not that we think Pat sucks, it’s that he is making 13.5 million dollars this year and hitting .250 with 5 HRs, hitting behind the NL MVP in a tiny ballpark. Not to mention he is a very subpar defensive player. If not for his canon arm, he would be an ATROCIOUS defensive player. Also, he’s one of the slowest runners on the basepaths. Complete liabilities in two very important aspects of baseball. Again, nobody is saying Pat sucks, he just doesn’t come close to warranting his MASSIVE contract and if that doesn’t piss you off as a fan, how can you call yourself a fan?
Last year Yankees fans hated ARod because he was awful in big situations but an outsider would look at his numbers and say he was absolutely incredible. Pat is the same way. The guy pops up or K’s looking with popping his butt out almost every game. He hits 5th in one of the best lineups in a bandbox making way too much money. I agree with the other posters. If he was making $6M a year (which is still nuts) he would not be criticized but he was a #1 pick who was supposed to be a savior and he simply has not lived up to it. He has rocket of a arm ala Jay Buhner but is ridiculously slow and a defensive liability. He throws out so many runners because everyone tries to take an extra base on him because he cant run. If you want his hitting with runners in scoring position last year just go to Patmustgo.com and it lists out a 3 month period of his pathetic season.
What do you have to say now, Chris? You enjoying this .205 batting average? How bout the .146 average since April 25th? Try making another video to support those numbers for a guy making $13.5 million. The guy DOES suck and cannot play in this city anymore! He might not be able to play anywhere anymore, but he needs a fresh start to at least find out. I honestly think Kansas City would be ideal. No pressure.
1. I didn’t make the video.
2. Where he plays has nothing to do with how he plays.
3. You didn’t reply to this prior to the season when there was NO REFUTING that Pat Burrell was a good player.
4. He’s currently in the worst slump of his life, way to pick an even time to go over how he’s playing.
5. Stop responding to 5 month old posts to try to ‘prove’ me wrong.
Chris, just admit it, you are a dope just like Pat the Bat.
Hey, Gary and Ed, what do you have to say now?
I’m calling this right now…Pat the Bat’s contract is up. He showed what he could do last season after July 1. Imagine he hit like that all season. He’s going to hit like a $14 million player next season. .280 avg 40 home runs 120 RBI’s 100+ walks. He’ll make the all star team too. Wait and see. The question is, if my prediction comes true, will he get resigned by the Phillies? When Pat is on his game he is one of my favorite players on the team, but when he’s off his game, he’s the most loathed.
[...] what a hot start. And to the haters? Remember when some of us said Pat wasn’t so bad, and was actually pretty good? Pat sez check the [...]
G’day!
As an Australia-based STL Cardinals fan, I found your blog on google and read a few of your other Cardinals posts.
I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.