Blankenship, Stanky, and Bassler

Over at SBNation there was a tepid celebration of Craig Counsell's career, well, mostly his evolving batting stances. Someone mentioned that Counsell's rare combination of a solid 10.7 walk rate and a putrid .089 ISO is probably "some sort of record." Here's a list of players with similar numbers, dating back to 1975.

CAREER BB% >= 10, ISO <=. 090

min 1000 PA

Lance Blankenship? What the heck is that?

A look at his player page reveals the Lancemeister was a Utility player for the A's in the early 90's. In only six seasons and a total of 461 games and 1291 plate appearances, the Blankenator played every position on the diamond except Catcher. Moreover, he accumulated 24 defensive runs above average at those positions according to TZ.

I could find very little information on him elsewhere on the internet and hence, alas, I'm left to wonder if a player like this isn't just a victim of his era. With a strong walk rate that topped 20% in his final season and a plus glove, would the post-moneyball era have more to offer Blankenship?

O Cruel fate!

This excellent article by Junk Stats addresses a similar player-profile anomaly by subtracting career OBP from SLG and creating a 'STANK' score, in tribute to Eddie Stanky, himself an owner of a mind-bending career 18% BB rate, .080 ISO. To get an idea of how rare that is, feast your eyes on this mama-jama of a spreadsheet:

CAREER BB% > 15, ISO < .090

min 1000 PA

Only Blankenship, Stanky, and Blassler meet the criteria. I'm gonna type that one more time: Blankenship, Stanky, and Blassler.

Players who profile with high walk rates and low power have always fascinated me, and I touched upon that breed of hitter in an earlier post about Ken Singleton. In that post I was searching for hitters who batted under .300, with an OBP above .400 and a SLG below .455 as an esthetically pleasing statistical visual. Had I let the query run past 1960 I would have found Eddie Stanky's 1949 masterpiece slash-line: .247 /.401 /.369

But the fun doesn't stop there.

EDDIE STANKY CAREER


It's almost too beautiful to look at.