Great Bulls Hitters: Guest Post

In response to our post on Monday, diligent reader Chris D dove into the Bulls stats and came up with some terrific numbers. In addition, he noted a few mistakes my original post that I will get to correcting in due course.

In the meantime, here’s Chris’ candidates for greatest Durham Bulls hitters.

Thanks, Chris!

He writes:

I'm a bit torn on what stats to go with, but here are a few that come to mind.

Top 5 OPS seasons (minimum 400 PA):

• Dan Johnson / 2010 / 1.053
• Steve Cox / 1999 / 1.003
• Dan Johnson / 2008 / .980
• Scott McClain / 1998 / .974
• Midre Cummings / 2004 / .966

Or if you'd prefer just BA (minimum 400 PA):

• Steve Cox / 1999 / .341
• Toby Hall /2001 / .335
• Matt Diaz / 2004 / .332
• Elliot Johnson / 2010 / .319
• Aubrey Huff / 2000 / .316

I had forgotten about Midre, but he could definitely be a "top" Bull.

If you'd like career total stats:

Career OPS (400 PA):

• Midre Cummings / .966
• Kevin Witt / .937
• Ozzie Timmons / .932
• Russ Canzler / .930
• Greg Blosser / .891

Kevin Witt would be up in my top players too along with Canzler of course.

Career BA (400 AB):

• Matt Diaz / .331
• Randy Winn / .329
• Toby Hall / .328
• Aubrey Huff / .315
• Russ Canzler / .314

Total Hits:

• Justin Ruggiano / 531
• Chris Richard / 459
• Elliot Johnson / 396
• BJ Upton / 357
• Dan Johnson / 315

Total HRS:

• Chris Richard / 84
• Justin Ruggiano / 68
• Dan Johnson / 68
• Scott McClain / 62
• Bob Smith (who???) / 53
• Jared Sandberg / 53

How about speed? (stolen bases):

• BJ Upton / 107
• Justin Ruggiano / 105
• Fernando Perez / 75
• Joey Gathright / 70
• Desmond Jennings / 69

Or on the flip side, the odd stats, like GiDP:

• Justin Ruggiano / 37
• Leslie Anderson / 34
• BJ Upton / 32
• Jared Sandberg / 28
• Toby Hall / 27
• Joel Guzman / 27
• JJ Furmaniak / 27

Or the bizarre, like HBP:

• Johnny Gomes / 37
• Chris Richard / 37
• Justin Ruggiano / 26
• Matt Diaz / 21
• Paul Hoover / 17

Who didn't the opposition pitch to? IBB:

• Steve Cox / 17
• Chris Richard / 17
• Midre Cummings / 12
• Ryan Jackson / 11
• Pete LaForest / 10

Career RBI:

• Justin Ruggiano / 300
• Chris Richard / 299
• Dan Johnson / 230
• Scott McClain / 213
• Steve Cox / 203

Career SO:

• Justin Ruggiano / 546 (holy cow compared to #2)
• Elliot Johnson / 394
• Chris Richard / 391
• Jared Sandberg / 362
• BJ Upton / 289

Basic data source is Baseball-Reference.com, but to isolate out just AAA Durham Bulls numbers and then aggregate them by player is a bit tricky. Nice work by Chris D.