So I’ve been digging into this Ken Phelps guy lately – you know, that random baseball player from the 80s who always showed up on those “worst trades ever” lists. Everyone focuses on his batting average being trash, but I got curious about what numbers weren’t in the box scores.
My Dumb Starting Point
First I grabbed his baseball cards from my basement collection. Dusted off that ugly-ass 1986 Topps card where he looks like a geography teacher. Flipped it over and stared at the stats: .240 average, 27 homers. Nothing special. Then I remembered that Moneyball book talking about how old-school stats lie. So I thought – what if we’re missing something?
The Spreadsheet Nightmare
Spent three nights downloading ancient box scores from some sketchy baseball archive site. Built this janky Excel sheet tracking:
- How many pitches he saw per at-bat
- Where fielders stood when he came up
- How many runs scored after he made outs
My laptop almost caught fire trying to crunch this junk. Wife asked if I was watching porn because I kept muttering “c’mon you piece of shit” at the screen.
The Coffee-Stained Breakthrough
Around 2am last Tuesday I spotted it – in games where the pitcher threw over 100 pitches, Phelps hit .310 with 85% of his homers. Then cross-referenced with weather data (yes I downloaded 1980s weather reports like a psycho). Turned out in humidity over 70%, his on-base percentage jumped 110 points. Dude was a human barometer!
The Shocking Conclusion
Here’s the wild part: teams kept starting him against power pitchers in night games. But his numbers against tired relievers in day games were god-tier. If managers had just checked weather reports and pitch counts, he’d have been an All-Star. Instead they benched him after two strikeouts in April night games. What a waste.
Moral of the story? Baseball nerds in the 80s were lazy. And I really need better hobbies.
