Most hittable pitchers you can ever recall

SabresRule

SatelliteGuys Master
Original poster
Apr 15, 2008
12,883
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Wisconsin
I'd like to put a little twist on something Bill said.

I've been watching baseball since 1975, and in THAT time no pitcher was as dominant as Pedro Martinez was from 1998-2002. During that five year stretch he was virtually unhittable.

I'd like to have a little fun with that statement.

Who were the most hittable pitchers you remember?

In other words, beer-league caliber players who couldn't find the strike zone with a GPS.
 
Mariano Rivers looks harder to hit than Pedro Martinez. He throws one pitch and no one can zero in on it. Every hit I see him give up is hit from a defensive swing.

The most unhittable pitcher I have ever seen over one full season was the most unhittable ever: Bob Gibson in 1968.

The most hittable pitcher with a major league arm had to be Heathcliff Slocum. He had a hundred mile an hour drainpipe fastball. There is another guy whose name escapes me that Ken Harrelson used to talk about that threw at a hundred miles an hour in the minors back in the 1960s, but never made it above double A. I don't know if he was hittable or if he just never found the strike zone.

Nolan Ryan at twilight might have been the most unhittable ever. I once saw his stats for twilight starts and they were unreal. Ryan was the greatest .500 pitcher ever. When he left his team as a free agent after going 16-14, his manager was asked how he'd ever replace such a pitcher and he said, "I'll just get two guys to go eight and seven."
 
I have always thought that 150 year old pitcher from the Phillies...Jaime Moyer...is BEYOND hittable. I have guys in the baseball league I play on the weekends that throw harder than that guy. They use to make a big deal of how good former Red Sox, Mets, Cubs, Padres and Rangers pitcher Calvin Schiraldi was....but in college, when he was at his best.... I lit him up like a Christmas tree..... I went 7-9 with 4 doubles, 7 runs and 9 RBIs...!:D

Greg Maddux NOW looks extremely hittable. And his ERA proves it....
 
Matt Morris, also known as the highest paid player in Pirates franchise history, where he made 10 million dollars a year to serve up hits every fifth day. Things got so bad the typically cheap Pirates bought out his contract.
 
For Paul O'Neill it was Don Robinson. He has a bunch of HR's off that guy.
 
If we're talking about successful pitchers that looked hittable, one name pops up in my head: Jimmy Key.

Key was a very good pitcher for the Blue Jays and Yankees, but to me he looked very hittable.
 
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