2011 'Pitties: Unsung Hero

this past year. The real unsung hero is one who performed much better than expected. For me, it was between Owings and Saunders, and I selected Saunders, but it was very close.

He’s quietly been one of the better Center Fielders in the game for the past few years now. Good defense, and he gets the job done with the bat (though it isn’t always pretty).

Sean burroughs had the clutch homer that snapped our losing streak. CY came up big in the NLDS but thats about it. Joe saunders pitched real well in the game we clinched the west. ryan roberts had a bunch of key hits and hr’s as well as the walk off grand slam.

It’s a nice piece oof mind not having to think " oh crap they just scorched a ball to center, hope we can get to it" CY gets to them.

about RyRo. He was a very important piece of the team last year, but his praises were sung mightily by basically everyone. Not very unsung in my opinion. Personally, my vote went to The Naked Lunch, himself, Sean Burroughs.

While Burroughs was fairly well hated for the first half of the season, he really got his act together for the second half, and was as big a contributor as possible when you usually come in off the bench. Also, Go away, Lance Berkman. You had a pretty nice comeback yourself, but it pales in comparison to what Burroughs did this year

Roberts was certainly not “unsung”., and ESPECIALLY here at the Pit.

CY on the other hand was lambasted long and hard for his second half slump that lasted 2 months (july and august) before a good September rescued his season. But overall his season was a good one, thanks to his defense, and decent enough hitting in the first half of the season and in September.

Also, whether it’s repeatable skill or not, (Not)….CY was a clutch God last year. His High leverage numbers were off the charts. He had so many huge hits, and even when he was slumping, his hits seemed to be big ones.

Check out his numbers in different leverage situations:

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Split G PA AB H HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
High Lvrge 88 132 105 33 7 30 24 24 .314 .432 .629 1.060
Medium Lvrge 144 269 244 57 7 22 23 57 .234 .301 .402 .703
Low Lvrge 122 257 218 44 6 18 33 58 .202 .313 .339 .652
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Split G PA AB HR RBI BA OBP SLG OPS
Late Close 82 113 97 6 16 .258 .363 .526 .889
Tie Game 104 171 148 9 28 .264 .357 .541 .897
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Pretty easy to see where CY was at his best. He may not be able to repeat that…….but in terms of value provided in 2011 it mattered a ton to the D Backs.

For this reason…..unsung hero….because he really did have a lot of heroic moments that people forgot about because of his July/August slump

For all the flak we give him for his horrifyingly predictable ways at the plate, he was still an average at worst hitting center fielder and managed to be a pretty solid contributor overall because of his gold glove caliber defense and good base running.

Also, Joe Saunders is second to last. I did not expect that at all.

Most Unsung Organizational Asset: Charles Nagy
Most Underappreciated Player (Locally): CY
Most Underappreciated Player (Nationally): I’d still say Roberts. A week prior to the ASG, he led all NL third basemen in fWar/bWar – and couldnt muster any A/S support. Saunders and Owings were relatively unsung, but even combined they didnt provide Roberts’ value. And I think CY is pretty respected and ‘known’ nationally.

Melvin Mora retired this week.

coming out of ST. He didn’t even have a job, nobody was talking about him, he was lucky to be on the roster, he only got his chance when Blum went down. Once he started performing then everyone started singing about him. So the question is, at what point is the question asking for the unsung to have taken place? At the beginning of the season? At the end? In the middle? because once all of these guys started performing we were singing about them. I feel it should be coming into the season, who was unsung and vastly exceeded expectations. Dread Pirate gets my vote hands down.

I think of the player who makes those around him look good. But said player doesnt get the dredit they deserve for that fact. CY made Parra and J-Up look better in the OF. he makes the whole OF look better