"Cakes"

I'll admit that there is a lot about baseball I do not know. People who make a living off of researching and knowing baseball stats and players don't know everything about everybody who ever played, though. So the other day, when I was contemplating how little I knew, a question popped into my head. "Who is the greatest Orioles pitcher ever?" So I decided to trot on over to my trusty www.baseball-reference.com to find out. And here's what I found out.
I thought that their might be a question about this when I first saw some career stats. Having not known much about any Orioles pitchers I can honestly say that I went in to this completely objective. I wasn't rooting for any player in particular since I didn't know squat about them. What I found out was that Jim "Cakes" Palmer racked up some pretty nice numbers for the O's in his day.
A three-time Cy Young winner and four-time Gold Glover, Palmer dominated the 70s winning 186 games during the decade. He won 20 games or more 8 freaking times in a ten year span. While a very capable strikout pitcher, a very small knock on Palmer was that he walked quite a few batters, posting a 1.69 K/BB ratio for his career.
But that didn't seem to matter much as Palmer did what great pitcher do, and that's win, baby. Palmer has the 38th best winning percentage by a pitcher...ever! That's better than fellow Hall of Famers Bob Feller, Tom Seaver, Bob Gison, and future HOFer Greg Maddux. He can also boast a career Earned Run Average of 2.86 which is better than Pedro Martinez, Don Drysdale, or Warren Spahn.
Unfortunately the 80s weren't quite as kind. Palmer still won 15 games in 1982 with a 3.13 ERA. But wear and tear caught up to Big Jim as his ERA shot up in his final two years until his eventual release by the Orioles in '84. Palmer was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1990, but tried to make an unprecedented comeback the following year. Thankfully, his attempt ended in spring training. It's just my opinion, but once you are in the Hall, you shouldn't be allowed to play the sport anymore. That's why retirement is hard thing to consider, because you stop, forever.
Well before I go into a tyrade, let's end this wonderful discovery session of our's by congratulating Jim Palmer on an utterly fantastic career, and being, without a doubt, the best pitcher in Baltimore Orioles history. Three final quick notes on Palmer though. One, Jim may have giving up 303 career home runs, but not one of them was a grand slam. Two, he is called "Cakes" because he likes pancakes a lot. Not the best nickname, but we'll take it. And three, my memories of Jim Palmer are as an announcer, and in my humble opinion, he has one of the smoothest voices around.