Pirates 2006 Most Balls Award Winner

The Pirates won MLB's Most Balls Award for 2006 after all we could muster in 2005 was third place.

That's right, out of 572 major league pitchers who threw more than 200 pitches, one of our illustrious arms threw the highest percentage of balls in the game last year.

It had to be Ryan Vogelsong or Oliver Perez, you say?

Nope.

Not even close.

Vogey was 71st and Perez 278th. Even last year's Pirate winner, Mike Gonzalez, who finished 3rd in MLB, was 281st this year.

No - this year's winner will be a shock to most Pirate fans, for several reasons.

For one, his BABIP rate was 34% below the team's BABIP median and 32% below the MLB median of all 700 pitchers who heaved at least one pitch.

For another, his extra base hits divided by innings pitched rate was 4th best in MLB, just behind Ryan O'Malley of the Cubs, Bob Wickman of the Braves, and BJ Ryan of the Blue Jays.

Unfortunately, tossing the highest number of balls also meant he had an off the chart BB/K rate of 1.57.

His name?

Josh Sharpless.

His number?

51.2% of all pitches were heaved as a ball.

That is 9.2% higher than Gonzo's third place finish last year. In fact, more than half of the qualified pitchers on the Pirates staff (200+ pitches) threw more balls than the MLB median.

Congratulations to the Pirates and Josh Sharpless for a job well done.

Uggghhh..