So I couldn't sleep and started thinking about Brad Ausmus (this was because my wife could sleep). Did Ausmus impact the rotation as we would be led to believe?
In 2008 Brad Ausmus played in exactly 81 games. Regard:
The Astros were 33-30 in games Ausmus received at least two plate appearances. This is a .524 winning percentage, 10 points lower than the Astros .534 winning percentage in 2008.
With Ausmus behind the plate (not counting late-inning replacement appearances), the Astros allowed 233 earned runs in 1607 outs. This translates to a 3.92 ERA, lower than the 4.36 ERA the Astros allowed in 2008. This was helped by a run from August 26-September 16 in which Ausmus was behind the plate for games in which the Astros allowed 0 or 1 runs in seven of eight games.
So was he effective? Yeah, I guess so.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
