#52 - GEORGE BRUNET, P
George was ranked 96th on our Top 100 Angels countdown from 2005 (LINK) and moved up to #63 in our rankings posted after the 2008 season.
George Brunet made his first appearance in the minor leagues in 1953 at age 18. He pitched until 1989 - most of his time after the bigs being spent in the Mexican League, but still, that is 37 years of pitching in the pros. He had a heart attack at age 41 and pitched four more seasons.
READ ALL ABOUT IT AT THIS LINK.
George pitched for the Angels from 1963 thru 1969. He came from the Astros after their first year in existence and was sent to the expansion Seattle Pilots (who would later become the Milwaukee Brewers) in 1969, their first and only year of existence. While he had a losing record on the mound, he logged plenty of innings and was better than average for most of his tenure.
His best season was 1965 when he pitched 197 innings, allowed only 149 hits, struck out 141 batters and had an ERA of 2.56 and an ERA+ of 131. As his luck was with the Halos, he went 9-11 that season. In two years with the Halos he led The AL in losses. Yet the seasons (1967 and '68) in which he lost 19 and 17 games saw him post a 3.31 and 2.86 ERA respectively.
Brunet's 12.3 WAR is the 17th best by an Angels pitcher. He pitched in 194 games for the Angels, starting 157 of them with 33 Complete Games. He tossed 1,047 Innings, with a 3.13 ERA (Sixth best all time for Angels pitchers with more than 500 IP) allowed 862 hits, struck out 678 batters (Fifteenth most by an Angels arm) and had a 1.202 WHIP (Sixth best all time for Angels pitchers with more than 500 IP).
All of that adds up to an ERA+ of 102 which might seem quite stingy except that Brunet was in Anaheim at the height of the deadball era, when a 3.13 ERA wasn't quite the gaudy stat it is today. ERA+ equalizes across all baseball eras (as does OPS+, its offensive counterpoint), adjusting for the particular tendencies of the league averages in the season in which a given player competed.