Terry Puhl has appeared in three Astros History articles and two other non-history articles, this season. So it's about time he got his own Astros History article. I mean the guy played for Houston, spanning three decades.
When it was all said and done Puhl had played 14 years for the astros batting .281/.349/.389 in 1516 and 5459 plate appearances. As I'm sure you can tell, from his slash line, he was a pretty good on base guy, 502 walks to 505 strikeouts, that lacked power.
His 112 OPS+ indicates that despite a lack of power he was an above average hitter in his time with the Astros. His best year came in 1984 when he posted a 137 OPS+ in 519 plate appearances. That breaks down to a .301/.380/.434 line. He hit nine homeruns, seven triples, 19 doubles, 100 singles and walked more times than he struck out, 59 walks to 45 strikeouts.
It's very interesting to look at his career numbers and try to figure out why that year stood out more than some of the other years, because it doesn't jump right out at you that he had way more extra base hits than the previous year. But I think I've pin pointed it to the fact that he he hit the second most homeruns and triples, and walked the second most times in a season that year.
That kind of highlights why we're such an advocate for walks and homeruns, because even a singles hitter who shows some of that can become one of the better hitters on the team.