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bucdaddy
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... "and I know that wins are meaningless" No they're not. I wish people would quit saying this. If wins are meaningless, how come good pitchers end up with lots more of them than bad pitchers 95% of the time? Win PERCENTAGE, at least, is a fine indicator of a pitcher's value over time. If I presented you with the chance to acquire a pitcher and all you knew about him was that his career record was 150-75, would you be interested? Sure you would. Granted, good pitchers have other stats that are BETTER indicators, but no stat is meaningless. |
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Ian
said:
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... I went to the game last night, and it was probably Andy LaRoche's worst game of the season. He accounted for at least 6 of the 7 runners the Pirates had left on base (strikeout with 2 on, groundout with the bases loaded, and grounded into a double play) and had 3 errors in the 9th inning. As has been well-noted, one was generously given a single. Still, all 3 were on ground balls. The third, which he finally managed to field, was the result of him badly overthrowing first base. The hitting was solid, but I was a little surprised JR left S-Jax in after he gave up the 2nd homer. His control was clearly gone (as evidenced by him walking the next batter, including 2 pitches that almost hit the batter). I haven't followed the minor league teams at all, but I'm pretty sure our fielding lineup in the 9th was basically taken from a AAA roster. Morgan-McCutchen-Moss An. LaRoche-Vazquez-Young-Pearce-Jaramillo Edit: no idea why the spacing is so screwed up on my comment. |
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whygavs
said:
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... In 2001, Jason Schmidt made 14 starts with the Pirates with a WHIP of 1.30, a K/9 of 8.3, and a BB/9 of 3.0. He went 6-6. He then got traded to the Giants where he made 11 starts. His WHIP went to 1.36, his strikeouts climbed a bit to 8.8, and his walks jumped way up to 4.5. He went 7-1. The Giants won 90 games, the Pirates won 62. For an alternate example closer to home, look at Brad Lincoln in AA this year; complete dominance, 1-5 record. I'm sorry, but I'll never, ever judge a pitcher by win/loss record. |
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Carnegie Chip
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... Um, ever hear of Matt Morris? His career record when the Pirates acquired him was 118-84. How'd that work out? Wins are a terrible indicator of a pitcher's ability. Jamie Moyer has 250 wins and I don't think anybody sees him as a HOFer. Yeah, GREAT pitchers can overcome being on bad teams to get Ws but good or even very good pitchers need help. Duke and Maholm would be 15-18 game winners on the Red Sox. And Dice-K and Lester would be 8-12 with us. |
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Freebird
said:
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... Please replace Jacksons' name with Andy LaRoche. It's extremly hard to focus when your 3rd baseman makes 3 errors and ballons your ERA because the 1st error was scored a single. It's a little embarrassing. |
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bucdaddy
said:
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... Really? Not ever, in any context, not even in assessing a player's career accomplishments? Would it surprise you to know that Bill James once wrote that the second-best indicator of a pitcher's ability is winning percentage? We'd look at the career records of Clemens and Maddux and Smoltz and Glavine and Pettitte and Mussina and Pedro and yes, Jamie Moyer too, and I'd point out that most or all these guys won 80-100 or more games than they lost, but you'd tell me that doesn't mean anything, that doesn't mean they're good pitchers at all, what about their WHIPs? I know it's the cool stathead thing to say now, that wins don't mean anything. But no stat is meaningless. It can only contain the meaning you choose to ascribe to it. To say flat-out that a stat is meaningless is absurd. |
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azibuck
said:
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Huh? You just made bucdaddy's case. 6-6 in the context of the team he was on was a pretty square record. Kip Wells would have been 2-2 because of all the no-decisions. |
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bucdaddy
said:
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... Look, I've seen people who should know better assert that a home run struck by the trailing team in a 10-1 game in the ninth inning is "meaningless." And that's ridiculous too. It's certainly not meaningless AT THE TIME. It keeps the inning going, it gets the trailing team closer to the lead. After that anything is possible, the third baseman could bungle three plays and next you know your team is right back in it. I know it's hip to say AFTER the game is over that the second run in a 10-2 loss is meaningless, but it's also stupid. Numbers have no inherent meaning in and of themselves. Yes, their usefulness as analytical tools can vary, but a number is just a number. So you could say ALL stats are inherently meaningless. It's only when you assemble them into patterns that you can draw meaning out. And you can find some meaning in virtually any stat. |
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Nate
said:
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... It would surprise me to know that Bill James said that, but I don't necessarily think everything Bill James says has to be right because he wrote the Baseball Abstract, either. Here's one. Perhaps the best pitcher ever, Nolan Ryan, had a career win percentage of .526. Do you mean to tell me that 7 no-hitter Nolan Ryan, all-time strike out leader, owner of a career 3.19 ERA and 1.24 WHIP, wasn't one of the most dominant pitchers of all time because his win percentage was barely above .500? Because he averaged 14 wins to 13 losses in his career? |
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Nate
said:
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... Yeah, I love Andy, but he was definitely the one to blame for that inning. Jackson pitched pretty well and needed 6 outs to get out of the inning. |
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