Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

[BatsareBugs]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

I'll take Josh Johnson for $2,000 Alex.

[jth1331]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

You left out the best pitcher in the national league.

I'll take Josh Johnson for $2,000 Alex.

With the reports on Johnson's health right now, I doubt he pitches again this season.

With that said, I would be absolutely shocked if he won the CY at this point. Kind of how I feel with Latos.
Honestly, I'd be shocked right now with how things have gone if Wainwright, Halladay or Jimenez didn't win it.

[rsox]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

With the reports on Johnson's health right now, I doubt he pitches again this season.

The Marlins officially shut Johnson down for the rest of the season today.

[djep]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

Wrong. Your #1 job as a starter is to get outs and prevent the opposing team from scoring. How can a starting pitcher singlehandedly win a game when he has no impact on his own team's score?

Who said he singlehandedly wins a game? And how does one singlehandedly stop the other team from scoring? There are no fielders? The opposing batters have nothing to do with it? There is no singlehandedly anything in baseball because it's not played in a vacuum. There are outside factors in pretty much everything.

And you're wrong...job #1 is to win games. You do that by holding the opponent to fewer runs than your team has scored. Everything else is just ancillary fluff in a baseball game. That is the nature of competition. ERA, K/9, BB/9, WHIP - all that stuff means nothing if you don't get the W, whether it's the team or the pitcher.

Again - I'm not judging by wins alone. But throwing wins out the window because WHIP is sexier? Give me a break. Spreadsheet baseball is for losers.

[Chip Douglass]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

And you're wrong...job #1 is to win games. You do that by holding the opponent to fewer runs than your team has scored. Everything else is just ancillary fluff in a baseball game. That is the nature of competition. ERA, K/9, BB/9, WHIP - all that stuff means nothing if you don't get the W, whether it's the team or the pitcher.

We went over this already. You can take your stud pitching staff of Sabathia, Price, and Pavano and I'll roll with Lee, Liriano, and Hernandez.

Awarding mediocre pitchers who get tons of run support isn't my bag, baby.

Again - I'm not judging by wins alone. But throwing wins out the window because WHIP is sexier? Give me a break. Spreadsheet baseball is for losers.

Spreadsheet baseball is for very competent front offices (Yankees, Red Sox, Athletics)/anyone interested in building good teams.

[NYJets]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

Who said he singlehandedly wins a game? And how does one singlehandedly stop the other team from scoring? There are no fielders? The opposing batters have nothing to do with it? There is no singlehandedly anything in baseball because it's not played in a vacuum. There are outside factors in pretty much everything.

And you're wrong...job #1 is to win games. You do that by holding the opponent to fewer runs than your team has scored. Everything else is just ancillary fluff in a baseball game. That is the nature of competition. ERA, K/9, BB/9, WHIP - all that stuff means nothing if you don't get the W, whether it's the team or the pitcher.

Again - I'm not judging by wins alone. But throwing wins out the window because WHIP is sexier? Give me a break. Spreadsheet baseball is for losers.

The job for every player is to help the team win games. For pitchers, there are tons of stats that do a better job of telling how much a pitcher helps their team than the pitchers win-loss record.

Aside from the fact that win-loss record depends on a lot more than just how well the pitcher pitches, there's also the fact that the stat is based on arbitrary bull****, like pitching 5 innings, and having to leave the game with the lead and not lose the lead.

There are much better stats to use than wins, so why use them? What does a pitchers win total tell you that the other stats don't?

[55]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

Spreadsheet baseball is for losers.

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/z3zuwF15Ios?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/z3zuwF15Ios?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

[snepp]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

Wins don't tell you one meaningful thing about who the better pitcher actually is.

They're a measure of overall team success, nothing more.

[jth1331]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

I view baseball pitcher wins as similar to quarterback wins in football. How can you single out one player for a win/loss when it is a team game?

Its like Harold Reynolds saying CC Sabathia has the CY locked up because he will lead the league in wins and have good supporting stats. Yet, Felix Hernandez might actually win despite a terrible win/loss record in comparison. Put Felix on the Yankees, he might win 30 games.
I really think Halladay has the CY locked up now in the NL, I just hope Ubaldo can get to 20 wins.

[Chip Douglass]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

Baseball isn't played in a vacuum so all of your stats are compiled with respect to what someone else does.

Some stats do a better job of eliminating the superfluous than others (FIP vs. ERA, for example).

And RBI may be a situational stat but it is the most important situation in a baseball game.

And some players are going to have more opportunities in "the most important situation" to knock in runs than others.

You're assuming everything is equal. A player in the Yankee lineup is going to have more RBIs than a similar player in the KC lineup. It doesn't mean the Yankee player is a better run producer.

I think the peripherals are suck stats compared to Wins. Your #1 job as a starter is to get the W. All those other stats are the means to get to the end. I'm not saying a guy can win 20 games, pitch to a 4 ERA and still get CY Young consideration. Wins alone don't tell the whole story so I'm not advocating Phil Hughes over Felix....that would be ridiculous. I like the advanced stats in baseball but advocates are so quick to dismiss the traditional topline stats that have a greater impact on your team's success.

The pitcher's offense scoring the necessary amount of runs is also a mean to get to that end.

Wouldn't you prefer to use a stat that mostly ties those kinds of loose ends?

As for CC being the 7th-10th best pitcher in the AL this year? I will have to repectfully disagree. 1st in wins and 2nd in innings pitched while pitching to a 3.02 ERA (good for 6th in the AL) in a small home park, in the tough AL East in a pennant race with the rest of the team's starting rotation in shambles. And he's gotten better since Pettite has been out and since AJ's gone to crap.

What about the numbers that matter?

[snepp]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

As for CC being the 7th-10th best pitcher in the AL this year? I will have to repectfully disagree. 1st in wins and 2nd in innings pitched while pitching to a 3.02 ERA (good for 6th in the AL) in a small home park,

This is a gross oversimplification of the effect of Yankee Stadium.

Lefty pitchers don't suffer anywhere near the effects that right-handed pitchers do in Yankee Stadium, especially lefties that get a lot of ground balls like Sabathia does.

[djep]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

We went over this already. You can take your stud pitching staff of Sabathia, Price, and Pavano and I'll roll with Lee, Liriano, and Hernandez.

Awarding mediocre pitchers who get tons of run support isn't my bag, baby.



Spreadsheet baseball is for very competent front offices
(Yankees, Red Sox, Athletics)/anyone interested in building good teams.

CC as the 10th best pitcher in the AL? Mediocre pitcher? Not sure what your bag is but I hope they legalize here soon.

i'll amend my statement. Spreadsheet baseball by itself is for losers. That's why you have scouts and not actuaries and accountants building your team.

and once again I am not saying that advanced stats should not be discarded and having win/loss being the lone factor in determining a pitcher's performance. But disregarding wins for pitchers is just spreadsheet baseball gone too far. Numbers lie...players put up awesome numbers on losing teams only to wilt on winning teams far too often for me to put too much weight in the granular data.

and

[Chip Douglass]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

CC as the 10th best pitcher in the AL? Mediocre pitcher? Not sure what your bag is but I hope they legalize here soon.

It's a quote from Austin Powers, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and concede that Sabathia is the 7th best pitcher in the AL.

i'll amend my statement. Spreadsheet baseball by itself is for losers. That's why you have scouts and not actuaries and accountants building your team.

I've never eschewed the traditional aspects of scouting.

and once again I am not saying that advanced stats should not be discarded and having win/loss being the lone factor in determining a pitcher's performance. But disregarding wins for pitchers is just spreadsheet baseball gone too far.

It's spreadsheet baseball gone the right amount.

Ws/Ls is as worthless as the concept of trade deficits.

Numbers lie...players put up awesome numbers on losing teams only to wilt on winning teams far too often for me to put too much weight in the granular data.

Counterexamples: 1993 Fred McGriff, 1998 Randy Johnson, 2004 Steve Finley, 2008 CC Sabathia, 2008 Mark Texiera, 2009 Cliff Lee.

Gun to my head: The above quote is an example of regression to the mean rather than "LOL CHOKER. HE CAN'T HANDLE THE PRESSURE!!!!"

[jth1331]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

It's a quote from Austin Powers, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and concede that Sabathia is the 7th best pitcher in the AL.

I've never eschewed the traditional aspects of scouting.

It's spreadsheet baseball gone the right amount.

Ws/Ls is as worthless as the concept of trade deficits.

Counterexamples: 1993 Fred McGriff, 1998 Randy Johnson, 2004 Steve Finley, 2008 CC Sabathia, 2008 Mark Texiera, 2009 Cliff Lee.

Gun to my head: The above quote is an example of regression to the mean rather than "LOL CHOKER. HE CAN'T HANDLE THE PRESSURE!!!!"

I just want to say that Randy Johnson in 1998 could be an example of a pitcher not trying for one team, then getting traded to a contender and suddenly turning the light on.

[thaima1shu]

Re: Sizing Up the Cy Young Competition

Yet another showing of futility by the Mariners offense. Felix today went:

8 IP (complete game), 2 hits, 4 walks, 5 strikeouts, 1 run. Only run came on a Jose Bautista solo shot. And ... he lost. 1-0. Mariners had 7 hits, but only 1 extra base hit. Not sure they even got anyone to third base.

So now Felix's record stands at 12-12. And here's where he stands in these categories:

Innings - 1st
Strikeouts - 1st
ERA - 1st
WHIP - 2nd
Complete games - 3rd (Lee/Pavano tied for first with 7)
Batting Average Against - 3rd

I mean really, what more can he do? It's been like this all year, where he will pitch amazingly only to get zero run support from his offense. That is completely out of his control. How can he possibly get his own offense to score more than zero runs, outside of picking up a bat himself and hitting?