04/24/24
September 30, 2010
SportsFilter: The Thursday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
Travis Snider dons Cito 'stache and goes 2-3 with a homer and 2 RBI.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 08:36 AM on September 30, 2010
Anybody starting a Yahoo hockey league?
posted by NoMich at 09:00 AM on September 30, 2010
Who Should Win the American League Cy Young Award in 2010?
posted by BornIcon at 09:07 AM on September 30, 2010
Listening to the talking heads go on and on about Win-Loss records in regards to the Cy Young award, I have to wonder, is there any stat more worthless for evaluating a pitcher's performance, besides maybe batting average?
Certainly, there has to be some value in winning pitching duels or pitching your best when your team needs it the most. I don't want the Cy Young to be based solely on wins, but I don't want it to be based solely on ERA either.
BI, the author in your link seems to be talking about photography (pictures) rather than baseball (pitchers).
posted by bperk at 09:30 AM on September 30, 2010
Hernandez has the best stats except for W/L record of the 4 pitchers listed in that article Born. Most strikeouts, most innings pitched, most strikeouts per inning, best ERA. If the award is for who was the most effective pitcher, I don't see how it goes to anyone else in the AL.
posted by apoch at 09:30 AM on September 30, 2010
Certainly, there has to be some value in winning pitching duels
I think Joe Pos dealt with that pretty well in this post.
posted by yerfatma at 10:23 AM on September 30, 2010
I'm annoyed that he only chooses Sabathia and Hernandez. What is the argument that Sabathia has been better than other great pitchers with lots of wins (like David Price)?
If you exclude wins altogether, then presumably a pitcher could have a 5-15 record and still win the Cy Young. That just seems wrong to me.
posted by bperk at 10:35 AM on September 30, 2010
Which is a better pitching performance? Giving up one run and losing 1-0 or giving up 12 runs and winning 13-12?
posted by apoch at 10:41 AM on September 30, 2010
If you exclude wins altogether, then presumably a pitcher could have a 5-15 record and still win the Cy Young. That just seems wrong to me.
But 50% of the impact on a win/loss is outside of the pitcher's control (or, at least, 44.4% of it for NL pitchers). He's being helped/punished by the other players.
(excluding fielding, which can also muddy the waters a bit)
One stat that people use instead of "wins" and "losses" is "support-neutral wins and losses". The idea is if you had an average offense behind you, how many wins/losses would you have had.
Felix Hernandez : 19-8
CC Sabathia: 14-11
David Price: 13-9
Clay Buchholz: 13-5
(and for comparison)
Roy Halladay: 19-8
Yes, Felix Hernandez has been that awesome this year.
posted by grum@work at 11:57 AM on September 30, 2010
You could imagine a 5-15 pitcher winning a Cy Young but being realistic it ain't going to happen. Felix is the most extreme case of CY-quality pitching/low wins we will see in our lifetime and he's currently 13-12. There are good arguments to be made that the Mariners offense is the worst in modern MLB history (last 80 years? 100 years?).
That's part of what makes this discussion so interesting - this is such an extreme case for deciding who's the better pitcher. I don't think anyone could convincingly argue that CC would have better results than Felix this year if they both pitched for the White Sox; unfortunately one gets runs support from a scoring juggernaut while the other gets the AA rejects.
posted by deflated at 12:02 PM on September 30, 2010
You could imagine a 5-15 pitcher winning a Cy Young but being realistic it ain't going to happen.
The closest to that happening was in 1987.
Nolan Ryan was 8-16 with Houston. He finished 5th in the Cy Young voting.
He led the league in ERA (2.76) and strikeouts (270).
posted by grum@work at 12:12 PM on September 30, 2010
Heh. Baseball is always stranger than I imagine.
posted by deflated at 12:47 PM on September 30, 2010
How do you factor in how good the defense is for the player and for the team?
posted by bperk at 12:49 PM on September 30, 2010
Ochocinco's new cereal has an interesting 'phone number on the package.
This gives a whole new meaning to "serve with berries and cream".
posted by Howard_T at 01:02 PM on September 30, 2010
Trained monkeys guard athletes at Commonwealth Games
posted by tommybiden at 02:10 PM on September 30, 2010
How do you factor in how good the defense is for the player and for the team?
That's what Support Neutral Wins & Losses does. But I don't think we need to do that in this case. Have you seen Seattle play defense? Their recent series against the Red Sox should have come with a ribbon on it.
posted by yerfatma at 02:18 PM on September 30, 2010
Another sport (game, event?) in which I could never participate.
1. There's no way I can look at a full beer stein for several minutes without succumbing to the urge to empty it.
2. There will be a lot of cheating when some contestants use light beer to gain an advantage.
posted by Howard_T at 04:17 PM on September 30, 2010
Howard, that won't be a sport until they make the contestants stand on one leg and take performance enhancement, er, substance tests.
posted by billsaysthis at 06:08 PM on September 30, 2010
Footy Alert: TPTB in CT have decided to show the Grand Finals replay on ESPN Classic (from the start but in standard def) and ESPN2 (an hour in, last week meant from the start of the 2nd quarter but in high def)!
posted by billsaysthis at 06:18 PM on September 30, 2010
Ochocinco's new cereal has an interesting 'phone number on the package.
Now we know what the proofreader does in his spare time.
posted by roberts at 06:36 PM on September 30, 2010
Gloriously funny sports news mistake.
posted by rcade at 07:47 PM on September 30, 2010
Gloriously funny sports news mistake.
You don't think some production assistant couldn't have set that up, do you?
LMAO
posted by Howard_T at 08:38 PM on September 30, 2010
OpEd: Butch Davis Must Go
posted by NoMich at 10:17 PM on September 30, 2010
Great huddle!
rcade, that video was hilarious!
Question on the "support-neutral wins and losses" theory...grum does your calculations take some of the no decisions games into account, but not all? Hernandez had a 13-12 record, started 34 games, so not sure how you came up with 19-8. Not that it matters much, I think Felix is the best candidate, not only did he not get run support, but in each of his nine no decisions games he gave up less than the league average earned runs and was only behind in one of those 9 games.
posted by dviking at 10:40 PM on September 30, 2010
grum does your calculations take some of the no decisions games into account, but not all?
The (long) discussion on calculating support-neutral records can be found here.
posted by grum@work at 01:00 AM on October 01, 2010
whatever, if you don't know the answer just say so.
posted by dviking at 02:43 AM on October 01, 2010
Listening to the talking heads go on and on about Win-Loss records in regards to the Cy Young award, I have to wonder, is there any stat more worthless for evaluating a pitcher's performance, besides maybe batting average?