Shutouts, no-hitters, and perfect games, oh my! 78 different times in the first half of the season did a starting pitcher throw 9 innings, with a few of them not getting a decision or a complete game due to the other starting pitcher. Of those 78, 37 of them did not allow a single run in those 9 innings and of those, 7 gave up only one hit, two gave up no hits (with a few walks), and two didn’t allow a single baserunner.
So, is this the second coming of the Year of the Pitcher?
Not so fast.
The average GS across baseball in the first half of the season was 50.6. Not exactly an awe-inspiring number. The average line for starters was 6.0-6.0-3.1-2.8-2.1-4.5. In other words, respectable. On average, starting pitchers from April 4th to July 11th averaged a quality start and put up an ERA of 4.22 and a WHIP of 1.35. You would certainly love to have those numbers somewhere in your rotation but if they’re at the top of your rotation, you’re probably in trouble.
Still, it doesn’t seem to jive that pitchers are averaging a quality start (barely) and there have already been so many outstanding pitching performances this season. The answer is quite simple; for every solid start or tremendous outing, there has been at least one (and sometimes more) games where starters had to struggle for every out they got and there were 4 cases where starters didn’t record a single out (in all fairness to John Maine, he walked one batter before leaving the game while the other three combined to allow 12 hits and 17 runs without getting an out).
In the first half, there were 74 games where starters recorded a GS above 80 with an average GS of 83.9 and an average line of 8.4-2.6-0.2-0.2-1.2-7.8. On the flipside of the coin, there were 119 games where the starter had a GS under 20 (3.2-8.5-7.6-7.2-2.4-2.2 for an average of 12.6) bottoming out on July 10th when Scott Kazmir of the Angels was asked to take a beating to help save the bullpen. All told, his 5.0-11-13-13-3-2 line was “good” for a GS of -8, the worst this year in the majors. The best, on the other hand, went to Roy Halladay, who threw the 20th perfect game in baseball history and nicely trumped Dallas Braden’s perfect game by striking out 11 (to Braden’s 6) for a GS of 98.
THE ALL-STARS
There was a lot of speculation leading up to the All-Star Game about the worthiness of Ubaldo Jimenez and David Price starting for their respective leagues. All I can say is don’t believe it. I can come up with a logical, statistical case for several different pitchers to start the ASG. Does this mean that Jimenez led the National League in average GS? Nope, but neither did Josh Johnson. That distinction goes to Adam Wainwright, who posted an average GS of 64.58. Let me ask you this and try with all your might to take any personal bias out of the equation; could you have picked just one of these three? Here are their average lines without their names.
7.2-5.4-1.8-1.7-1.8-6.7
6.8-4.9-1.4-1.3-1.6-6.8
7.1-4.8-1.7-1.7-2.6-6.3
If you know these three pitchers and their statistical leanings, you might be able to peg which is which. Wainwright is the first one, Josh Johnson is the second (average GS of 64.39), and Ubaldo Jimenez is the third one (average GS of 64.33). From first to third in the National League is 0.25 points. Tell me you can pick one of them over the other two without bias and I’ll say you’re lying. This doesn’t even take into account Roy Halladay, whose GS stands at 62.58. All told this could end up being one of the more interesting Cy Young races ever because right now, I’d call it a four horse race (with all due respect to every other pitcher in the NL).
In the AL, it is much clearer because one guy has been avoiding ball 4 like the plague. In his 14 starts this year, Cliff Lee is 8-4 with a 2.64 ERA and a 0.95 WHIP. That becomes much more impressive when you take into account that in his last start (his first with Texas); he threw a complete game, gave up 6 runs, and still only threw 95 pitches. His average GS this year is 63.79, 3.35 points ahead of second place Jon Lester (and still almost a point behind the NL leader). He has walked 6 batters in 112.2 innings while striking out 91.
THE REST
If the season ended today, 110 pitchers would be eligible for the ERA titles (which would go to Josh Johnson and David Price) and those pitchers combined to perform slightly better than the major league average for GS (52.12). This would certainly lead me to believe that for the 8 guys averaging over 60, there have to be some that aren’t pulling their weight.
There are.
Nate Robertson is currently 54th in the NL which, yes, is currently dead last amongst qualified starters. His line of 5.3-5.9-3.6-3.1-2.2-3.0 has led to an average GS of 43.47, a record of 6-7, and a 5.32 ERA. The good news (if you can call it that) is that there are six other pitchers that have done worse than him, all in the AL. Not wanting to drag this out too much more, they are:
Justin Masterson (Indians)
3-8, 5.31 (W-L, ERA)
5.8-6.8-3.8-3.4-2.7-4.6 (IP-H-R-ER-BB-K)
43.17 (Ave. GS)
Brian Bannister (Royals)
7-7, 5.56
5.7-6.6-3.6-3.5-1.9-3.3
43.00
Scott Feldman (Rangers)
5-8, 5.32
6.0-7.8-4.1-3.6-1.8-3.5
42.94
Kevin Millwood (Orioles)
2-8, 5.77
6.0-7.5-4.2-3.8-1.9-4.7
Scott Kazmir (Angels)
7-9, 6.92
5.4-6.0-4.3-4.2-2.9-3.5
40.00
Nick Blackburn (Twins)
7-7, 6.40
5.7-7.9-4.3-4.1-1.6-2.0
37.06
TEAMS
Not surprisingly, the top four teams in average GS have a combined record of 204-148. San Francisco currently leads the way at 54.2 with the Yankees close behind at 54.0. The best team with a losing record is none other than my pick to win the AL West, the Seattle Mariners. Despite their 35-53 record, their starters have had an average GS of 52.9, fifth best in all of baseball. Another run per game out of that offense and they could very well be leading their division, but enough of how wrong I was…
The Pirates have had the worst starting pitching thus far this season and it’s difficult to use a word other than putrid. Their average GS is 42.2 and their ERA is 5.53.
Interestingly, only the Yankees and White Sox lead their division in the standings and are also getting the best starting pitching within the division. These are the current standings with their league rank in average GS in parentheses.
AL East
Yankees 56-32 (2nd)
Rays 54-34 (4th)
Red Sox 51-37 (12th)
Blue Jays 44-45 (21st)
Orioles 29-59 (29th)
AL Central
White Sox 49-38 (9th)
Tigers 48-38 (25th)
Twins 46-42 (18th)
Royals 39-49 (26th)
Indians 34-54 (28th)
AL West
Rangers 50-38 (22nd)
Angels 47-44 (16th)
Athletics 43-46 (11th)
Mariners 35-53 (5th)
NL East
Braves 52-36 (14th)
Mets 48-40 (20th)
Phillies 47-40 (7th)
Marlins 42-46 (15th)
Nationals 39-50 (27th)
NL Central
Reds 49-41 (10th)
Cardinals 47-41 (3rd)
Brewers 40-49 (24th)
Cubs 39-50 (6th)
Astros 36-53 (13th)
Pirates 30-58 (30th)
NL West
Padres 51-37 (8th)
Dodgers 49-39 (17th)
Rockies 49-39 (17th)
Giants 47-41 (1st)
Diamondbacks 34-55 (23rd)
There are many more games to be played and many more shutouts and blowouts to muse over. This is all I have for my first half review but later I’m going to look at my bold predictions and find out just how wrong I actually was (Yankees are in 1st, Phillies 3rd, Mariners last and all were picked to win their division).
Until next time, enjoy the baseball and enjoy the little things like Ubaldo Jimenez’s pursuit of 30 wins, the Padres, Reds, and Rangers trying to prolong their improbable run to division titles, and of course, every single pitch thrown by Stephen Strasburgh.
Isn’t baseball grand?
Thursday, July 15, 2010
George Steinbrenner
To be brutally honest, I spent much of my youth thinking that George Steinbrenner embodied everything that was wrong with the modern game of baseball. After getting a little older, mellowing out a bit, and looking at everything objectively, I determined that I could not have been more wrong.
I’ve heard the saying many times “don’t’ hate the player, hate the game”. Even though this quote may not fit Steinbrenner socially, it fit him perfectly as owner of baseball’s flagship franchise. He wanted to win and he did everything he could to help the Yankees win, pushing the team’s payroll up to a major league record $208 million in 2005. Including this year, the Yankees have spent $1.78 billion on payroll and many detractors say this is perfect evidence of the lack of competitive balance in major league baseball. However, in the last ten years (including the unfinished 2010 season) eight different teams have won the World Series, proof that a huge payroll can give you a chance to win it all, but it doesn’t come close to guaranteeing it.
I never knew George Steinbrenner or knew anyone who knew him. The closest I ever got to him was watching his finely tuned product that he put out on the field of play and since that is the best way I can relate to him, that is how I will attempt to put his career with the Yankees into perspective.
Since his purchase of the Yankees, they have put forth a regular season record of 3364-2583-3, good for an average of 88 wins per season. His teams won 100 games 8 times and won 90 games another 11 times. Their .566 winning percentage during his ownership tenure was the best in baseball but as good as the teams he paid for were during the regular season, they were always able to ratchet it up when the stakes were higher.
His Yankees teams went 114-77 in the postseason, including 35-25 in 11 World Series appearances, 7 of which ended with Yankees victories. The Yankees played in 38 postseason series with Steinbrenner as their owner and won an astounding 27 of them.
Many people say that they hate the New York Yankees and they hate its principal architect, George Steinbrenner. I have a very hard time, however, blaming him for something that goes against nothing but the mythical standards of “fair play”. It is nothing short of ludicrous to me that people dislike Steinbrenner because he spends $200 million in payroll every year (or so it seems). Here’s the problem; there’s no salary cap in baseball and he can spend his hard earned money however he wants to.
In my opinion, what most complaints really boil down to is people don’t like Steinbrenner because he’s willing to pay tens of millions of dollars in luxury taxes so he can have the roster that he wants while other owners won’t do that. People are also upset because of the economic benefits to running a successful franchise in New York City versus Kansas City or Pittsburgh (just to name two) and to blame these things on George Steinbrenner is preposterous.
Was he a model human being? From everything I’ve read and heard, he tried to be a good person but he sometimes had a short fuse and was never afraid to speak his mind. Was he good for baseball over the last 38 years? No question about it. The New York Yankees is the only brand in Major League Baseball that can sell around the world. Kids in Japan dream about playing for the Yankees which might be part of the reason why several Japanese imports have ended up there. They are the best and when there’s a standard bearer like that, it gives the other 29 teams something to aspire to. Everyone else knows that the Yankees level of revenue and income are nearly impossible to attain elsewhere but they all dream of having fans that devoted and having the kind of prolonged success that people in the Bronx have.
Steinbrenner increased the value of baseball’s most storied franchise from $8.8 million nearly 40 years ago to $1.6 billion today. Along the way he’s paid millions upon millions in revenue sharing and luxury taxes so his success has lined the pockets of all the other owners out there. It is nothing short of hypocritical to criticize the way he’s run the Yankees while depositing his checks into your bank accounts and into your own franchise.
To sum up, there was a time that George Steinbrenner was public enemy #1 for me but that time is long since past. Other teams have $100 million payrolls and players earning more than $20 million per season. The only difference is that those other teams haven’t been able to find the sustained success of the New York Yankees. So if “The Boss” is guilty of anything, perhaps he’s guilty of being a good businessman.
Rest in Peace
George Steinbrenner
July 4th, 1930 – July 15th, 2010
I’ve heard the saying many times “don’t’ hate the player, hate the game”. Even though this quote may not fit Steinbrenner socially, it fit him perfectly as owner of baseball’s flagship franchise. He wanted to win and he did everything he could to help the Yankees win, pushing the team’s payroll up to a major league record $208 million in 2005. Including this year, the Yankees have spent $1.78 billion on payroll and many detractors say this is perfect evidence of the lack of competitive balance in major league baseball. However, in the last ten years (including the unfinished 2010 season) eight different teams have won the World Series, proof that a huge payroll can give you a chance to win it all, but it doesn’t come close to guaranteeing it.
I never knew George Steinbrenner or knew anyone who knew him. The closest I ever got to him was watching his finely tuned product that he put out on the field of play and since that is the best way I can relate to him, that is how I will attempt to put his career with the Yankees into perspective.
Since his purchase of the Yankees, they have put forth a regular season record of 3364-2583-3, good for an average of 88 wins per season. His teams won 100 games 8 times and won 90 games another 11 times. Their .566 winning percentage during his ownership tenure was the best in baseball but as good as the teams he paid for were during the regular season, they were always able to ratchet it up when the stakes were higher.
His Yankees teams went 114-77 in the postseason, including 35-25 in 11 World Series appearances, 7 of which ended with Yankees victories. The Yankees played in 38 postseason series with Steinbrenner as their owner and won an astounding 27 of them.
Many people say that they hate the New York Yankees and they hate its principal architect, George Steinbrenner. I have a very hard time, however, blaming him for something that goes against nothing but the mythical standards of “fair play”. It is nothing short of ludicrous to me that people dislike Steinbrenner because he spends $200 million in payroll every year (or so it seems). Here’s the problem; there’s no salary cap in baseball and he can spend his hard earned money however he wants to.
In my opinion, what most complaints really boil down to is people don’t like Steinbrenner because he’s willing to pay tens of millions of dollars in luxury taxes so he can have the roster that he wants while other owners won’t do that. People are also upset because of the economic benefits to running a successful franchise in New York City versus Kansas City or Pittsburgh (just to name two) and to blame these things on George Steinbrenner is preposterous.
Was he a model human being? From everything I’ve read and heard, he tried to be a good person but he sometimes had a short fuse and was never afraid to speak his mind. Was he good for baseball over the last 38 years? No question about it. The New York Yankees is the only brand in Major League Baseball that can sell around the world. Kids in Japan dream about playing for the Yankees which might be part of the reason why several Japanese imports have ended up there. They are the best and when there’s a standard bearer like that, it gives the other 29 teams something to aspire to. Everyone else knows that the Yankees level of revenue and income are nearly impossible to attain elsewhere but they all dream of having fans that devoted and having the kind of prolonged success that people in the Bronx have.
Steinbrenner increased the value of baseball’s most storied franchise from $8.8 million nearly 40 years ago to $1.6 billion today. Along the way he’s paid millions upon millions in revenue sharing and luxury taxes so his success has lined the pockets of all the other owners out there. It is nothing short of hypocritical to criticize the way he’s run the Yankees while depositing his checks into your bank accounts and into your own franchise.
To sum up, there was a time that George Steinbrenner was public enemy #1 for me but that time is long since past. Other teams have $100 million payrolls and players earning more than $20 million per season. The only difference is that those other teams haven’t been able to find the sustained success of the New York Yankees. So if “The Boss” is guilty of anything, perhaps he’s guilty of being a good businessman.
Rest in Peace
George Steinbrenner
July 4th, 1930 – July 15th, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
LeBron James
First and foremost, it should be mentioned that I am not a fan of the NBA in general. There are several players and coaches that I like and a few teams that are (sometimes) enjoyable to watch play. I will admit that I did watch nearly all of Game 7 of the NBA finals this year (keep in mind that I do not have cable so the opportunity rarely presents itself). I figured that my self-imposed NBA exile, which is going on twelve years now, could have a one night hiatus to watch one of my favorite all time teams (Celtics) battle one of my least favorite teams (Lakers).
Before I get on to the meat of this article, I have to pay homage. Game 7 was a brawl. It was the type of game that I enjoyed playing in when I was in high school because while I never seemed to be able to find a shooting rhythm offensively, physical defense was one of my fortes so I loved watching the Lakers and Celtics trade body-blows for 48 minutes and yes, when all was said and done, the Lakers definitely deserved to win that game.
I’ve watched and followed a lot of great players come and go through the NBA over the past 18 years or so. I distinctly remember watching the Chicago Bulls and the Portland Trailblazers in the Finals, cheering for some guy named Clyde “The Glide” Drexler and watching him get beaten by Michael Jordan. Over the next five or six years I began to appreciate Michael Jordan for what he was and what he brought to his team every night. I watched every game of the NBA Finals after the Bulls won 72 games and then beat my Seattle Supersonics (they were mine at the time). I watched every game the next two years as two of my favorite players of the past twenty years, John Stockton and Karl Malone, tried to punch through the wall that nobody could get through between 1991-1993 and 1996-1998. I feel confident in saying that the Jazz would have won back to back titles in 1997 and 1998 if Jordan had been playing baseball; that team had everything.
Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Shaquille O’Neal, and (sigh) Kobe Bryant have been just a few of the magnificent players that have played in front of my eyes in the time I’ve been aware of the NBA. None of them could hold a candle to the physical gifts of one LeBron James.
Here’s a good way to look at it. Karl Malone, one of the best players in league history, was listed at 6’9” and 250 pounds. He had broad shoulders and was light on his feet but he was a forward. He wasn’t the type of guy that could scramble for a loose ball on the floor in front of the basket, rip it away from an opponent, and then elevate and throw down a two-handed stuff over the opposing shot-blocking center. He would still get two points out of the equation but he would leave you thinking “How can he make that shot right under the hoop when he’s only 6’9” and the opposing center is 7’2” and right next to him?” Trust me, I know because I had that thought I-don’t-know-how-many times in the mid to late 90’s.
By contrast, LeBron James is listed at 6’8” and 240 pounds. Just an inch shorter, just ten pounds lighter. James runs the floor like a point guard, light on his feet and ready to change direction at an instant’s notice. Once he gets the rim into the forefront of his mind, there is very little that you can do to stop him other than… no, I can’t really think of anything. Around the rim, he explodes with a size and strength (not to mention a 44” vertical) that few in NBA history have ever had.
Now that we’ve talked a bit about the meat of this post, it’s time to tackle the gristle. By that, of course, I mean “The Decision”.
Does the prospect of having LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh in the same uniform intrigue me? Absolutely. Does it interest me that all three took less money to play together? Not really because even though it’s been reported that they all left about $15 million on the table, the contracts are still worth roughly $105 million (for Wade) and $110 million (for James and Bosh). While a 12% discount may be significant in the NBA, it means nothing in the real world when it comes to sacrifice. If they wanted to make headlines about taking discounts, I would have loved the three of them to signed for $5 million a year and tell the general manager “go out and get all the pieces that you need to put around us so we can be the Celtics (60’s version) of this generation”. Did that happen? Nope.
Last year, James put forth a ridiculous line of 29.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 8.6 assists per game. Combining that with Wade’s 26.6-4.8-6.5 and Bosh’s 24.0-10.8-2.4 does make one wonder. How many times in league history has a team had three 20 point-per-game scorers on the same team? Very good question.
In the history of the NBA, a player has averaged 20 or more points per game 1,131 times, from Joe Fulks in the 1946-47 season (23.2 ppg) to the young superstars of today. The first set of teammates to score 20 points per game or more happened in the 1954-55 season when Neil Johnston (22.7) and Paul Arizin (21.0) accomplished the feat. Believe it or not, there have actually been 16 different sets of three teammates that have averaged over 20 points per game in the same season.
1959-60 St. Louis Hawks
Bob Pettit – 26.1
Cliff Hagan – 24.8
Clyde Lovellette – 20.8
1960-61 St. Louis Hawks
Bob Pettit – 27.9
Cliff Hagan – 22.1
Clyde Lovellette – 22.0
1966-1967 Boston Celtics
Sam Jones – 22.1
John Havilcek – 21.4
Bailey Howell – 20.0
1968-69 San Francisco Warriors
Jeff Mullins – 22.8
Nate Thurmond – 21.5
Rudy LaRusso – 20.7
1969-70 Chicago Bulls
Chet Walker – 21.5
Bob Love – 21.0
Clem Haskins – 20.3
1969-70 Phoenix Suns
Connie Hawkins – 24.6
Dick Van Arsdale – 21.3
Gail Goodrich – 20.0
1971-72 Golden State Warriors
Jeff Mullins – 21.5
Cazzie Russell – 21.4
Nate Thurmond – 21.4
1980-81 Denver Nuggets
David Thompson – 25.5
Alex English – 23.8
Dan Issel – 21.9
1981-82 Denver Nuggets
Alex English – 25.4
Dan Issel – 22.9
Kiki Vandeweghe – 21.5
1982-83 Denver Nuggets
Alex English – 28.4
Kiki Vandeweghe – 26.7
Dan Issel – 21.6
1983-84 Philadelphia 76ers
Moses Malone – 22.7
Julius Erving – 22.4
Andrew Toney – 20.4
1986-87 Seattle Supersonics
Dale Ellis – 24.9
Tom Chambers – 23.3
Xavier McDaniel – 23.0
1987-88 Seattle Supersonics
Dale Ellis – 25.8
Xavier McDaniel – 21.4
Tom Chambers – 20.4
1988-89 Phoenix Suns
Tom Chambers – 25.7
Eddie Johnson – 21.5
Kevin Johnson – 20.4
1990-91 Golden State Warriors
Chris Mullin – 25.7
Mitch Richmond – 23.9
Tim Hardaway – 22.9
2007-08 Golden State Warriors
Baron Davis – 21.8
Monta Ellis – 20.2
Stephen Jackson – 20.1
So in other words, having three good scorers actually share the ball isn’t unheard of. However, for the James-Wade-Bosh marriage, I only see two scenarios for how well it will work out.
1) The three of them start bickering about whose team it is and who deserves the most shots/points/dollars, etc. Halfway through the season Pat Riley realizes the magnitude of his mistake and retires. All three have decent statistical years but the Heat go 41-41 and miss the playoffs. Cleveland and Toronto rejoice while the rest of the league looks on in amusement at the situation in Miami.
2) With the addition of a big bruising, 7’, 300 pound center that can’t score worth a lick, Bosh is free to cherry-pick rebounds, outlet the ball to James, who sprints down the court with Wade and another 3-point shooter filling the lanes. Bosh averages 16-14, Wade averages 35-4-4, and James averages his triple double (25-10-12) as the Heat win 65 games. In the playoffs, they don’t change their style of play and keep running up and down the floor and the young legs of LeBron, Dwayne, and Chris (25, 28, and 25) carry the Heat to another title, the first of several during this threesome’s tenure.
Is it going to work? I honestly don’t know. Dwayne Wade and LeBron James are two very unselfish players so I think that they could coexist peacefully. The only question is how the locker room will react when they lose three or four games in a row.
If I was team president Pat Riley, I’d send these three along with head coach Erik Spoelstra somewhere remote where all they had was a gym and I would get the four of them to start game-planning how these three superstars are going to share just one basketball.
Before I get on to the meat of this article, I have to pay homage. Game 7 was a brawl. It was the type of game that I enjoyed playing in when I was in high school because while I never seemed to be able to find a shooting rhythm offensively, physical defense was one of my fortes so I loved watching the Lakers and Celtics trade body-blows for 48 minutes and yes, when all was said and done, the Lakers definitely deserved to win that game.
I’ve watched and followed a lot of great players come and go through the NBA over the past 18 years or so. I distinctly remember watching the Chicago Bulls and the Portland Trailblazers in the Finals, cheering for some guy named Clyde “The Glide” Drexler and watching him get beaten by Michael Jordan. Over the next five or six years I began to appreciate Michael Jordan for what he was and what he brought to his team every night. I watched every game of the NBA Finals after the Bulls won 72 games and then beat my Seattle Supersonics (they were mine at the time). I watched every game the next two years as two of my favorite players of the past twenty years, John Stockton and Karl Malone, tried to punch through the wall that nobody could get through between 1991-1993 and 1996-1998. I feel confident in saying that the Jazz would have won back to back titles in 1997 and 1998 if Jordan had been playing baseball; that team had everything.
Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Shaquille O’Neal, and (sigh) Kobe Bryant have been just a few of the magnificent players that have played in front of my eyes in the time I’ve been aware of the NBA. None of them could hold a candle to the physical gifts of one LeBron James.
Here’s a good way to look at it. Karl Malone, one of the best players in league history, was listed at 6’9” and 250 pounds. He had broad shoulders and was light on his feet but he was a forward. He wasn’t the type of guy that could scramble for a loose ball on the floor in front of the basket, rip it away from an opponent, and then elevate and throw down a two-handed stuff over the opposing shot-blocking center. He would still get two points out of the equation but he would leave you thinking “How can he make that shot right under the hoop when he’s only 6’9” and the opposing center is 7’2” and right next to him?” Trust me, I know because I had that thought I-don’t-know-how-many times in the mid to late 90’s.
By contrast, LeBron James is listed at 6’8” and 240 pounds. Just an inch shorter, just ten pounds lighter. James runs the floor like a point guard, light on his feet and ready to change direction at an instant’s notice. Once he gets the rim into the forefront of his mind, there is very little that you can do to stop him other than… no, I can’t really think of anything. Around the rim, he explodes with a size and strength (not to mention a 44” vertical) that few in NBA history have ever had.
Now that we’ve talked a bit about the meat of this post, it’s time to tackle the gristle. By that, of course, I mean “The Decision”.
Does the prospect of having LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh in the same uniform intrigue me? Absolutely. Does it interest me that all three took less money to play together? Not really because even though it’s been reported that they all left about $15 million on the table, the contracts are still worth roughly $105 million (for Wade) and $110 million (for James and Bosh). While a 12% discount may be significant in the NBA, it means nothing in the real world when it comes to sacrifice. If they wanted to make headlines about taking discounts, I would have loved the three of them to signed for $5 million a year and tell the general manager “go out and get all the pieces that you need to put around us so we can be the Celtics (60’s version) of this generation”. Did that happen? Nope.
Last year, James put forth a ridiculous line of 29.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 8.6 assists per game. Combining that with Wade’s 26.6-4.8-6.5 and Bosh’s 24.0-10.8-2.4 does make one wonder. How many times in league history has a team had three 20 point-per-game scorers on the same team? Very good question.
In the history of the NBA, a player has averaged 20 or more points per game 1,131 times, from Joe Fulks in the 1946-47 season (23.2 ppg) to the young superstars of today. The first set of teammates to score 20 points per game or more happened in the 1954-55 season when Neil Johnston (22.7) and Paul Arizin (21.0) accomplished the feat. Believe it or not, there have actually been 16 different sets of three teammates that have averaged over 20 points per game in the same season.
1959-60 St. Louis Hawks
Bob Pettit – 26.1
Cliff Hagan – 24.8
Clyde Lovellette – 20.8
1960-61 St. Louis Hawks
Bob Pettit – 27.9
Cliff Hagan – 22.1
Clyde Lovellette – 22.0
1966-1967 Boston Celtics
Sam Jones – 22.1
John Havilcek – 21.4
Bailey Howell – 20.0
1968-69 San Francisco Warriors
Jeff Mullins – 22.8
Nate Thurmond – 21.5
Rudy LaRusso – 20.7
1969-70 Chicago Bulls
Chet Walker – 21.5
Bob Love – 21.0
Clem Haskins – 20.3
1969-70 Phoenix Suns
Connie Hawkins – 24.6
Dick Van Arsdale – 21.3
Gail Goodrich – 20.0
1971-72 Golden State Warriors
Jeff Mullins – 21.5
Cazzie Russell – 21.4
Nate Thurmond – 21.4
1980-81 Denver Nuggets
David Thompson – 25.5
Alex English – 23.8
Dan Issel – 21.9
1981-82 Denver Nuggets
Alex English – 25.4
Dan Issel – 22.9
Kiki Vandeweghe – 21.5
1982-83 Denver Nuggets
Alex English – 28.4
Kiki Vandeweghe – 26.7
Dan Issel – 21.6
1983-84 Philadelphia 76ers
Moses Malone – 22.7
Julius Erving – 22.4
Andrew Toney – 20.4
1986-87 Seattle Supersonics
Dale Ellis – 24.9
Tom Chambers – 23.3
Xavier McDaniel – 23.0
1987-88 Seattle Supersonics
Dale Ellis – 25.8
Xavier McDaniel – 21.4
Tom Chambers – 20.4
1988-89 Phoenix Suns
Tom Chambers – 25.7
Eddie Johnson – 21.5
Kevin Johnson – 20.4
1990-91 Golden State Warriors
Chris Mullin – 25.7
Mitch Richmond – 23.9
Tim Hardaway – 22.9
2007-08 Golden State Warriors
Baron Davis – 21.8
Monta Ellis – 20.2
Stephen Jackson – 20.1
So in other words, having three good scorers actually share the ball isn’t unheard of. However, for the James-Wade-Bosh marriage, I only see two scenarios for how well it will work out.
1) The three of them start bickering about whose team it is and who deserves the most shots/points/dollars, etc. Halfway through the season Pat Riley realizes the magnitude of his mistake and retires. All three have decent statistical years but the Heat go 41-41 and miss the playoffs. Cleveland and Toronto rejoice while the rest of the league looks on in amusement at the situation in Miami.
2) With the addition of a big bruising, 7’, 300 pound center that can’t score worth a lick, Bosh is free to cherry-pick rebounds, outlet the ball to James, who sprints down the court with Wade and another 3-point shooter filling the lanes. Bosh averages 16-14, Wade averages 35-4-4, and James averages his triple double (25-10-12) as the Heat win 65 games. In the playoffs, they don’t change their style of play and keep running up and down the floor and the young legs of LeBron, Dwayne, and Chris (25, 28, and 25) carry the Heat to another title, the first of several during this threesome’s tenure.
Is it going to work? I honestly don’t know. Dwayne Wade and LeBron James are two very unselfish players so I think that they could coexist peacefully. The only question is how the locker room will react when they lose three or four games in a row.
If I was team president Pat Riley, I’d send these three along with head coach Erik Spoelstra somewhere remote where all they had was a gym and I would get the four of them to start game-planning how these three superstars are going to share just one basketball.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
John Wooden (1910-2010)
I never met John Wooden; I never spoke to him on the phone and most likely never spoke to anyone who has spoken to him and likely never will. Such is the measure of just how far-reaching his influence was when I am hardly the only person in the country today who grieves the loss of the Wizard who meets the above criteria.
He coached with a philosophy that was a generation out of touch with the 18-22 years olds of the 60’s and 70’s but he did what every coach these days dreams of; he got them to listen. The two stories that I remember the best about Coach Wooden were centered around the principle that nobody was bigger than the team and nobody was exempt from the rules.
From what I’ve heard, he used to spend half an hour at the first practice of the season teaching the players how to put socks on properly. He would say that if you didn’t learn, you could get a blister and not be able to play at your full ability (or at all) and therefore you’d be hurting the team.
He had a policy of no facial hair and no long hair and one could easily argue that this was a holdover from his generational beliefs. However, I heard a different reason for the policy; if you had long hair or facial hair and didn’t dry it properly after a shower, you could catch a cold because your head was wet and you would hurt the team. To the best of my knowledge it caused some friction only once. Bill Walton, who was a three time All-American (you must remember that freshmen didn’t play varsity basketball back then) and helped lead the Bruins to the 8th and 9th national championships of Wooden’s career, came to the team picture one year sporting a full beard. Coach Wooden pulled him aside and reminded him of the policy surrounding facial hair. Walton replied by saying that it was his right and he could grow a beard if he wanted to. Wooden replied by saying that he was glad that Walton was willing to stand up for his convictions and “we’re going to miss you’”. Walton was clean shaven in time for the picture.
How much of that would work today in men’s college basketball? I can only think of three coaches off the top of my head from the past twenty years that could have imposed policies and had players follow them without question and I guarantee you’ll recognize the names; Bob Knight, Dean Smith, and Mike Krzyzewski.
We live in a different era of professional sports where players have more power than coaches and sometimes more power than front office executives. This has led to a trickledown effect where college players believe they have more power than their coach because they can always leave and go to the NBA. Throughout the history of college basketball a coach’s biggest weapon was always the playing time of the star player, which he (the coach controlled). Unfortunately the trend has come full circle and in many cases the star players can to a certain extent dictate their terms to the coach because the coach is desperate for the star’s playing time.
Whether Coach Wooden likes it or not, for many people he was and always will be defined by what he did at UCLA and given how remarkable it really was, I’ll throw out a few numbers to appease the masses.
His career winning percentage was .804 (664-162) and that ranks fifth all-time behind Roy Williams (the only active coach ahead of him), Joe Hutton, Clair Bee, and Adolf Rupp.
His 664 career coaching victories rank “only” 16th all-time but you have to take that with a grain of salt because of the 15 coaches ahead of him, roughly half are either still coaching or have retired in the past decade or so. Why does that matter? Wooden coached more than 30 games in a season three times and in all three of those years, the Bruins played 31 games. The last time that Coach Krzyzewski coached as few as 31 games was in the 1995-1996 season. Since then, he’s coached 459 games over 13 years for an average of 35.3 games per year. More games equals more wins for the elite coaches of today’s game.
Through the first 15 seasons of his career, Coach Wooden was 285-125 for a winning percentage of .695, a mark that would be good enough for 75th all-time. In the final 12 years of his coaching career, his record was 335-22 for a winning percentage of .938 and I’m definitely willing to bet that no coach at the collegiate level has ever had a sustained run of success like that. By comparison, all-time wins leader Bob Knight’s best 12 year run was from the 1972-1973 season through the 1983-1984 season and his teams went 279-85, a winning percentage of .766. In all likelihood, the only other coach that won as many as 90% of his games over a 12 year period was none other than Adolf Rupp, who posted a .903 winning percentage from the 1943-1944 season through the 1955-1956 season.
To give you one last bit of perspective on the greatness that was John Wooden on the sideline, you have to look at the national championship picture. Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Adolf Rupp, and Mike Krzyzewski rank 1 through 4 on the all-time win list. Rupp, Knight, and Krzyzewski are three of the four coaches to have won three or more national championships (Coach Smith is one of the eight coaches to have won two national titles). Those four coaches combined to coach 154 seasons, win 3,525 games, and take home 13 national championships. Coach Wooden won 10 national titles (6 more than second place) and did it in a span of 12 years.
For all of his accomplishments on the court, those who knew him best can’t stop talking about his life off the court and his philosophies about life. They are what made him the coach he was and the person he was.
This seems an unfitting tribute to a man that I knew relatively little about but whose name will reverberate through history like few others in the realm of sports. I have always loved short quotations from various people so I’m going to end with a few from Coach Wooden himself.
- Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.
- If I am through learning, I am through.
- It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.
- You discipline those under your supervision to correct, to help, to improve – not to punish.
- What is right is more important than who is right.
- Much can be accomplished by teamwork when no one is concerned about who gets credit.
- Don’t permit fear of failure to prevent effort. We are all imperfect and will fail on occasions, but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.
John Wooden
October 14th, 1910 – June 4th, 2010
Rest In Peace
He coached with a philosophy that was a generation out of touch with the 18-22 years olds of the 60’s and 70’s but he did what every coach these days dreams of; he got them to listen. The two stories that I remember the best about Coach Wooden were centered around the principle that nobody was bigger than the team and nobody was exempt from the rules.
From what I’ve heard, he used to spend half an hour at the first practice of the season teaching the players how to put socks on properly. He would say that if you didn’t learn, you could get a blister and not be able to play at your full ability (or at all) and therefore you’d be hurting the team.
He had a policy of no facial hair and no long hair and one could easily argue that this was a holdover from his generational beliefs. However, I heard a different reason for the policy; if you had long hair or facial hair and didn’t dry it properly after a shower, you could catch a cold because your head was wet and you would hurt the team. To the best of my knowledge it caused some friction only once. Bill Walton, who was a three time All-American (you must remember that freshmen didn’t play varsity basketball back then) and helped lead the Bruins to the 8th and 9th national championships of Wooden’s career, came to the team picture one year sporting a full beard. Coach Wooden pulled him aside and reminded him of the policy surrounding facial hair. Walton replied by saying that it was his right and he could grow a beard if he wanted to. Wooden replied by saying that he was glad that Walton was willing to stand up for his convictions and “we’re going to miss you’”. Walton was clean shaven in time for the picture.
How much of that would work today in men’s college basketball? I can only think of three coaches off the top of my head from the past twenty years that could have imposed policies and had players follow them without question and I guarantee you’ll recognize the names; Bob Knight, Dean Smith, and Mike Krzyzewski.
We live in a different era of professional sports where players have more power than coaches and sometimes more power than front office executives. This has led to a trickledown effect where college players believe they have more power than their coach because they can always leave and go to the NBA. Throughout the history of college basketball a coach’s biggest weapon was always the playing time of the star player, which he (the coach controlled). Unfortunately the trend has come full circle and in many cases the star players can to a certain extent dictate their terms to the coach because the coach is desperate for the star’s playing time.
Whether Coach Wooden likes it or not, for many people he was and always will be defined by what he did at UCLA and given how remarkable it really was, I’ll throw out a few numbers to appease the masses.
His career winning percentage was .804 (664-162) and that ranks fifth all-time behind Roy Williams (the only active coach ahead of him), Joe Hutton, Clair Bee, and Adolf Rupp.
His 664 career coaching victories rank “only” 16th all-time but you have to take that with a grain of salt because of the 15 coaches ahead of him, roughly half are either still coaching or have retired in the past decade or so. Why does that matter? Wooden coached more than 30 games in a season three times and in all three of those years, the Bruins played 31 games. The last time that Coach Krzyzewski coached as few as 31 games was in the 1995-1996 season. Since then, he’s coached 459 games over 13 years for an average of 35.3 games per year. More games equals more wins for the elite coaches of today’s game.
Through the first 15 seasons of his career, Coach Wooden was 285-125 for a winning percentage of .695, a mark that would be good enough for 75th all-time. In the final 12 years of his coaching career, his record was 335-22 for a winning percentage of .938 and I’m definitely willing to bet that no coach at the collegiate level has ever had a sustained run of success like that. By comparison, all-time wins leader Bob Knight’s best 12 year run was from the 1972-1973 season through the 1983-1984 season and his teams went 279-85, a winning percentage of .766. In all likelihood, the only other coach that won as many as 90% of his games over a 12 year period was none other than Adolf Rupp, who posted a .903 winning percentage from the 1943-1944 season through the 1955-1956 season.
To give you one last bit of perspective on the greatness that was John Wooden on the sideline, you have to look at the national championship picture. Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Adolf Rupp, and Mike Krzyzewski rank 1 through 4 on the all-time win list. Rupp, Knight, and Krzyzewski are three of the four coaches to have won three or more national championships (Coach Smith is one of the eight coaches to have won two national titles). Those four coaches combined to coach 154 seasons, win 3,525 games, and take home 13 national championships. Coach Wooden won 10 national titles (6 more than second place) and did it in a span of 12 years.
For all of his accomplishments on the court, those who knew him best can’t stop talking about his life off the court and his philosophies about life. They are what made him the coach he was and the person he was.
This seems an unfitting tribute to a man that I knew relatively little about but whose name will reverberate through history like few others in the realm of sports. I have always loved short quotations from various people so I’m going to end with a few from Coach Wooden himself.
- Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.
- If I am through learning, I am through.
- It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.
- You discipline those under your supervision to correct, to help, to improve – not to punish.
- What is right is more important than who is right.
- Much can be accomplished by teamwork when no one is concerned about who gets credit.
- Don’t permit fear of failure to prevent effort. We are all imperfect and will fail on occasions, but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.
John Wooden
October 14th, 1910 – June 4th, 2010
Rest In Peace
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Starting Pitchers 2010 (Entry #5) - Cy Young Edition
So I didn’t write any this past weekend and I was way behind on keeping up with game logs but I think I have a pretty good excuse; I was in Washington surprising my dad for his birthday (Happy b-day again dad! It was a blast!).
Anyways, back to the starting pitchers, not of 2010 this time, but of every year from 1956 to 2009. Now that time period is not arbitrary; it marks the length of time that the Cy Young Award has been handed out at the end of each season, marking pitching excellence within that season. This posting is going to focus on 89 such pitchers. This number is less than two per season for two reasons; first, only one Cy Young Award was given the first few years and two, relievers can’t exactly get a Game Score as a starting pitcher…
89 starting pitchers have won the Cy Young Award for excellence in the past 54 years. The obvious question is who had the best single season as a pitcher? At this point most casual baseball fans and certainly all the hardcore fans will come up with a quick answer; Bob Gibson in 1968, also known as the Year of the Pitcher. Well, without drawing it out too much to artificially increase suspense, you’d be right if you guessed that. Gibson’s average GS over that entire season was 74.18. To give you an idea of just how good that is, so far this season (through May 22nd) there have been 79 games in which a starter posted a GS of 75 or better… out of 1300 games started thus far. In 1968, 19 of Gibson’s 34 starts topped 75 and four of them topped 90.
So that much was obvious. We had one of the most intimidating pitchers in the game’s history pitching from a mountain (as I’m sure 1968 National League hitters would describe the 15 inch mound with Gibson atop it) in a league where only five guys managed to hit above .300. Here’s a tougher question for you; who would be the second best in average GS amongst Cy Young winners?
Casual fans might be able to remember what this guy did to the American League at a time when home runs were flying out of the ballpark at an alarming rate. Hardcore fans should be able to remember that the guy who set the modern (post 1900) record for adjusted ERA+ was Pedro Martinez in 2000 with a mark of 291. That meant that his ERA, adjusted for park factors and the era in which he played, was 191% better (almost three times as good) than the average pitcher. The ERA of Major League Baseball was 4.77 and Pedro’s was 1.74.
Before I go into some more in-depth analysis of these numbers, I want to pause, as I always do, for some completely trivial notes.
- Most wins in a Cy Young season? 31 by Denny McLain in 1968
- Fewest wins in a Cy Young season? 13 by Fernando Valenzuela in the strike shortened 1981 season
- Most strikeouts per start? 10.63 by Randy Johnson in 2001 (372 in 249.2 innings), narrowly edging Pedro Martinez in 1999 (10.55)
- Fewest strikeouts per start? 2.33 by Randy Jones (93 in 315.1 innings)
- Most walks per start? 4.13 by Bob Turley in 1958 (128 in 244.1 IP)
- Fewest walks? 0.82 by Greg Maddux (what a shocker) in 1995 (23 in 209.2 IP)
- Most IP per start? 8.96 by Bob Gibson in 1968 (304.2 IP in 34 starts)
- Fewest IP per start? 6.49 by Roger Clemens in 2004 (214.1 IP in 33 starts)
Now, back to seriousness. In other words, what does all this data mean? I have a feeling that in the end, we’ll discover that even though Game Score is a good overall metric in boiling down an entire start to one number, but there are certain areas where it lacks credibility.
For instance, Bob Gibson had the best average GS in a Cy Young winning season at 74.18 but was his performance in the summer of 1968 the most dominating Cy Young performance in the history of the award? Humbly, I would say no. Those of you who know me know that Bob Gibson is one of my all-time favorite baseball players so it’s incredibly hard for me to say this but I believe it to be true. So why, if he didn’t have the most dominating season ever, did he end up at the top of the heap in the average GS rankings? Because of two words; innings pitched. In ’68, he pitched in 34 games. If he threw 9 innings in every start, that works out to 306 innings pitched. In that season, he missed that total by four outs by throwing 304.2 innings. This is important because the formula for GS rewards you for every out you record with one point and then another two points for every complete inning after the fourth. If you throw 9 innings, you’ll have a GS of 87 before you take into account how good those 9 innings were, as opposed to a 6 inning start where you’re starting from a GS of 72.
Therefore, the easiest way to minimize the impact of innings pitched is simply to take it out of the equation and reward pitchers for their rates per inning. So, to minimize the effect of Gibson throwing so many innings in 1968, I simply prorated all of their stats for a complete game and then recalculated their GS. Obviously, artificially increasing their innings pitched increased their Game Scores but it also showed who did the overall best in allowing the fewest hits, runs, earned runs, and walks, while maximizing their strikeouts.
Not surprisingly, of the ten pitchers most helped by this adjustment, 9 of them were in the past ten years and the lone exception was Pedro Martinez’s season in 1999. To state the obvious again, Bob Gibson’s 1968 season was the least helped by this method since he was already averaging 8.96 innings per start in that season (I’m sorry, I just can’t get over that particular stat).
So, what were the results of this adjustment? Well, Bob Gibson’s 1968 season plummeted from the number 1 spot all the way to the number 2 spot… so yes, he was superb throughout that season. He just wasn’t the best of the Cy Young era. That distinction goes to Pedro Martinez’s 2000 season and the side by side comparison of the two is quite interesting. Gibson allowed more hits per start than Pedro (5.82-4.41) while Pedro allowed more runs (1.52-1.44) and more earned runs (1.45-1.12). The stark difference lies in the fact that Pedro walked only 1.10 batters per start (to Gibson’s mark of 1.82) and he also struck out 9.79 batters per start against Gibson’s 7.88. The only reason Pedro wasn’t on top from the beginning was because he averaged ONLY 7.48 innings per start. Gibson pitched at least 9 innings 26 times and in 4 of those games, he pitched more than 10 innings. Martinez pitched 9 innings just 6 times and never went beyond those 27 outs.
On that last note, I’d like to throw a shout out to one of the most unsung pitching performances in the history of baseball; Steve Carlton’s 1972 season for the abysmal Philles. He went 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA, pitching 30 complete games (8 shutouts) and striking out 310 in 346.1 innings. Why then, with his average GS of 68.44 (good for 9th best) does he deserve this shout out? The Phillies went 59-97 in that season. I’m going to let you do a little math so that can sink in… no, no math?
Ok, no biggie, I already did the math. Every other pitcher on the Phillies staff combined to go 32-87 with a 4.23 ERA and a WHIP of 1.43 versus Carlton’s numbers of 27-10, 1.97, and 0.99. Just how many games would he have won if he played for a contender?
So in conclusion, who among today’s pitchers are stacking up to this historic standard set by former Cy Young Award winners? For ease (more rigorous calculations will be forthcoming in this space) I simply took the top ten starters in ERA. As of now, their average GS are;
69.90 – Ubaldo Jimenez
64.40 – Adam Wainwright
62.56 – Jaime Garcia
61.70 – Roy Oswalt (who sports a lovely 3-6 record)
60.80 – Roy Halladay
59.33 – John Danks (the first AL pitcher on the list)
59.11 – Doug Fister
58.67 – Tim Hudson
57.78 – Livan Hernandez
55.70 – Jon Garland
Interesting food for thought and most definitely, updates in the realm of average GS will be frequent as the season goes on.
That’s all for right now sports fans. I haven’t quite decided what my next column is going to entail but I’m thinking something to do with unbreakable records and what it would actually take to break them in this day and age…
Until next time, I leave you with this couplet, one of my favorites and one that has seen me through many dark times:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Anyways, back to the starting pitchers, not of 2010 this time, but of every year from 1956 to 2009. Now that time period is not arbitrary; it marks the length of time that the Cy Young Award has been handed out at the end of each season, marking pitching excellence within that season. This posting is going to focus on 89 such pitchers. This number is less than two per season for two reasons; first, only one Cy Young Award was given the first few years and two, relievers can’t exactly get a Game Score as a starting pitcher…
89 starting pitchers have won the Cy Young Award for excellence in the past 54 years. The obvious question is who had the best single season as a pitcher? At this point most casual baseball fans and certainly all the hardcore fans will come up with a quick answer; Bob Gibson in 1968, also known as the Year of the Pitcher. Well, without drawing it out too much to artificially increase suspense, you’d be right if you guessed that. Gibson’s average GS over that entire season was 74.18. To give you an idea of just how good that is, so far this season (through May 22nd) there have been 79 games in which a starter posted a GS of 75 or better… out of 1300 games started thus far. In 1968, 19 of Gibson’s 34 starts topped 75 and four of them topped 90.
So that much was obvious. We had one of the most intimidating pitchers in the game’s history pitching from a mountain (as I’m sure 1968 National League hitters would describe the 15 inch mound with Gibson atop it) in a league where only five guys managed to hit above .300. Here’s a tougher question for you; who would be the second best in average GS amongst Cy Young winners?
Casual fans might be able to remember what this guy did to the American League at a time when home runs were flying out of the ballpark at an alarming rate. Hardcore fans should be able to remember that the guy who set the modern (post 1900) record for adjusted ERA+ was Pedro Martinez in 2000 with a mark of 291. That meant that his ERA, adjusted for park factors and the era in which he played, was 191% better (almost three times as good) than the average pitcher. The ERA of Major League Baseball was 4.77 and Pedro’s was 1.74.
Before I go into some more in-depth analysis of these numbers, I want to pause, as I always do, for some completely trivial notes.
- Most wins in a Cy Young season? 31 by Denny McLain in 1968
- Fewest wins in a Cy Young season? 13 by Fernando Valenzuela in the strike shortened 1981 season
- Most strikeouts per start? 10.63 by Randy Johnson in 2001 (372 in 249.2 innings), narrowly edging Pedro Martinez in 1999 (10.55)
- Fewest strikeouts per start? 2.33 by Randy Jones (93 in 315.1 innings)
- Most walks per start? 4.13 by Bob Turley in 1958 (128 in 244.1 IP)
- Fewest walks? 0.82 by Greg Maddux (what a shocker) in 1995 (23 in 209.2 IP)
- Most IP per start? 8.96 by Bob Gibson in 1968 (304.2 IP in 34 starts)
- Fewest IP per start? 6.49 by Roger Clemens in 2004 (214.1 IP in 33 starts)
Now, back to seriousness. In other words, what does all this data mean? I have a feeling that in the end, we’ll discover that even though Game Score is a good overall metric in boiling down an entire start to one number, but there are certain areas where it lacks credibility.
For instance, Bob Gibson had the best average GS in a Cy Young winning season at 74.18 but was his performance in the summer of 1968 the most dominating Cy Young performance in the history of the award? Humbly, I would say no. Those of you who know me know that Bob Gibson is one of my all-time favorite baseball players so it’s incredibly hard for me to say this but I believe it to be true. So why, if he didn’t have the most dominating season ever, did he end up at the top of the heap in the average GS rankings? Because of two words; innings pitched. In ’68, he pitched in 34 games. If he threw 9 innings in every start, that works out to 306 innings pitched. In that season, he missed that total by four outs by throwing 304.2 innings. This is important because the formula for GS rewards you for every out you record with one point and then another two points for every complete inning after the fourth. If you throw 9 innings, you’ll have a GS of 87 before you take into account how good those 9 innings were, as opposed to a 6 inning start where you’re starting from a GS of 72.
Therefore, the easiest way to minimize the impact of innings pitched is simply to take it out of the equation and reward pitchers for their rates per inning. So, to minimize the effect of Gibson throwing so many innings in 1968, I simply prorated all of their stats for a complete game and then recalculated their GS. Obviously, artificially increasing their innings pitched increased their Game Scores but it also showed who did the overall best in allowing the fewest hits, runs, earned runs, and walks, while maximizing their strikeouts.
Not surprisingly, of the ten pitchers most helped by this adjustment, 9 of them were in the past ten years and the lone exception was Pedro Martinez’s season in 1999. To state the obvious again, Bob Gibson’s 1968 season was the least helped by this method since he was already averaging 8.96 innings per start in that season (I’m sorry, I just can’t get over that particular stat).
So, what were the results of this adjustment? Well, Bob Gibson’s 1968 season plummeted from the number 1 spot all the way to the number 2 spot… so yes, he was superb throughout that season. He just wasn’t the best of the Cy Young era. That distinction goes to Pedro Martinez’s 2000 season and the side by side comparison of the two is quite interesting. Gibson allowed more hits per start than Pedro (5.82-4.41) while Pedro allowed more runs (1.52-1.44) and more earned runs (1.45-1.12). The stark difference lies in the fact that Pedro walked only 1.10 batters per start (to Gibson’s mark of 1.82) and he also struck out 9.79 batters per start against Gibson’s 7.88. The only reason Pedro wasn’t on top from the beginning was because he averaged ONLY 7.48 innings per start. Gibson pitched at least 9 innings 26 times and in 4 of those games, he pitched more than 10 innings. Martinez pitched 9 innings just 6 times and never went beyond those 27 outs.
On that last note, I’d like to throw a shout out to one of the most unsung pitching performances in the history of baseball; Steve Carlton’s 1972 season for the abysmal Philles. He went 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA, pitching 30 complete games (8 shutouts) and striking out 310 in 346.1 innings. Why then, with his average GS of 68.44 (good for 9th best) does he deserve this shout out? The Phillies went 59-97 in that season. I’m going to let you do a little math so that can sink in… no, no math?
Ok, no biggie, I already did the math. Every other pitcher on the Phillies staff combined to go 32-87 with a 4.23 ERA and a WHIP of 1.43 versus Carlton’s numbers of 27-10, 1.97, and 0.99. Just how many games would he have won if he played for a contender?
So in conclusion, who among today’s pitchers are stacking up to this historic standard set by former Cy Young Award winners? For ease (more rigorous calculations will be forthcoming in this space) I simply took the top ten starters in ERA. As of now, their average GS are;
69.90 – Ubaldo Jimenez
64.40 – Adam Wainwright
62.56 – Jaime Garcia
61.70 – Roy Oswalt (who sports a lovely 3-6 record)
60.80 – Roy Halladay
59.33 – John Danks (the first AL pitcher on the list)
59.11 – Doug Fister
58.67 – Tim Hudson
57.78 – Livan Hernandez
55.70 – Jon Garland
Interesting food for thought and most definitely, updates in the realm of average GS will be frequent as the season goes on.
That’s all for right now sports fans. I haven’t quite decided what my next column is going to entail but I’m thinking something to do with unbreakable records and what it would actually take to break them in this day and age…
Until next time, I leave you with this couplet, one of my favorites and one that has seen me through many dark times:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Monday, May 17, 2010
Starting Pitchers 2010 (Entry #4) - Perfection
So again, some of you may notice that I am being less than consistent with what I wanted to be a “weekly” item in this space. However, that ship sailed because there are many wonderful things going on in my life that don’t include strikeouts or game scores or perfection.
However, in my defense, last week ago, my better half had her appendix removed over the weekend so understandably, this column got forgotten. Then last Saturday, my better half and I adopted what is quite possibly the cutest puppy that exists in the world, an adorable 10-week old German Shepherd/Chow Chow mix. So this column got delayed yet again.
NEWS FROM LAST WEEK
On April 17th, Ubaldo Jimenez pitched a no-hitter (more about this later), setting the bar at 88 for highest GS of the season. He held the top spot for 13 days, when Colby Lewis threw 9 shutout innings for a GS of 90 in a no-decision. That was the only GS at or above 90 in the first five weeks of the season. Last week, there were 3 games with a starter earning a GS of 90 or above.
First, Dallas Braden retired 27 Rays batters in order without allowing a baserunner of any kind. Yes, for those of you who read this blog but haven’t been paying attention to baseball recently, he threw the 19th perfect game in Major League Baseball history (more on this later as well). Then, two days later, Johnny Cueto of the Reds came within one measly single of another perfect game. His 9.0-1-0-0-0-8 line also earned him a GS of 93, matching Braden’s mark. Another two days later, Mat Latos of the Padres earned a GS of 91 with a 9.0-1-0-0-0-6 line. Not sure where this is
I’m not sure what is in the water guys are drinking these days but we are being treated to overall better starting pitching so far in May than we were in April. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Two more notes before I move on to the theme for this edition of Starting Pitchers 2010; Brett Cecil of the Blue Jays put forth the worst performance by a starting pitcher this week, earning (I use the term lightly) a GS of 8 (2.0-8-8-8-2-2). However, he didn’t get a win or a loss, since opposing starter Rich Harden allowed 7 runs over 2.2 innings (GS – 19).
Lastly, the Giants owe their most sincere apologies to Jonathon Sanchez. On May 13th, he put forth a line of 8.0-3-1-1-1-5 for a GS of 76… and he got a loss for his trouble. This is the second time that Sanchez has had a GS of over 75 and received a loss (78 on April 20th). Sanchez is so far the only pitcher to lose a game with a GS over 72 and he’s done it twice. Anyways, back to May 13th… on that day Mat Latos threw a shut-out, thus continuing the woes of the Giants whenever some guy named Sanchez starts the game.
FUN WITH PERFECTION (KINDA…)
Since we’ve had two no-hitters this year, I decided to go some digging on that very subject. For reasons that I won’t list here, the only no-hit games that I was able to investigate were those starting in the 1952 season. I didn’t look up how many that left out so don’t ask; it still gave me a pool of 139 no-hitters and 14 perfect games from which to draw conclusions… or at least interesting tidbits.
Highest GS?
On September 9th, 1965, Sandy Koufax threw the fourth and final no-hitter of his illustrious career. He threw a perfect game and struck out 14 for a GS of 101. Matching that feat was Nolan Ryan, who didn’t allow a hit to the Blue Jays on May 1st, 1991. Ryan walked 2 and struck out 16 in what would also be his last (of 7) career no-hitter.
Lowest GS?
55 by Roy Oswalt in 2003. Now, you might be asking yourself how he got such a low score in a no-hitter. Well, he pitched only one inning. The Astros used Oswalt and five relievers in that no-hitter and Oswalt was the starter that night. Anyways, in the spirit of the question, the lowest GS in a 9-inning no-hitter was achieved by Joe Cowley in 1985, George Culver in 1968, and Ken Holtzman in 1969, all of whom earned a GS of 84. Cowley was one of three pitchers to allow an earned run in a no-hitter (9.0-0-1-1-7-8), Culver was one of the other 7 to allow a run of any kind (9.0-0-1-0-5-4), and Holtzman achieved his relatively low GS by not striking out a single batter (9.0-0-0-0-3-0).
Most Walks in a No-Hitter?
10, by Steve Barber in 1967 and Jim Maloney in 1965. The biggest difference is while Barber couldn’t get the last out of his no-hitter (8.2-0-2-1-10-3), Maloney managed to be the only pitcher since 1952 to throw a no-hitter and record more than 27 outs (10.0-0-0-0-10-12).
Most Strikeouts in a No-Hitter?
5 times has a pitcher allowed no hits and struck out 15 or more batters and Nolan Ryan did it three times. Ryan put together a line of 9.0-0-0-0-4-17 in 1973 (100) and a line of 9.0-0-0-0-2-16 (101) in 1991. After that, Ryan (9.0-0-0-0-8-15), Don Wilson (9.0-0-0-0-3-15), and Warren Spahn (9.0-0-0-0-2-15) have all struck out 15 batters in a no-hitter.
So where do Jimenez and Braden rank (by GS) amongst these performances? Ubaldo Jimenez’s no-hitter produced the 116th highest GS out of 139 games, mostly due to his 6 walks, tied for 12th highest amongst no-hitters.
Braden’s perfecto ranks 63rd, largely due to the fact that he “only” struck out 6 batters. By comparison, in the 14 perfects games since 1952, the starter has averaged 9.2 strikeouts and only Mark Buehrle (6) and Dennis Martinez (5) struck out as few batters as Braden.
Lastly, those 139 no-hitters produced an average GS of 89.1, with an average line of 8.8-0.0-0.1-0.0-2.8-7.5.
That’s all for this installment ladies and gentlemen, but next up, I’m going to examine Cy Young award winners by average GS over the course of their Cy Young winning season. Out of curiosity, who do you think will be highest?
However, in my defense, last week ago, my better half had her appendix removed over the weekend so understandably, this column got forgotten. Then last Saturday, my better half and I adopted what is quite possibly the cutest puppy that exists in the world, an adorable 10-week old German Shepherd/Chow Chow mix. So this column got delayed yet again.
NEWS FROM LAST WEEK
On April 17th, Ubaldo Jimenez pitched a no-hitter (more about this later), setting the bar at 88 for highest GS of the season. He held the top spot for 13 days, when Colby Lewis threw 9 shutout innings for a GS of 90 in a no-decision. That was the only GS at or above 90 in the first five weeks of the season. Last week, there were 3 games with a starter earning a GS of 90 or above.
First, Dallas Braden retired 27 Rays batters in order without allowing a baserunner of any kind. Yes, for those of you who read this blog but haven’t been paying attention to baseball recently, he threw the 19th perfect game in Major League Baseball history (more on this later as well). Then, two days later, Johnny Cueto of the Reds came within one measly single of another perfect game. His 9.0-1-0-0-0-8 line also earned him a GS of 93, matching Braden’s mark. Another two days later, Mat Latos of the Padres earned a GS of 91 with a 9.0-1-0-0-0-6 line. Not sure where this is
I’m not sure what is in the water guys are drinking these days but we are being treated to overall better starting pitching so far in May than we were in April. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Two more notes before I move on to the theme for this edition of Starting Pitchers 2010; Brett Cecil of the Blue Jays put forth the worst performance by a starting pitcher this week, earning (I use the term lightly) a GS of 8 (2.0-8-8-8-2-2). However, he didn’t get a win or a loss, since opposing starter Rich Harden allowed 7 runs over 2.2 innings (GS – 19).
Lastly, the Giants owe their most sincere apologies to Jonathon Sanchez. On May 13th, he put forth a line of 8.0-3-1-1-1-5 for a GS of 76… and he got a loss for his trouble. This is the second time that Sanchez has had a GS of over 75 and received a loss (78 on April 20th). Sanchez is so far the only pitcher to lose a game with a GS over 72 and he’s done it twice. Anyways, back to May 13th… on that day Mat Latos threw a shut-out, thus continuing the woes of the Giants whenever some guy named Sanchez starts the game.
FUN WITH PERFECTION (KINDA…)
Since we’ve had two no-hitters this year, I decided to go some digging on that very subject. For reasons that I won’t list here, the only no-hit games that I was able to investigate were those starting in the 1952 season. I didn’t look up how many that left out so don’t ask; it still gave me a pool of 139 no-hitters and 14 perfect games from which to draw conclusions… or at least interesting tidbits.
Highest GS?
On September 9th, 1965, Sandy Koufax threw the fourth and final no-hitter of his illustrious career. He threw a perfect game and struck out 14 for a GS of 101. Matching that feat was Nolan Ryan, who didn’t allow a hit to the Blue Jays on May 1st, 1991. Ryan walked 2 and struck out 16 in what would also be his last (of 7) career no-hitter.
Lowest GS?
55 by Roy Oswalt in 2003. Now, you might be asking yourself how he got such a low score in a no-hitter. Well, he pitched only one inning. The Astros used Oswalt and five relievers in that no-hitter and Oswalt was the starter that night. Anyways, in the spirit of the question, the lowest GS in a 9-inning no-hitter was achieved by Joe Cowley in 1985, George Culver in 1968, and Ken Holtzman in 1969, all of whom earned a GS of 84. Cowley was one of three pitchers to allow an earned run in a no-hitter (9.0-0-1-1-7-8), Culver was one of the other 7 to allow a run of any kind (9.0-0-1-0-5-4), and Holtzman achieved his relatively low GS by not striking out a single batter (9.0-0-0-0-3-0).
Most Walks in a No-Hitter?
10, by Steve Barber in 1967 and Jim Maloney in 1965. The biggest difference is while Barber couldn’t get the last out of his no-hitter (8.2-0-2-1-10-3), Maloney managed to be the only pitcher since 1952 to throw a no-hitter and record more than 27 outs (10.0-0-0-0-10-12).
Most Strikeouts in a No-Hitter?
5 times has a pitcher allowed no hits and struck out 15 or more batters and Nolan Ryan did it three times. Ryan put together a line of 9.0-0-0-0-4-17 in 1973 (100) and a line of 9.0-0-0-0-2-16 (101) in 1991. After that, Ryan (9.0-0-0-0-8-15), Don Wilson (9.0-0-0-0-3-15), and Warren Spahn (9.0-0-0-0-2-15) have all struck out 15 batters in a no-hitter.
So where do Jimenez and Braden rank (by GS) amongst these performances? Ubaldo Jimenez’s no-hitter produced the 116th highest GS out of 139 games, mostly due to his 6 walks, tied for 12th highest amongst no-hitters.
Braden’s perfecto ranks 63rd, largely due to the fact that he “only” struck out 6 batters. By comparison, in the 14 perfects games since 1952, the starter has averaged 9.2 strikeouts and only Mark Buehrle (6) and Dennis Martinez (5) struck out as few batters as Braden.
Lastly, those 139 no-hitters produced an average GS of 89.1, with an average line of 8.8-0.0-0.1-0.0-2.8-7.5.
That’s all for this installment ladies and gentlemen, but next up, I’m going to examine Cy Young award winners by average GS over the course of their Cy Young winning season. Out of curiosity, who do you think will be highest?
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Starting Pitchers 2010 (Entry #3) - April Edition
Unfortunately, this is only entry #3 and not #4, as it should be. I’d make some excuse for why I didn’t finish my entry last week except… well, it’d probably be a lame excuse and I can’t remember anyways.
But enough of that! This week ended the month of April and that means we have added inane statistical analysis to do, finding meaning out of a jumble of number (ok meaning might be going a bit too far but we are searching for patterns).
Before any of you who are looking at a calendar write in and yell at me for what I’m about to do, I realize that the first day of May is included with all of these April games. In short, I don’t care. I’m probably going to try to do something along these lines every month and by that I mean every four weeks. If a couple days worth of games get lumped into a different month, so be it.
Without further adieu, on to the games!
In the first three weeks of the regular season, the highest GS was 88 (Ubaldo Jimenez’s no-hitter) and the lowest was 8 (Jeremy Bonderman’s bomb against Seattle). It seemed as if that lower number was unattainable, as five different pitchers had put up a GS of 9 but nobody had matched Bonderman’s ineptitude on the 16th of April… until this week, that is. Joel Pineiro posted a GS of 2 (3.1-10-10-9-1-1) and Luke Hochevar put up a GS of -1 (2.1-11-9-9-2-1) but neither matched what Edwin Jackson of the Diamondbacks did against the Rockies. He recorded 7 outs and allowed 10 earned runs on 11 hits with a pair of walks and strikeouts. The dismal 2.1-11-10-10-2-2 line gave him a Game Score of -5, a new low for the season.
On the flip side of the coin, we were treated to the best combined pitcher’s duel yet this season by quite a wide margin. On one side, former Cy Young winner Cliff Lee came back from his abdominal strain and posted a very strong first outing of the season, with a 7.0-3-0-0-0-8 line and a GS of 79. Unfortunately for Lee, he was unable to win his first start of the season because Colby Lewis of the Rangers was even better. He pitched 9 shutout innings, allowing 3 hits, walking one and striking out 10, for a GS of 90, the best mark to date this season. To sum up the game, neither offense could scratch across a run until the 12th inning so the two starting pitchers, who combined for a GS of 169, both got a no-decision.
The Rangers offense should be particularly embarrassed on Lewis’ behalf because of the 18 other starting pitchers who have combined for 19 starts with a GS over 80 (Roy Halladay is the only pitcher with two such starts), Lewis is the only one who did not receive a W for his gem.
In the interest of completeness, I must mention the other side of the spectrum. If you are a fan or family member of Pirates pitcher Charlie Morton, please look away now. 35 pitchers have combined to throw 36 games with a GS under 20 and yes, Charlie Morton is the only one to do it twice (15 and 17). Miraculously, seven of the pitchers with a GS this low did not receive a loss, including Josh Beckett, who posted a GS of 9 and still didn’t take the loss. Of course, this was largely due to the fact that the Red Sox offense forced Blue Jays starter Dana Eveland into a GS of 15 (Eveland also received a no-decision). Not that I mean to add more insult to injury, but that combined GS of 24 is the lowest so far this year.
To recap, the first month of the season is over and instead of highlighting individuals as I did last week, I’m going to highlight teams this week. On that note, I would like to apologize to Roy Halladay, who posted a GS of 42 right after I praised his amazing performance so far this year. My guilt was significantly diminished, however, when in his next start, he threw a 3-hit shutout against the Mets and had a season high in GS (86). But enough of that, on to the teams. I am willing to bet that if I gave you ten guesses, you could not get the team that leads the league in starter’s ERA. Nope, not the Yankees (they rank 7th). Not the Phillies either (11th). Three teams have starting pitchers with a combined ERA under 3 and they are the Rays (2.76), the Cardinals (2.67), and the Giants (2.43), largely due to their two-time Cy Young winner (Lincecum) and their former Cy Young winner (Zito) who remembered how to pitch like one. On the other end, the Reds are 29th in starter’s ERA at 5.64, but they have a long way to go to catch the Pirates, whose starters are allowing 7.42 earned runs per 9 innings (not that they have any complete games or anything…). Not surprisingly, the Giants (61.3), Rays (57.8), and Cardinals (57.3) rank 1-2-3 in average GS as well and the Reds (43.5) and Pirates (36.2) rank 29th and 30th.
A few more statistical oddities before I sign off for the day…
Is there an advantage to being in your home ballpark and being able to get ready to pitch in your clubhouse, your bullpen, etc.?
In principle, I’m willing to go as far as maybe but statistically, there is a slight edge in GS between pitching at home versus on the road (49.8-47.0). The margins in other metrics are much more pronounced, as pitchers at home have a better record (126-107 vs. 114-124), a better ERA (4.00-4.58), and a better WHIP (1.31-1.44).
How important is it for a starting pitcher to throw at least 6 innings, in this day and age?
This is by far the most subjective of any question that I will ask with the intention of immediately answering (at least today). How much does it matter? A lot of that depends on the individual manager. A manager with a notoriously quick hook is probably going to have a bullpen full of robust arms that can go out there and get anywhere from 3-6 outs every other day. On his team, his bullpen is more important than his rotation. If you were cursed with the same affliction as former Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly in 2001, the bottom of your rotation wasn’t terribly important because your bullpen was rested from the days when Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling took the hill.
This year thus far, pitchers have lasted at least 6 innings 445 times and have failed to reach that mark 275 times. The former group is 201-94 with a 2.75 ERA, a 1.12 WHIP, and an average GS of 57.4. The latter group has marks of 39-137, 8.00, 1.99, and 35.0 for those statistical categories. I’m not saying that if you automatically leave a pitcher in for six innings, his numbers will start to look a lot better. All I’m saying is if you look at the average line of the starters for the Tampa Bay Rays (6.4-5.2-2.0-2.0-2.3-5.4), it’s no wonder that this team is 17-7 even before you look at their bullpen, their defense, or their offense.
Just how important are strikeouts?
This is one question where the answer blatantly contradicts the small amount of data that I analyzed. First, the numbers. Pitchers who have averaged at least a strikeout per inning had a higher average GS than those who didn’t (52.0-46.8). Pitchers who struck out at least 10 batters had an average GS much higher than the overall average (71.9-48.4) and in the 25 games where a pitcher has at least 10 strikeouts, those pitchers are 17-2 with a 1.78 ERA.
Secondly, the analysis. Right off the bat, this is a bad metric to use when you are comparing different types of pitchers. Randy Johnson will always have a leg up on Greg Maddux in the land of GS because strikeouts give you a point and groundouts do not. In 1994, Greg Maddux was 16-6 with an ERA of 1.56 and his average GS was 68.9. In 2001, Randy Johnson went 21-6 with a 2.49 ERA and an average GS of 67.5. Despite his ERA being nearly a run lower and his WHIP being over 10% better (0.896-1.009), his average GS was just under 1.5 points better. Why is that? Because Randy Johnson average 10.6 strikeouts per start and Maddux averaged 6.2. If you take that one stat out of the GS calculation, the margin in average GS goes to 5.8 (62.7-56.9).
Thirdly, the verdict, how important are strikeouts? Well, an out is an out. Strikeouts are also the play that make it the most difficult to reach base. The only way to reach base is through a dropped third strike, which doesn’t happen very often. I would say that strikeouts by themselves are not important. Ground balls and fly balls keep the defense in the game and oftentimes, the best defense is played behind a pitcher that puts the ball in play. However, the ability to get a strikeout when you really need one is very important and in my opinion is one of the biggest differences between minor league pitchers and major league pitchers.
Men at second and third, one out, bottom of the 8th inning, up 3-2. A fly ball has the potential to turn into a sacrifice fly or even worse, a two-run error. A ground ball has the potential to score a run as well and if the play is botched, it can score two runs. Both of those scenarios have a worst case of the score going from 3-2 ahead to 4-3 behind. If you have the ability to strike out a batter when you really need it, the best case is an out where nobody can advance. That way there are two outs and the only way those runners can score is by a hit or an error. The worst case scenario is a wild pitch or a passed ball and in that case only one run will score and the tie can be preserved. The ability to make a pitch on command and strike the batter out is far more important than whether or not you average a certain number of strikeouts per inning or per game.
Well, that’s all for this week ladies and gentlemen but stay tuned, as I’ll be back next week with more trivial statistical nonsense next week (unless I forget).
But enough of that! This week ended the month of April and that means we have added inane statistical analysis to do, finding meaning out of a jumble of number (ok meaning might be going a bit too far but we are searching for patterns).
Before any of you who are looking at a calendar write in and yell at me for what I’m about to do, I realize that the first day of May is included with all of these April games. In short, I don’t care. I’m probably going to try to do something along these lines every month and by that I mean every four weeks. If a couple days worth of games get lumped into a different month, so be it.
Without further adieu, on to the games!
In the first three weeks of the regular season, the highest GS was 88 (Ubaldo Jimenez’s no-hitter) and the lowest was 8 (Jeremy Bonderman’s bomb against Seattle). It seemed as if that lower number was unattainable, as five different pitchers had put up a GS of 9 but nobody had matched Bonderman’s ineptitude on the 16th of April… until this week, that is. Joel Pineiro posted a GS of 2 (3.1-10-10-9-1-1) and Luke Hochevar put up a GS of -1 (2.1-11-9-9-2-1) but neither matched what Edwin Jackson of the Diamondbacks did against the Rockies. He recorded 7 outs and allowed 10 earned runs on 11 hits with a pair of walks and strikeouts. The dismal 2.1-11-10-10-2-2 line gave him a Game Score of -5, a new low for the season.
On the flip side of the coin, we were treated to the best combined pitcher’s duel yet this season by quite a wide margin. On one side, former Cy Young winner Cliff Lee came back from his abdominal strain and posted a very strong first outing of the season, with a 7.0-3-0-0-0-8 line and a GS of 79. Unfortunately for Lee, he was unable to win his first start of the season because Colby Lewis of the Rangers was even better. He pitched 9 shutout innings, allowing 3 hits, walking one and striking out 10, for a GS of 90, the best mark to date this season. To sum up the game, neither offense could scratch across a run until the 12th inning so the two starting pitchers, who combined for a GS of 169, both got a no-decision.
The Rangers offense should be particularly embarrassed on Lewis’ behalf because of the 18 other starting pitchers who have combined for 19 starts with a GS over 80 (Roy Halladay is the only pitcher with two such starts), Lewis is the only one who did not receive a W for his gem.
In the interest of completeness, I must mention the other side of the spectrum. If you are a fan or family member of Pirates pitcher Charlie Morton, please look away now. 35 pitchers have combined to throw 36 games with a GS under 20 and yes, Charlie Morton is the only one to do it twice (15 and 17). Miraculously, seven of the pitchers with a GS this low did not receive a loss, including Josh Beckett, who posted a GS of 9 and still didn’t take the loss. Of course, this was largely due to the fact that the Red Sox offense forced Blue Jays starter Dana Eveland into a GS of 15 (Eveland also received a no-decision). Not that I mean to add more insult to injury, but that combined GS of 24 is the lowest so far this year.
To recap, the first month of the season is over and instead of highlighting individuals as I did last week, I’m going to highlight teams this week. On that note, I would like to apologize to Roy Halladay, who posted a GS of 42 right after I praised his amazing performance so far this year. My guilt was significantly diminished, however, when in his next start, he threw a 3-hit shutout against the Mets and had a season high in GS (86). But enough of that, on to the teams. I am willing to bet that if I gave you ten guesses, you could not get the team that leads the league in starter’s ERA. Nope, not the Yankees (they rank 7th). Not the Phillies either (11th). Three teams have starting pitchers with a combined ERA under 3 and they are the Rays (2.76), the Cardinals (2.67), and the Giants (2.43), largely due to their two-time Cy Young winner (Lincecum) and their former Cy Young winner (Zito) who remembered how to pitch like one. On the other end, the Reds are 29th in starter’s ERA at 5.64, but they have a long way to go to catch the Pirates, whose starters are allowing 7.42 earned runs per 9 innings (not that they have any complete games or anything…). Not surprisingly, the Giants (61.3), Rays (57.8), and Cardinals (57.3) rank 1-2-3 in average GS as well and the Reds (43.5) and Pirates (36.2) rank 29th and 30th.
A few more statistical oddities before I sign off for the day…
Is there an advantage to being in your home ballpark and being able to get ready to pitch in your clubhouse, your bullpen, etc.?
In principle, I’m willing to go as far as maybe but statistically, there is a slight edge in GS between pitching at home versus on the road (49.8-47.0). The margins in other metrics are much more pronounced, as pitchers at home have a better record (126-107 vs. 114-124), a better ERA (4.00-4.58), and a better WHIP (1.31-1.44).
How important is it for a starting pitcher to throw at least 6 innings, in this day and age?
This is by far the most subjective of any question that I will ask with the intention of immediately answering (at least today). How much does it matter? A lot of that depends on the individual manager. A manager with a notoriously quick hook is probably going to have a bullpen full of robust arms that can go out there and get anywhere from 3-6 outs every other day. On his team, his bullpen is more important than his rotation. If you were cursed with the same affliction as former Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly in 2001, the bottom of your rotation wasn’t terribly important because your bullpen was rested from the days when Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling took the hill.
This year thus far, pitchers have lasted at least 6 innings 445 times and have failed to reach that mark 275 times. The former group is 201-94 with a 2.75 ERA, a 1.12 WHIP, and an average GS of 57.4. The latter group has marks of 39-137, 8.00, 1.99, and 35.0 for those statistical categories. I’m not saying that if you automatically leave a pitcher in for six innings, his numbers will start to look a lot better. All I’m saying is if you look at the average line of the starters for the Tampa Bay Rays (6.4-5.2-2.0-2.0-2.3-5.4), it’s no wonder that this team is 17-7 even before you look at their bullpen, their defense, or their offense.
Just how important are strikeouts?
This is one question where the answer blatantly contradicts the small amount of data that I analyzed. First, the numbers. Pitchers who have averaged at least a strikeout per inning had a higher average GS than those who didn’t (52.0-46.8). Pitchers who struck out at least 10 batters had an average GS much higher than the overall average (71.9-48.4) and in the 25 games where a pitcher has at least 10 strikeouts, those pitchers are 17-2 with a 1.78 ERA.
Secondly, the analysis. Right off the bat, this is a bad metric to use when you are comparing different types of pitchers. Randy Johnson will always have a leg up on Greg Maddux in the land of GS because strikeouts give you a point and groundouts do not. In 1994, Greg Maddux was 16-6 with an ERA of 1.56 and his average GS was 68.9. In 2001, Randy Johnson went 21-6 with a 2.49 ERA and an average GS of 67.5. Despite his ERA being nearly a run lower and his WHIP being over 10% better (0.896-1.009), his average GS was just under 1.5 points better. Why is that? Because Randy Johnson average 10.6 strikeouts per start and Maddux averaged 6.2. If you take that one stat out of the GS calculation, the margin in average GS goes to 5.8 (62.7-56.9).
Thirdly, the verdict, how important are strikeouts? Well, an out is an out. Strikeouts are also the play that make it the most difficult to reach base. The only way to reach base is through a dropped third strike, which doesn’t happen very often. I would say that strikeouts by themselves are not important. Ground balls and fly balls keep the defense in the game and oftentimes, the best defense is played behind a pitcher that puts the ball in play. However, the ability to get a strikeout when you really need one is very important and in my opinion is one of the biggest differences between minor league pitchers and major league pitchers.
Men at second and third, one out, bottom of the 8th inning, up 3-2. A fly ball has the potential to turn into a sacrifice fly or even worse, a two-run error. A ground ball has the potential to score a run as well and if the play is botched, it can score two runs. Both of those scenarios have a worst case of the score going from 3-2 ahead to 4-3 behind. If you have the ability to strike out a batter when you really need it, the best case is an out where nobody can advance. That way there are two outs and the only way those runners can score is by a hit or an error. The worst case scenario is a wild pitch or a passed ball and in that case only one run will score and the tie can be preserved. The ability to make a pitch on command and strike the batter out is far more important than whether or not you average a certain number of strikeouts per inning or per game.
Well, that’s all for this week ladies and gentlemen but stay tuned, as I’ll be back next week with more trivial statistical nonsense next week (unless I forget).
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