I was thinking about this concept the other day after watching several hitters swing at balls in the dirt on a 3-2 count. The pitcher gets credit for a strikeout based on the result of the batter's action, not the actual location of the pitch itself. The strikeout exists only because the batter was fooled into swinging at ball 4. So did the pitcher throw a good pitch or a bad pitch? I'm not talking about something a few inches off the plate where the batter has to protect...but rather way out of the zone where I'm assuming the pitcher was not trying to throw (considering there was a 3-ball count). Should that pitch be judged differently (by advanced metrics) than one that is actually in the zone that the batter swings and misses? There is probably already some kind of metric for that type of thing.

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If he strikes out it was, by definition, a good pitch.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

That's old school thinking.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You are assuming that with two strikes, they're trying to throw it in the zone. If I was pitching to Javy Baez with two strikes, you couldn't pay me to throw a pitch in the zone. Even if it was a full count, I would still throw a breaking ball in the dirt.

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I don't know about that. I just know the guy is walking back to the bench. For whatever reason he could not hit the pitch. That makes it a good pitch.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

You can't control if the batter swings.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Correct. If you know you can get the guy to swing at a pitch in the dirt, why throw it where he can hit it?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

Yes, I can. My breaking ball is devastating.

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Once he swings he has swung. I know that sounds dumb, but I think you know what I mean.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

Yeah, whether he swung at a breaking ball in a dirt or watched a fastball go down Main Street, he got fooled.

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That's good. But I do know what I'm talking about. Game Score has been an off debated topic on this board for years. I'm not new to the concept or the argument in favor of it.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

JORR says you and I use kid gloves with each other. What do you think, you dumb Caller Bob?

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That's ridiculous. We call eachother idiots every other day.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

What is it that you disagree with?

Basically, it boils down to whether you think a pitcher striking someone out is a better performance than getting a ground out (or flyout deep to the wall)

A ball put in play has a 30% chance of being a hit. A strikeout has a 0% chance of being a hit, and a strikeout victim has a 0.1% chance of reaching base. Someone like JORR would be a huge fan of Game Score, as he knows strikeouts are terrible for hitters.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

JORR loves the Kerry Wood game and thinks Billy Beane is the best GM in the business

I'm all for judging the means rather than the ends if it makes sense. I'm not Rick.

However, I think it has to be balanced. I disagree that weak contact isn't something a pitcher should be lauded for. Otherwise, Maddux's entire existence is a sham, as is Kyle Hendricks' success.

There is a ton of randomness in baseball, which makes it a sport that requires huge sample size to make it something that we can draw conclusions about. But this particular subject is not one that can be parsed, IMO. If you get a guy out, you did what you're supposed to. There are so many possible outcomes, that I find it futile to try to determine which "means" is "best." Over a large enough sample size, if someone has stats that indicate he is a dominant pitcher, there really shouldn't be a debate regarding how he got those outs. He did what he was supposed to do, within his control.

I'm willing to listen, though. It's entirely possible that I don't understand Gamescore.

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There's no difference between a strikeout and any other after the out has been recorded.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

There's no difference between a bloop single and a rocket one bounce to RF but one is more impressive, imo

I disagree that it's futile. Stats like Line Drive % are good for that sort of thing.

The thing about the large sample size is irrelevant since we're talking about one game.

Maybe. But Matty Alou was more effective than many guys who had more power. Consistency is important in baseball. Jamie Moyer was a better pitcher than Kerry Wood.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

Right, but Kerry Wood's 20K game is a better single game performance than anything Moyer (and most pitchers) ever did.

There is randomness in baseball. Period. So I may not have eloquently stated it by referring to sample size, but that's what I meant.

Anyone who pitches a no-hitter or a perfect game goes down in history... but it's a celebration of the event as much as it is the pitcher (though clearly, the pitcher had to pitch outstandingly well for it to happen). I just think it's more of a result-focused thing than a process-focused thing. Kerry Wood pitched one of the most jaw-dropping games in history. But so did Jake Arrieta. To argue which is better is pretty futile. I realize Frank does it, but it's Frank.

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He'd look pretty good on the back end of Lou Piniella's staff.

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