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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Chicks dig the strikeout. Wood gets remembered for it. Humber's name will be trotted out whenever someone goes perfect into the 6th inning and then forgotten by all but Chicagoans after the next guy throws one.

No hitters and perfect games involve a hell of a lot of luck.

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From here on out I will now describe every 1-2-3 inning as (tied for) THE GREATEST 1 INNING PITCHING PERFORMANCE IN BASEBALL HISTORY!

That would never happen. Lets work with reality.

No pitcher is striking out 12 major league batters and giving up that many runs at the same time.


Of course what I listed is just the start. You could look at fly ball ratios or balls hit hard.

But that all favors Wood in this debate.


Ill say this, the no hitter and perfect game pitchers have a ton of pressure. That counts.

Its really simple for me too. Wood gave up Zero hard hit balls. Humber and Buerhle gave up a few.

So, hypothetically, if after the third inning every batter simply bunted into an out Wood's performance would be considered above average?

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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!

Three baserunners. There was an error in the field but obviously that is not Wood's fault.

And nobody go feeding a line about how if he struck the guy out the error wouldn't have been made because Wood could have thrown a wild pitch or there could have been a passed ball.

He allowed 2 baserunners. That is two more than any of the 21 prefect games in history. He was great, but was not perfect. End of discussion.

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the problem here is you are cub fans who love this turd...that is the one incredible thing he ever did in his over hyped career..you ask baseball fans this question outside of cub fans and 99 out of 100 tell you perfect game> 20k game with one hit and one walk.

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No errors.

Two baserunners.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN199805060.shtml

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Galarraga had a 28 out perfect game (if you agree the ump fucked him). Greatest pitching performance of all time.

Relive the magic of Sandy Martinez having the greatest catching performance in baseball history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDgnfm3NOVY

The only person here talking about Wood's career is you.

Everyone else is talking about one game.

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Why couldn't it happen? After all, the other 15 balls hit in play are just random and could be anything. Why couldn't all of them go for hits? I don't understand how a pitcher striking out 12 major league batters couldn't give up all those runs. Isn't it just random? It seems to me you are making a case here that a pitcher can effect the amount of hits on balls in play. Bill James will not be happy reading that.
What is a hard hit ball? Is there a statistical measure for that?

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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 will not find a person who is more critical of Kerry Wood than me.

Thats bullshit.

Bill James is not a Cub fan.

The number of pitches for one thing makes it very unlikely. Why dont you find me a guy who struck out 12 and got lit up. I doubt its happened in modern times, but if it has, ill admit I was wrong.

And the second part doesnt make sense. Bill James and I agree that a hitter striking out is the best way to get them out. Im saying a guy who has 12 strikeouts is missing bats and not giving up 12 runs.


Yes. There are many different ones actually.

Ill post some links.

you have to agree this formula is bullshit if what boilerrmakerick said is true..could wood have given up another 2 hits and an earned run and still scored higher than humber with this formula ...if that is true - than this formula is a joke

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The point is that you said prior that all that matters is strikeouts and home runs. That's all the pitcher can control. If that is the case, how can the other balls be nothing but random? I agree it's rare to happen. That's because I believe that a pitcher can make a difference even when not making a strikeout or giving up a home run. You don't. Therefore, you have to accept it as possible.

Cliff Lee had a 7 inning game, with 16 strikeouts, and he gave up 9 hits, and got a loss.
Randy Johnson had 19 strikeouts in a game, gave up 11 hits, 4 runs, and got a loss.

Do you think what Randy Johnson did there was better than a perfect game too?

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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!

I calculated Humber at 96. I found that Buerhle was 94. Wood was at 105. Therefore, combine any of these to get to 9 for Humber or 11 for Buerhle and the game was "equal".

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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!

I never said that. Its not 100% (You like to apply that places where its doesnt belong.)

First of all you left out Walks.

And secondly, its not a perfect science, but those three outcomes are more controllable by the pitcher than others.


There is a certain amount of chance with any ball put in play.



Here is the well hit average stat


Though it has been 11 years since Voros McCracken first introduced it to the sabermetric community, BABIP is a concept that, apparently, even the most experienced baseball minds might not fully grasp.

If that's a term that's either completely foreign or somewhat new to you -- or even if you're familiar but not quite certain that you've mastered its use -- then this column is for you. Being the beginning of fantasy baseball draft season, what better time for a primer: Understanding BABIP.

Let's address the obvious question first: What, precisely, is BABIP?

BABIP, or batting average on balls in play, was originally designed to measure a pitcher's ability to prevent hits on balls in play. Today it's widely used to evaluate both pitchers and hitters, and it's a calculation of a hitter's batting average -- or pitcher's batting average allowed -- on batted balls put into the field of play. That means walks and strikeouts don't count; those aren't batted balls. Nor do home runs; those don't land within the field of play.

The formula: Hits minus home runs, divided by at-bats minus home runs minus strikeouts plus sacrifice flies (H - HR)/(AB - HR - K + SF).

What purpose does BABIP serve?

Fantasy owners familiar with the concept will quickly answer that it's a way to determine a hitter or pitcher's luck. That's true, as variances in a player's BABIP from the major league average could represent a certain degree of luck, either good or bad. But the common mistake many owners make is to assume that BABIP is the authority on luck in the game of baseball, and that the farther that a player's number was from that aforementioned major league average, the more or less lucky he had to have been.

That's simply not true.

Before we get to the reason, let's address another important question: Exactly what is the major league average for BABIP?

It varies from season to season, but in 2009, the major league average BABIP was .299. Generally speaking, it's about .300. It can, however, range by as many as five points (occasionally more) in either direction from that.

So, then, why can't it be assumed that a hitter with a .360 BABIP was extraordinarily lucky, while one with a .240 BABIP was especially unlucky, and in the case of a pitcher, that the opposite is true?

Making such an assumption also presumes that every baseball player is identical; that there is no such thing as a strikeout artist or command specialist, ground-ball or fly-ball pitcher, contact or power hitter. There are so many different types of baseball players nowadays, and every type of play has a varying degree of success.

An excellent way of putting it: Joel Pineiro had a .295 BABIP in 2009 and Andy Pettitte had a .297 BABIP, but does that necessarily mean that Pineiro was any luckier than Pettitte? No -- Pineiro generated ground balls on a higher percentage of balls in play than any pitcher in the game (59.0 percent) and line drives at the fourth-lowest rate (15.9 percent). Since a ground ball has a much greater chance of being converted into an out than a line drive, and a fly ball greater than a ground ball, Pineiro's BABIP should have been beneath the major league average. Pettitte, by comparison, allowed the 12th-highest line-drive rate (21.3 percent) and served up ground balls 41.7 percent of the time. His BABIP, actually, might have been a bit driven by good fortune.

It's also not only what type of hitter or pitcher a player is that factors into BABIP. What are some other things that have an impact?

Speed (applies to hitters): Naturally, the quicker the runner, the more likely he'll leg out infield grounders for hits, thereby helping his BABIP. Of the 25 players to amass at least 25 infield hits in 2009, only two had a BABIP beneath the major league average: Kazuo Matsui (28 infield hits, .285 BABIP) and Willy Taveras (28, .277). In addition, of the 14 players to attempt steals on at least 20 percent of their opportunities (data per Baseball-Reference.com), only one had a BABIP beneath the MLB average: Josh Anderson (25.6 percent steals rate, .280 BABIP).

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Quality of contact (applies to both): The better wood a hitter gets on the ball, the more likely he's going to "hit 'em where they ain't," as Wee Willie Keeler once said. A high line-drive rate is one way to ensure a high BABIP, and to that end, of the 17 players who hit line drives on at least 22.5 percent of all balls in play, only Josh Willingham (.289) had a BABIP beneath the major league average. In fact, the other 16 all had BABIPs greater than .325. But here's another interesting fact: Inside Edge provides a statistic called "Well Hit Average," which measures the percentage of at-bats in which a hitter made solid contact. Of the top 25 hitters in that stat who also qualified for the batting title, 18 managed better-than-average BABIPs.

Of course not, thats not close to Wood's game



So if a QB goes 12-12 with 150 yds and 2 TDS, you think thats better than a guy going 39-42 for 450 yds with 4 TDs and one (tipped) INT ?

Before you go accusing me of misquoting you, here it is.

Were you just randomly mentioning the theory?

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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!

He had 19 strikeouts though. That's 19/27 batters that he made babip meaningless. The other 8 should only have resulted in 2 or 3 hits.

I guess I don't understand when babip matters. It would seem to me that 19 strikeouts is always an amazing pitching performance. We know 20 is the greatest of all time regardless of the fact that there were baserunners.

Wouldn't modern statistics state that the major difference between the two games is one strikeout and bad luck on the hits?

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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!

First of all, back up on the "Before you accuse me"

Dont get serious business with me.

Secondly, I dont know what you mean. I left out the walks thing. Otherwise that is correct.

But that doesnt mean its all that matters. It just means that the other things are subject to some degree of chance. Not 100% random, as you present it.

If two different NFL defenses gave up less than 160 yards of total offense, had 2 INTs, and 5 sacks and were both on the winning side of things, would you say the defense that gave up 3 points or 0 points had the better game?

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Im sorry, where are you getting the number 27? He obviously faced at least 30 batters



Purposely obtuse Rick is in the house!!

Im guessing there were some hard hit balls off RJ that day. Not so with Wood.

and you dont understand BAPIP or what kind of stat it is, if you are seriously asking when it matters.



Without looking, Ill go out on a limb and say some of the 11 hits were hard hit balls.

Im getting tired of this.

Perfect game is more effective.

20 K's is more impressive to me, because of my beliefs about strikeouts.

You guys dont share those beliefs, so it makes sense that you disagree.



Now lets all hit the steam room!

Then my extreme scenario is plausible.

You seem to be making a case that babip is pretty much the same for all pitchers. Therefore, strikes, walks, and home runs are all that matter and the rest is not what a pitcher should be judged on. Therefore, the Randy Johnson 19 strikeout game, he had 19 strikeouts, gave up 2 home runs, and 0 walks. That has to be considered a great game, in which he lost and gave up 4 runs. The difference between the Kerry Wood all time great game and his was 2 home runs and bad luck(and one less walk).

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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!

Wood's one "hit" was a ground ball that slipped under Kevin Orie's glove. You could argue that one of the routine fly ball outs he got was closer to a "hit" than that grounder was. Buehrle's perfect game involved a 400? foot shot that dewayne wise lept and caught. Anyone involving defensive prowress in calling a perfect game tautologically better without evaluating every play in the game is being deliberately obtuse.


Also, you're making the mistake of overvaluing a game called "perfect" because that's what some baseball writer invented to call it 100 years ago. Why couldn't a perfect game allow errors that aren't the pitcher's fault? Answer: because it was an arbitrary invention, and you are lazily allowing semantics to replace applied logic and reason.

Kiss my ass.

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Being obtuse here is intentionally leaving out the fact that Wood also hit a batter to try and make your side of the argument sound correct.

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He was just more unlucky that it took significantly more batters to get those outs. That's the concept. Balls hit in the field are random. It's just as likely that he finished with what Kerry Wood did with one less strikeout since we are saying that the babip is mostly random.

The bottom line is that you should finally admit that a pitcher can make an out very likely even without a strikeout. The problem is that is a big piece of the puzzle for why perfect games are better. The pitcher accomplished an out. He had a big part in the out. Of course he could have given up a hit but that could happen on any pitch including a strikeout.

Isn't BABIP used to state that the balls hit in play are statistically supposed to go for hits a certain percentage of time? Therefore, any pitcher who has a babip for a game lower than the average was just lucky?

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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!