That means you blindly follow WAR. It really is that simple. Why are you arguing otherwise? If I said that Theo Epstein's baseball thoughts trump anyone else's thoughts in baseball, I'd be blindly following him 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'll admit I follow, just take issue with the word blindly. Not that it matters though, oh well.

You literally refuse to look at anything else as being more accurate. It would be hard to come up with a more accurate way to describe it.

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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!

When I was younger, so much younger than todaaaaaaaaaaay

Then Sale must be having a bad year.

_________________
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, Tulsi, and Don

No, he's not and I never said he was.

Don't cherry pick what to reply to. Quote the entire thing and then lets see your response.

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Well, are you saying 5-8 is good then?

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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, Tulsi, and Don

Do you understand that Chris Sale statistically is one of the best pitchers in the AL? That is a fact that cannot be disputed.

Does baseball really sell more merchandise than football? Can you show some proof of that? Are MLB's TV deals worth billions of dollars like the NFL's are?

Can you really call the 2013 White Sox the same team as the 2012 White Sox when they have 2/3 of a different starting rotation, a different starting catcher, and different arms in the bullpen?

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Not based on the most important statistic.

_________________
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, Tulsi, and Don

So you are not going to answer anything else? You are going to continue to play the fool and attempt to argue with a fact?

Have at it.

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You're the guy who can't seem to decide if 5-8 is good or bad.

_________________
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, Tulsi, and Don

_________________

See, this is not even a constructive debate/ discussion. As much as I've read these strawmen arguments about WAR not being a "be all/ end all" stat (the most compelling argument seems to be that Bernstein endorses it/ misuses it, which really has no bearing on anything), I don't see anyone really saying that here, Bucky Chris who appears to be a big WAR guy included. Then ORR, you compound the issue by continually trying to beat people down with an even more flawed statistic Pitcher Wins?! (which almost everyone, sabremetric or traditionalist, pretty much acknowledges is a flawed and imperfect statistic)

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

5-8 : Bad

2.78 ERA : Good

123 Ks : Good

0.962 WHIP : Good

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Fixed.

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Every statistic is imperfect. But if we're evaluating the careers of starting pitchers, W/L record tells you more than any other single statistic. And I'm not "beating anyone down". Frank knows very well what I mean, I've explained my position clearly time and time again (That each game is its own entity and if a pitcher is pitching worse within those games than well over half the guys he has faced, he can't really be that great. Not an unreasonable position in any way.) And if Chris Sale finished career with a .385 winning percentage, no one will say he had a good career regardless of any other numbers. That's just the way it is. So Frank is just trolling. He knows that 5-8 isn't a good year. If he read the paper (Yeah, I know that's old fashioned too.), he'd know that just yesterday Sale said "I feel better than ever and I'm in the worst stretch of my career."

_________________
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, Tulsi, and Don

_________________

Bucky Chris literally won't even consider other evidence unless WAR is pretty much inconclusive.

It's not a straw man. He literally is making the exact argument that WAR trumps everything!

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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!

JORR, you need to explain better why the fact that the White Sox can't hit, should affect how we perceive him pitching the baseball.

I'm open to hearing other tools people use to analyze the value of a player. Willing to listen.

In JORRland Whitey Ford is the greatest pitcher of all time and Robin Roberts should be thrown out of the HOF.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

WAR for Pitchers
1. Sale (CHW) 4.5
2. Buchholz (BOS) 4.1
3. Hernandez (SEA) 4.0
4. Iwakuma (SEA) 3.9
5. Scherzer (DET) 3.7
6. Colon (OAK) 3.4
7. Darvish (TEX) 3.2
8. Kuroda (NYY) 2.9
9. Sanchez (DET) 2.8
10. Norris (HOU) 2.6

Overall the only 2 players in the AL above Sale are Miggy, and Manny Machado.

But Sale is having a bad year according to the mighty Joe Orr. El. Oh. El.

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Are you saying Whitey Ford isn't in the conversation of the greatest pitcher of all-time? His ERA is lower than the great Bob Gibson's.

_________________
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, Tulsi, and Don

How can he have 4.5 wins over a replacement player when he only has 5 wins?

_________________
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, Tulsi, and Don

That has nothing to do with you currently viewing it as a "be all / end all" regardless of the strange fact that you refuse to use those exact words and instead think it's different to think WAR trumps everything else.

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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!

The team would have 4.5 less wins if he was replaced.


Then they'd be something like 18.675 games out of first

A AAAA pitcher would be lucky to get half a win with this offense/defense.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

[quote="Joe Orr Road Rod"
How can he have 4.5 wins over a replacement player when he only has 5 wins? [/quote]

CAuse everyone else on the team has negative WAR!

Ford is probably in the top 30 or 40 of all time.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Because his other numbers are that good. The Sox are 8-8 in games Sale has started. At best they would be 4-12 with a different pitcher going in his spot.

Is it Chris Sale's fault that Gordon Beckham fucked up a routine popup with 2 outs in the 9th inning and he got an ND instead of the W?

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The Sox can hit. They average 3.65 runs a game. Not good obviously. At the bottom of MLB, in fact. But the teams the Sale is facing aren't all so much better. The majority of them average less than a full run per game more. That's a lot when stretched out over an entire season, but within the space of a single game, it's literally nothing at all since a fraction of a run cannot be scored. Yes, Sale's task may be marginally more difficult than the starting pitcher opposing him in most games this season. But he isn't supposed to be an ordinary pitcher. The guy facing the Sox lineup most times presumably is.

_________________
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, Tulsi, and Don