Maybe the guy meant he was going to do that the rest of this year. I guess he could. I wouldn't bet on it though.

_________________
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

Im sorry, I didnt know that was directed at me.

Nothing is perfect. I disagree with you mostly on the difference in offenses. I think the 0.1 is a lot bigger than you give it credit for.

Runs better than average takes opposition faced into account

Well, you're the one that said wins have no relevance going forward. That indicates you recognize the win isn't a factor in determining how good a pitcher is. If you want to answer the question about the 90+ pitchers, that may hel clarify your stance. I don't think I understand it after this response.

I don't have enough frame of reference to debate the all time thing. But if Sale continues pitching like he is, and keeps getting the run support he is getting, I'll know of one exception.

Did anybody really say that W-L is meaningless? I don't think its meaningless, but I also don't think you can look at a pitcher's 5-8 record (or his 5-6 record) and automatically assume he is "not having a good year." Lunatic Orr clearly puts 99.999% of his stupid thoughts into W-L or win% being the single most important stat on the back of the pitcher's baseball card. Asinine, but the guy won't budge. So at least he's been consistently wrong in this thread.

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Chris Rongey, Dan Bernstein for sure

And several in this thread seem to be real close to completely ignoring it.

Sox are second to last in runs runs per game. They are "only" 2 runs per game behind the best team. And look at the difference in their records. I think a difference of 1 run per game is enough to indicate which teams are bad and which teams are good. As you know, it's an average. It's not a literal one run difference each game.

http://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/runs-per-game

Well, those 2 clowns could have a 14 page thread on their own.

I've not ignored it and that is not my point, even if it seem like it. I said the 5-8 record was not good, but that with every single other stat Chris Sale has right now, you could make a compelling case that he has been one of the best (if not the) starters in the AL so far this year.

5-6 is not all that good, but to anybody who has actually watched or followed baseball this year Travis Wood has had a damn good season to date.

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I'm close. I don't find myself in many situations where it's a relevant topic.

It wasn't directed at you. It was a response to Apologist. I just wanted to discuss it with you. I know you think a fraction of a run is important, and it is over the course of a season. There's that time and repetition again. But how important can it be over the course of a single game when it's impossible to even score it? If you watched Babe Ruth take a collar and saw Alex Rios last night and that was your only impression of them, you'd think Rios was a vastly better player. In fact, you could argue that Rios last night was better than Ruth ever was in a single game. I wouldn't because Ruth hit four homers in a game, but some people like those steals and shit (complete player ).

Cleveland has one of the better offense in the game. They average a little over a run more per game than the White Sox. That's a big swing. But if we're talking about an elite pitcher, he should be able to pitch over that difference more often than not. I guarantee you that if the Indians faced Clayton Kershaw every game, they wouldn't be scoring 4.8 runs per game.

_________________
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

Sale hasn't faced the top two teams and I don't think it's quite two runs anyway, is it?

Again, I think Sale is a top pitcher and by the end of the year I expect he will be around .500, probably better, with most of those wins coming vs. teams that average more runs per game than the Sox.

_________________
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

ERA+ accounts for a pitcher's ballpark for whatever that's worth. I'd wager front offices with Ivy League statisticians have created statistics to account for quality of competition and ballpark. Advanced statistics for football and hockey which are still in their infancy already do this.

"He should be able to pitch over the difference" is a maddening stance. Since you are really into the strategy of the pitcher, you should recognize that the SP doesn't go out there wrestling with the average runs scored by the opponent, and determining what he has to do. His goal is to give up the fewest amount of runs. That's all he can focus on. There are the rare situations where a SP will concede a run if they have the lead, etc etc, or concede a run to lock up a double play. But that's still done with attempting to give up the fewest runs.

I almost think you disagree with the notion that the pitcher is trying to give up the fewest amount of runs he can.

It tries to, but it can only be based on the guys who pitch there. Still, that doesn't address the fact that all ERAs are created vs. different batters. We like to assume that it all levels out. It certainly doesn't over 16 starts. I'm not using his 5-8 record this season to judge Sale as a pitcher. I'm just saying it isn't good. And it also isn't fair to compare his ERA to a guy who has gone against Detroit twice and Boston twice when they are the highest scoring teams and he hasn't faced them at all.

_________________
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

I don't think a pitcher thinks about it that way at all. I think he is generally trying to stop guys from getting on base. I wouldn't say "that's his job" since sometimes his job is to put a guy on base on purpose. I'm sure a pitcher is well aware of all the conditions of every game he is in. He knows if his team has scored. He knows if he has the lead. He knows if he's chasing runs. All these factors have an effect. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying anyone consciously "pitches to the score" like "Oh, I can give up some runs now that we have a 5 run lead!" No, but pitchers are human beings. I think for most guys the approach varies depending on the circumstances and it's probably not a conscious thing. There may be some guys that are completely oblivious to everything outside of the batter they are facing as well. I don't know if those guys are the best pitchers or not.

Anyway, I don't know what's so maddening about expecting your best pitcher to overcome a fraction of a run in average offense. I assume that if Chris Sale faced Detroit every game they would be scoring much less per game. When we look at the numbers, pitching is hitting and hitting is pitching.

A statistic is just a representation of what occurred in real life.

This:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjdrDoW6v1Y

and this:

http://racing.ustrotting.com/chart.aspx

are the same thing if you know how to read the chart.

It's still better to see the actual event though.

_________________
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

They put the guy on base on purpose, because they feel it increases the chances of them getting more outs and giving up less runs. The goal is always give up the least amount of runs as possible, IMO. Yea, everything else is running through his head. Like, not letting a guy on base. But that's because he doesn't want to give up runs.

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes they put a guy on because they'd rather allow a likely one run than a potential three runs. Ultimately the goal is to score one more run than the opponent. That's really all that matters. Talking about run differential is another relatively new thing. And yeah, I know it generally correlates. But it isn't that the extra runs are causing the teams to have the better records, It's that a team that scores a lot more than it allows is pretty good. That isn't really some revelation.

_________________
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

Nolan Ryan wasn't a good pitcher.

_________________
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

Boom goes the dynamite

Nope.

JORR, has a whole argument centered around Ryan's 8-16 "great" season

Okay, that was a flip answer. Nolan Ryan was a good pitcher and he had a decent winning percentage. He just wasn't as great as he is made out to be. He's a special guy. A freakish oddity. He was more difficult to hit than anyone else. It's silly to compare him to Garza or anyone else currently playing.

Anyway, I think Garza is probably going to be right around .500 for his career, maybe a little over, possibly a little under. He certainly has the arm to do more than that, but we're going along now deep into his career. It's no different than it is with Gavin Floyd.

_________________
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

Nobody that has even a cursory knowledge of baseball thinks Nolan Ryan was a top ten pitcher of all time.

_________________
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

I fucking hate Nolan Ryan


So glad to watch him lose two W.S.


Plus he was for sure on roids

he was still 5th in cy young voting, which shows people actually understood things back in the dark ages of 1987.

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

Wow.

IMU, steppin' outta the hot hatch and spittin' fire.

He was a somewhat better than average pitcher as evidenced by his winning percentage over a long career. But he's more than that. The no-hitters, the strikeouts, the difficulty in hitting him. He's a special guy. He just wasn't a great pitcher.

_________________
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

And being wrong, as usual.

_________________
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

I believe Nolan Ryan is overrated.

Some would call him the best ever.


That is way off.

JORR, steppin' outta the break room at Victory Auto Wreckers and layin' down parts for all types of cars!

No, that's the ultimate goal of the TEAM. Not the pitcher. The pitcher is not responsible for the runs their own team scores. The pitcher's ultimate goal is to allow the fewest number of runs possible. Period.

Most of the wrong right now is coming from you. But you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Most people don't. It wouldn't be a surprise if a bunch of them agreed with you.

For example, you have no fucking idea who Hal Newhouser is. So if I said he was better tha n nolan Ryan you';d have to rush to a website to find ammo for your argument. It's a pointless conversation. You're not on my level with this topic. It would be like me giving you authoritative statements on hatchbacks.

_________________
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