Are you experiencing difficulty reading?

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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

Just being honest... when I read it, it made me chuckle.

Its a simple question Orr, even a baby could answer it.

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Yeah, if you popped into the thread without following it, it makes me look ridiculous. And that was his intention. No problem.

The point is that you and Frank and apparently most fans these days would say that Sale wasn't too good yesterday. I think he pitched a hell of a game.

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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

I think the point is he didn't pitch nearly as well as he has in many losses this season, and registered a win.

This is the thing we just aren't going to agree on. The value of his pitching only exists relative to what's happening within the games he pitches. I understand you don't see it that way.

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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

DING DING


And Joe Orr, don't worry. I didn't have to post that to make you look ridiculous in this thread.

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I know, I'm with you.

Well the Sox average 3.8 runs per game this season. Any Sox pitcher could go out there and hold the 28 other teams that average more runs to under their average for the game in which they started. If that pitcher loses despite holding a team to less runs than it averages, and especially under the runs the Sox offense averages, how can the loss he receives approximate the value of his pitching relative to that game?

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Frank, as a Sox fan, do you want Sale to put up great individual SABR stats or to get wins for your team?

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Terrible question, it's not an or. It's an and, obviously.

This question doesn't at all address the fact that Frank thinks Wins are a team stat, not an individual stat.



And I could even take the awkward route of saying right now, if I were a Sox fan, I would rather have Sale pitching exactly like he is, than pitching worse and getting more wins. It would signal he's becoming bad moving forward, and it would lower his value should they decide to trade him.

I completely understand your point and I'm not dismissing it. Again, 16 starts is a miniscule sample. In fact, Sale's whole career is a miniscule sample.

But we wouldn't normally be having this discussion about some marginal fifth starter. We're talking about a top pitcher here. I get that he has a slightly tougher task than the guy who is facing the Sox in the same game most of the time this season. Not only did he face a more powerful offense yesterday, he went against a pitcher with a lower ERA. But he won the way I would expect him to. He's better than Anibal Sanchez. Or he is supposed to be anyway.

Let me put it another way. I see a guy's W/L record as his result. The other stuff is just the things he used to arrive at the result. In other words, things like WHIP and ERA are a better measure of what we might call "stuff" than they are of pitching. Guys like Colon and Peavy don't have the stuff they once did, but they are as effective as ever as pitchers. WHIP and ERA and K/9 and K/BB, those things are just a toolbox. Of course, going forward you're probably going to want the guy with the larger toolbox.

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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

Here's another question I would ask and it's somewhat philosophical. Do you think pitchers pitch games or do they pitch a string of continuous innings with no regard to game context?

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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

They're both.

IS WHIP a team stat? It's tough to keep guys off base without fielders catching the ball.

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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

When I look at a guy with a great ERA & WHIP but a lousy record that usually tells me is that his team sucks.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

I disagree. He seems fine with the fact that Sale is pitching 'great' and not getting wins. As a fan of the team he should want him to get wins in any way possible. Why does the individual stats of a Chris Sale make someone feel better about the team being one of the worst in baseball?

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I once again go back to 1968. Fergie lost 5 1-0 games and a ND in a 6th one.
It's his fault? C'mon! (He still won 20-something that year)

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Why are you dismissing the guys who threw shutouts against a team with an 89 win Pythagorean record???????

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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

So he wasnt as good that day as the other pitcher.

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I also believe that some of the though process of the pitchers is generational. I have no doubt that most pitchers today that put up a .250 ERA and a losing record think they are doing great. I know Fergie was angry that he gave up those runs that caused him to go 0-5 in the games jimmy mentions.
Just like if you've watched enough baseball, you've seen these pitchers today who have been on pitch counts their entire lives, some of them start looking at the dugout when they hit 100 pitches.

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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

Because if Sale was pitching bad and getting wins, you'd still have a really shitty team with a couple more wins, and literally not a single player that's worth holding on to.

Of course he was angry, that's just internal competitive nature. I think a lot of pro athletes have that. But yea, at the same time, a 2.50 ERA with losses still means a fat paycheck, because he's pitching really well. And he knows the losses will have no basis on his evaluation, or his negotiation.

David Wells was just talking about that this morning on Mike and Mike. (M&H was busy discussing politics of Wrigley).

He said that pitch counts might be saving some of the starters but ruining the bullpens.

He also said that he has gout.


that's all I got out of the interview

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JORR,
I do believe there is some merit in your argument. Sometimes you just have to pitch better than "very good". This might be comparable to a hitter with a .300 average and 20 HR's that disappears in the clutch.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Maybe not. Winning gets into teams heads. Pitchers start to try to one up each other, next thing you know you have an 8 game win streak because no one wants to be the guy that loses. It happened in the playoffs in 05. If you dont think that those guys were competing with each other for those complete games you are crazy.

I think the opposite is true as well. If you see a good pitcher like Sale keep getting losses what does that do to a Dylan Axelrod or Quintana... 'Shit if this guy cant even get a win what chance do I have...'

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Fergie disagrees

Yeah, I don't want it to sound like I'm judging. I'm not the old guy shaking his fist. Not usually. It's just different times. Different expectations.

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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

I will take Chris Sale pitching like he is right now 100% and let the W-L chips fall where they may. He is still having an excellent season regardless of what his W-L looks like right now.

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OK, fair enough.

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-- source