Go stroke.

I remember that. All the "experts" were using the powerful predictive stats to predict he would win 22-24 games with Yankee "run support". It didn't quite work out that way. His W/L record turned out to be the better predictor as he would pretty much maintain a similar percentage throughout his career regardless of who was "supporting" him.

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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

Except his winning percentage with the Yankees was the second-best of his career, and nearly 100 points higher than his career average at that point. After a lackluster season from the guy they spent to go get, and Steinbrenner at 72, they turned him around and went after 41-year old Randy Johnson, who promptly posted two of his poorest strikeout and home run rate seasons since he became a full-time starter. He finished with an ERA+ of 100 in New York, only 7 points better than Javy. They traded away the 13 WAR Javy would put up over the remainder of his extension for 7.3 WAR from Randy Johnson because Vazquez had one poor season.

WAR does not take into account that a guy simply cannot pitch under pressure. That is why Javy flourished outside of NY, and with bad to medicore White Sox teams. That is why Phil Hughes has pitched well for the Twins.

Taking Javy over Buehrle is both wrong and insane. Tell your statistics to shut up.

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Bump. Having a pretty good year! I think he might take it this season.

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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

But you are defining better as "the team winning the game (while the starter is eligible for the win)" and not "the pitcher pitching better." I'm defining better as the one who is allowing fewer baserunners on to reach base, fewer home runs, fewer walks, more strikeouts, etc. Lets say my team makes two errors and allows two runs, while I have zero earned runs against me and I lose 2-1 (I hit a solo HR as an awesome NL pitcher for my team.) I pitch a complete game and the other team has the starter in for 5 innings and then mix and matches out of the bullpen to finish it off. Their starter gets the win even though he gave up a run, I didn't give up any runs and I get a loss. I had 9 IPs with 0 ERs, 11 Ks, 2 hits and 3 BBs. He had 5 IP, 6 hits, 3 Ks, 2BBs.

Obviously this doesn't happen every game, but the other statistics have so much more meaning on the value of a pitcher than who gets the win and the loss. Yes, the overall goal is to win games, and the pitcher is a very big part of it, but not so much that boiling things down to that single statistic gives meaning to the quality of work from the pitcher.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

I'm just glad to hear that Fulmer made the Futures All Star game and now apparently has it working.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Quintana is slightly above average but not someone I would classify as elite. Potentially he could be but he would need to up his game over the next several years.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

Haven't been paying much attention to the AL. Is anyone other than Danny Salazar even in this race with Sale? My trolling aside, I really like Chris Sale and want to see him win a Cy Young.

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A starry-eyed Sock fan hyping up a prospect? Say it ain't so, Joe.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

It's not going to work this group...man they've been dealt a lot of luck with Anderson, Collins and Fisher (who was a steal). Even Fulmer is figuring it out. There's a chance for this team if they just cut bait on a few guys and reap the massive rewards. Goddamnit please just give up already.

Not hype, just rational, clear eyed hope.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

'Hope' leads to the gutter, pal. And that ain't gonna 'change'.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Knuckleballer Steven Wright (Boston) is putting up comprable numbers but throws a knuckleball.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

A knuckleballer throwing a knuckleball? Who knew.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Ahem...

2005.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

AL pitching is pretty piss poor. The old guard in Verlander/Price/Hernandez is aging and no one has stepped up in their place.

If you want to see guys twirl a game it's in the NL.

The knuckle-ball is equivalent to food stamps. You can't be a real major league pitcher? Just lob the fucking thing in there and you can be just like everyone else that pitches for a living.

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That makes perfect sense...

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Nothing gives more hope than a minor league development program run by Buddy Bell.

He won't be down there long enough for Bell's program to fuck him up.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Ah right, good call, wait until Don Cooper gets his hands on him. Then he'll be cookin' with gas.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Cheap shot.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

There is a difference between a pitcher's wins and losses and the team's. W/L is a specific stat with specific criteria. Of course it's related to the team's wins and losses, but it's not the same thing. That's why it's silly when the modern fan insistently whines, "Wins are a team stat!"

Let's go back to gold for a minute. You seem to be suggesting that a guy who finishes fifteenth in a tournament with 278 did better than a guy who won a different tournament with a 283. The context doesn't just matter. It's critical. The numbers are meaningless without the 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

I'm going to assume you meant golf not the precious metal.

You win the tournament you are playing.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

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

I'm going to give you guys a bit of yes and no here. One issue with golf is that it is an individual sport with a hundred guys all starting the event and only one wins. So for a single tournament, the guy who wins is obviously the best. And the course difficulty is different, so you can't easily compare between tournaments by using a raw number like strokes. (In baseball, they account for this by using stats like ERA+ and WHIP+ which take venue difficulty and talent level of the year into account.)

I think it is much more apples to apples to compare a pitcher to a QB. Both have a great deal to do with the outcome, but both also have other teammates that influence the game. It seems like you are saying that you would prefer a QB on a team that won a game 14-10 vs a QB that lost a game 28-35. Even though the first QB may have only had 200 yards passing and 0TDs and 2 INTS while the second guy had 386 yards passing, and 3 TDs and 1 INT. I realize we are just making up stats here, but where do you land on the similarity in the importance of W/L for QB vs W/L for a starting pitcher?

As far as context goes, if I have a guy who finishes 3rd each year in ERA for 10 years behind guys who ony pop up for 1st or 2nd in ERA for 2 or 3 years in that time frame, then yeah, I want the guy who finished 3rd. I don't think there's any inherent value in finishing 1st in any stat on any given year/event. You're looking for trends that place him in the top over multiple years/events.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

what

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I'm not scared of numbers and math. I provided numbers that showed that Buehrle was far superior. You just so happen to discount the WAR number that shows up for the first entry in google.

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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!