Youk to White Sox

[a700hitter]

I tend to agree with you 700 but then you are confronted with the "there is no statistical data to support that argument" crowd which leads directly to the "we can hit our way" out of having the 21st best pitching overall and 27th best starting pitching in baseball debate or the "our starting pitchers are really not that bad" discussion. This for a bunch of stiffs that lived on easy street for about six weeks of the season barely having to face an actual team of major league hitters and were even for that period beginning to give up runs right in the first inning, burying our own offensive efforts before they could even finish tying their shoe laces.

 

We have watched an endless string of games where our pitchers particularly our starters just lay nothing pitch after nothing pitch right down main street for 1-2 innings until they finally get into a groove for lets say about 2-3 innings and then begin to fade from their exertions for another 2 innings before dragging their sorry asses back to the showers. That now I guess can be argued is a "good outing". Well that compilation of good outings has now landed the starters at 27th in all ML baseball. So I guess we have to accept the fact that 26 other team starters have more good outings than these bums. That includes the teams with weak offenses that just handed us our heads for 5 out of 7 games out West. Sure our lack of timely hitting showed up more in those games and our porous defense showed up more in those games as well but the fact remains that their pitchers controlled our hitters better than our pitchers controlled theirs as weak as they were as team offenses.

 

As I have said before all hitters are mistake hitters. If pitchers were to make no mistakes, hitters would starve to death.

 

Lets not forget the esteemed coach McClure who I guess we can say CAN find his own ass with two hands and a hunting dog because it is always planted right there on the bench.

I agree with you, and I appreciate the effort you made in presenting the data, but those who are blinded by their fandom cannot be convinced otherwise by any set of stats. You and I use those stats to confirm what we already know just from watching. My answer to the prove it to me with statistical data crowd is just to sit back and watch the season unfold. The events will bear us out.

 

I doubt there was any statistical measure that would have predicted last years September collapse. In fact the statistical data probably uniformly would have shown there was no chance of the Sox completing such a collapse. Some of us saw the signs as early as September 1st that the team was about to spiral down the drain. Everything had to break wrong for the Sox, but all the elements were in place to fail miserably. In my mind, they needed to get lucky a couple of times to not collapse, and that luck never came their way. Stats would never have led anyone to believe that they would have collapsed. Because the collapse flew in the face of all the statistical data, people were lulled into the belief that the collapse was a statistical aberration. It was not. There were fundamental flaws in that team that were never addressed, and the result has been 2012.

[iortiz]

I agree with you, and I appreciate the effort you made in presenting the data, but those who are blinded by their fandom cannot be convinced otherwise by any set of stats. You and I use those stats to confirm what we already know just from watching. My answer to the prove it to me with statistical data crowd is just to sit back and unfold. The events will bear us out.

 

I doubt there was any statistical measure that would have predicted last years September collapse. In fact the statistical data probably uniformly would have shown there was no chance of the Sox completing such a collapse. Some of us saw the signs as early as September 1st that the team was about to spiral down the drain. Everything had to break wrong for the Sox, but all the elements were in place to fail miserably. In my mind, they needed to get lucky a couple of times to not collapse, and that luck never came their way. Stats would never have led anyone to believe that they would have collapsed. Because the collapse flew in the face of all the statistical data, people were lulled into the belief that the collapse was a statistical aberration. It was not. There were fundamental flaws in that team that were never addressed, and the result has been 2012.

 

Very little margin of error, too many experiments and huge question marks, we said.

 

BC and FO played with fire when they didn't address those fundamental flaws. We shouldn't be surprised with this partial result.

[jung]

The only thing I would quibble on is that I think good hitters do get some of their hits on pitches that aren't mistakes. They might be 'strategic' mistakes but I mean pitches that are thrown exactly like the pitcher intended, but get whacked. Some of those would be pitches where the hitter guesses right on what's coming.

 

You are right Bellhorn and I usually try to point out in the game threads where a hitter has recorded a hit off a good pitch because it is pretty rare in regular season games. I think if you look for it as a fan, you will usually not find more than once on average in each regular season game that a hitter actually records a hit off a well thrown baseball.

 

I can't remember now which game thread it was but I think it was in Lester's game that Arod (wish is was not him) hit a ball thrown low and inside and breaking father down....a pretty tough pitch for a RH hitter from LH pitcher. That was a hitter hitting a well thrown baseball. I think I posted something like Arod earned his money on that one.

 

It is more frequent in post season games where the hitters are generally better and their focus is at such a high level of intensity that they even "see" good pitches at times well enough to record hits from them. But that is a valid point Bellhorn.

[SoxSport]

That means they scored 0-2 a bunch of times, and came up short even when they scored 4-5 a lot.

 

What about the Phillies, 3 legit aces, no title. What about the Rays, constantly an elite run-prevention team, and no titles.

 

All of those A's and Twins teams with good pitching? How many titles they got? How about the Braves in the 90s?

 

Absolutely incorrect, this isn't even a matter of subjectivity. You are incorrect.

 

The Phillies have been the dominant NL team the past few years. The playoffs are a crapshoot, where whoever is hot can dominate.

 

The Phillies are in trouble this year because Halladay went down and Lee has been inconsistent. Pure and simple. not much to do with Howard. Their top 3 in pitching has been their top 1--Hamels. Kind of the same problem as the Red Sox big 3 --which has been the small 3.

[a700hitter]

The Phillies have been the dominant NL team the past few years. The playoffs are a crapshoot, where whoever is hot can dominate.

 

The Phillies are in trouble this year because Halladay went down and Lee has been inconsistent. Pure and simple. not much to do with Howard. Their top 3 in pitching has been their top 1--Hamels. Kind of the same problem as the Red Sox big 3 --which has been the small 3.

The Phillies, Twins, Braves, Rays and A's have gotten to the playoffs many times in the last decade or so. The reason for that has been their pitching. Maybe they haven't won a lot of championships, but that is because they have run into opponents with good pitching in the playoffs. The teams with top pitching do make the post season more consistently than teams without good pitching. Pitching is the name of the game. To say that run differential is all that matters might be correct, but IMO the more important component of that statistic is the runs allowed portion. The pitching is more important IMO. Saying that run differential is the most important statistic is not far from saying that the most important statistic for a team is wins. Of course wins are the most important and of course run differential is the best indicator of the teams that will have the most wins, but neither indicates what is the most important component of those statistics. IMO, it is pitching, and there isn't a metric that can prove otherwise.

[Emmz]

No one's blinded by fandom, pitching isn't significantly more important than hitting. You can't score runs, you don't win. You throw a no-hitter, you can still lose. Run differential is the name of the game, by definition.

[a700hitter]

No one's blinded by fandom' date=' pitching isn't significantly more important than hitting. You can't score runs, you don't win. You throw a no-hitter, you can still lose. Run differential is the name of the game, by definition.[/quote']The second half of the season will bear out the relative importance of pitching as we should have all of our hitters back, but it won't matter if Lester, Beckett and Buchholz don't get their s*** together. You don't get good results if every pitcher in your rotation has and ERA north of 4. I don't care what the hitters are doing. If the pitching doesn't improve, the season is over. They will be lucky to play .500 in the second half. Pitching is the most important part of the game. That has always been the conventional wisdom for a reason. It is right. I don't care if a team has 9 king kongs in the lineup. All the other team needs is one good pitcher to beat that team even if that pitcher's team has 9 banjo hitters.

[Emmz]

And hitting directly effects pitching. It wears down the pitcher, it can give and take confidence, it can make things easier or more difficult, especially mentally.

[a700hitter]

And hitting directly effects pitching. It wears down the pitcher' date=' it can give and take confidence, it can make things easier or more difficult, especially mentally.[/quote']Hitting is a skill at which the most elite hitters fail 6 to 7 times out of 10 at bats, and that success ratio is far less against good pitchers. If hitters in a lineup can't bunch together their hits and walks, they will not score a lot of runs. The odds of bunching hits and walks together against good pitching is not very high. Believe what you want to believe. If I am building a team, I am looking to emphasize pitching. I go with the conventional wisdom.

[Bellhorn04]

Hitting is a skill at which the most elite hitters fail 6 to 7 times out of 10 at bats' date=' and that success ratio is far less against good pitchers. If hitters in a lineup can't bunch together their hits and walks, they will not score a lot of runs. The odds of bunching hits and walks together against good pitching is not very high. Believe what you want to believe. If I am building a team, I am looking to emphasize pitching. I go with the conventional wisdom.[/quote']

 

Oakland had the best pitching in the AL at the break. They are 43-43.

Texas had the best hitting at the break. They are 52-34.

 

Can't we all just agree on the obvious fact that run differential is the key number?

[jung]

The guy that really deserves credit was the guy that actually did the work to compile all that data. I was just looking at the charts reading the material and the comments and doing the best I could to report it. So many of the respondents particularly to his revised data said that they would love to see the data for getting to the WS added to winning the WS but nobody was volunteering to do the work. It was an incredible amount of data to sift just for each year and 106 events (WS championships).

 

I suppose you could make the case that since it was regular season data being used, up to the invention of the division rounds of post season play plus the DH and then inter-league play the data he already compiled is just as valid for getting to the WS as winning it. For that period of time there was only winning the pennant which resulted in entry to the WS with no intervening steps and no added complications like DH and inter-league play to consider. So for those years, up to 1995 he would just have to do the work he had done already for one more team.

 

But lets face it, since that is not the ML platform we have now, nobody is going to be nearly as interested in that as seeing the data as it relates to what we have now. So right away that is eight teams instead of one or two at least for all the years from 1995 on if you want to skip 1981 which was sort of an anomaly year. That is way more work than the guy has already done for WS champs even though it is just sixteen years of stuff.

 

Somebody will do it at some point. So many folks are into this stuff at that level and people responded so positively to the work he had done that I have to think somebody will be encouraged to pick up the ball from there.

[a700hitter]

Oakland had the best pitching in the AL at the break. They are 43-43.

Texas had the best hitting at the break. They are 52-34.

 

Can't we all just agree on the obvious fact that run differential is the key number?

I build with pitching, so no, I don't agree. Both are factors obviously, but pitching is more important. The A's offense is dead last in the league and Texas has top 5 pitching to go along with it's #1 hitting. After the A's the next five best teams in pitching are the Angels, Yankees, Rays, Rangers and White Sox. Except for the Rays who are 1/2 game behind the Orioles for the second wild card, the other 4 teams would be play off teams if the season ended today. The top 6 offenses are the Rangers, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees, White Sox and Tigers. Only 3 of those teams would be playoff teams if the season ended tomorrow. The top 6 teams in pitching combine for a record of 287-227. The top 6 hitting teams combine for a record of 281-233. Yes, run differential is the best indicator next to wins as to who will be in the playoffs, but that's just a duh. IMO, Pitching is more important to being a good team than hitting.

[jung]

I do think that if trying to get to the heart of this particular question Bell, you need a number that represents pitching or maybe run prevention on one side of things and a number that represents run production or offense or hitting on the other side and compare the two as opposed to one number that tries to represent a total team capability to win games.

[Bellhorn04]

Oddly enough, the team that led the AL in ERA the last 4 years, 2008-2011, all missed the playoffs. And Oakland is on pace to make it 5 years in a row.

[Guest]

Oakland had the best pitching in the AL at the break. They are 43-43.

Texas had the best hitting at the break. They are 52-34.

 

Can't we all just agree on the obvious fact that run differential is the key number?

 

Thats obvious to me too. Run differntial is the most important factor in winning.

When it comes to World Series wins, how you arrive at that run differential (great shut-down pitching or great hitting) matters. Great pitching is TEN TIMES more highly correlated with winning a ring than great hitting. The scatter graph I dug up shows that only less than 3% of WS winners in the last 103 years had below average pitching as measured by ERA+ but about 33% of WS winners had below average hitting as measured by OPS+. The only rational conclusion is that if you do not have above average pitching you are highly unlikely to win a ring, but with below average hitting you stand at least fighting chance.

[Bellhorn04]

The evidence does indicate a higher correlation between pitching and titles than it does between hitting and titles. But hearing the old adage 'pitching wins championships' is kind of aggravating when, as I mentioned, the teams with the very best pitching are missing the playoffs.

[Guest]

The evidence does indicate a higher correlation between pitching and titles than it does between hitting and titles. But hearing the old adage 'pitching wins championships' is kind of aggravating when' date=' as I mentioned, the teams with the very best pitching are missing the playoffs.[/quote']

 

You are twisting the question. No one is claiming that good pitching guarantees titles or even entry into the playoffs. The majority of WS champs have both above average pitching AND above average hitting. However, if you had to choose one, based on the data, you should choose above average pitching, which, of course, we do not have and have not had for many many years.

[Emmz]

2007 was many many years ago?

 

And no, no one was twisting the question, this started as "it's all about pitching" and evolved into it's "mostly about pitching" to now, "pitching is somewhat favored, but not to the extreme we thought before".

[Bellhorn04]

2007 was many many years ago?

 

And no, no one was twisting the question, this started as "it's all about pitching" and evolved into it's "mostly about pitching" to now, "pitching is somewhat favored, but not to the extreme we thought before".

 

:thumbsup:

[a700hitter]

How does one build a team based on run differential? Would someone characterize Dustin Pedroia as a good run differential guy? I know their are metrics for this stuff, but let's remember that run differential is an indicator of how good or bad a team is. The metrics that measure these indicators estimate the indicators. I'd prefer to build my team with good pitchers first and then good hitters, and I don't apologize for my opinion that those advanced metrics are largely a waste of time.

[Guest]

2007 was many many years ago?

 

And no, no one was twisting the question, this started as "it's all about pitching" and evolved into it's "mostly about pitching" to now, "pitching is somewhat favored, but not to the extreme we thought before".

 

Yes, 2007 was a long time ago. This will be the fifth year of mediocre or worse pitching and no end is in sight. With our budget we should be doing better than that.

All I did was look at the facts about who gets into the WS and who does not. Its hard to dispute the fact that teams with good pitching and below average hitting are over TEN TIMES more likely to win a ring than teams with below average pitching but above average hitting. If thats "somewhat favored" for you, then have at it. For me its convincing evidence that its really very close to "all about pitching". And guess what: we ain't got it and haven't had it in many many years.

[Guest]

How does one build a team based on run differential? Would someone characterize Dustin Pedroia as a good run differential guy? I know their are metrics for this stuff' date=' but let's remember that run differential is an indicator of how good or bad a team is. The metrics that measure these indicators estimate the indicators. I'd prefer to build my team with good pitchers first and then good hitters, and I don't apologize for my opinion that those advanced metrics are largely a waste of time.[/quote']

 

:thumbsup:

[Bellhorn04]

How does one build a team based on run differential? Would someone characterize Dustin Pedroia as a good run differential guy? I know their are metrics for this stuff' date=' but let's remember that run differential is an indicator of how good or bad a team is. The metrics that measure these indicators estimate the indicators. I'd prefer to build my team with good pitchers first and then good hitters, and I don't apologize for my opinion that those advanced metrics are largely a waste of time.[/quote']

 

The 2004 Red Sox run differential was 949-768 = 181

The 2007 Red Sox run differential was 867-657 = 210

 

Those were 2 of the best 3 differentials for the team since 1950.

 

I think 'building based on run differential' is not really that advanced a concept. The 2004 and 2007 teams were strong on both offense and defence. Run producers and run preventers.

[Guest]

The 2004 Red Sox run differential was 949-768 = 181

The 2007 Red Sox run differential was 867-657 = 210

 

Those were 2 of the best 3 differentials for the team since 1950.

 

I think 'building based on run differential' is not really that advanced a concept. The 2004 and 2007 teams were strong on both offense and defence. Run producers and run preventers.

 

Are you saying that its best to have both great pitching and great hitting?

Dude...thats profound.

[Bellhorn04]

Are you saying that its best to have both great pitching and great hitting?

Dude...thats profound.

 

You're right, it's not profound, it's obvious.

[Emmz]

How does one build a team based on run differential? Would someone characterize Dustin Pedroia as a good run differential guy? I know their are metrics for this stuff' date=' but let's remember that run differential is an indicator of how good or bad a team is. The metrics that measure these indicators estimate the indicators. I'd prefer to build my team with good pitchers first and then good hitters, and I don't apologize for my opinion that those advanced metrics are largely a waste of time.[/quote']

 

By building a team that makes plays, produces and prevents runs. Is it really such a difficult concept that all parts of the game are important? It doesn't take sabermetrics to figure this out, it's the most basic concept of any sport, the team with the score in their favor wins.

[a700hitter]

The 2004 Red Sox run differential was 949-768 = 181

The 2007 Red Sox run differential was 867-657 = 210

 

Those were 2 of the best 3 differentials for the team since 1950.

 

I think 'building based on run differential' is not really that advanced a concept. The 2004 and 2007 teams were strong on both offense and defence. Run producers and run preventers.

Wasn't the good run differential the result of having good pitchers and hitters? Run differential is an outcome, not a skill. Players with good skills that perform well result in teams with good run differentials.

[Bellhorn04]

Wasn't the good run differential the result of having good pitchers and hitters? Run differential is an outcome' date=' not a skill. Players with good skills that perform well result in teams with good run differentials.[/quote']

 

Yes, exactly, I'm in agreement on all those points.

[a700hitter]

By building a team that makes plays' date=' produces and prevents runs. Is it really such a difficult concept that all parts of the game are important? It doesn't take sabermetrics to figure this out, it's the most basic concept of any sport, the team with the score in their favor wins.[/quote']I did not say anything contrary to that. Get good players that can perform well. Of course that includes pitching, hitting, and defense. The greatest of these is pitching. That's all I am saying. Number 1 pitching and last place hitting will not cut it, nor would the reverse.

[Bellhorn04]

I did not say anything contrary to that. Get good players that can perform well. Of course that includes pitching' date=' hitting, and defense. The greatest of these is pitching. That's all I am saying. Number 1 pitching and last place hitting will not cut it, nor would the reverse.[/quote']

 

But 3rd place pitching and 3rd place hitting and you're a pennant contender.