FredLynn

If they fail to do so then the injury excuse people are using to rationalize our mediocre performance so far can be tossed out the window. So far this year the Yankees have lost Pineda, Rivera, and now CC and Petitte to the DL. I am sure there are more too. Those guys are KEY pitchers, yet today they rank third in ERA in the AL. If that kind of pitching holds up over the next few weeks and we do not gain ground then the players have only themselves to blame.

"How dare he remind me of someone I hate" Mo Howard

What? You are a Giants fan??? You realize that all the good will towards you just went out the window, right?

Both Middlebrooks and Doubront have proven nothing. They could just as easily flame out as become stars here. Both have potential, but thats about all you can reasonable say about them right now.

Not that I know of-unless he routinely swallows that disgusting wad of chew.

Root for whoever you like. No one is going to care much about what you say about the other Boston area teams as long as its in good taste. I am a fan of all of the Boston teams, though I have been in California for 35 years. Keep in mind that this is just a game we talk about here, not "real life". Anyone who calls you out for your team alliances is someone you can probably do without.

I do not think that Lester is much better than his ERA shows he is after a review of his peripherals. I am only going to do this once, so here goes. I compared Lester's ERA to the pitcher with the median ERA for pitchers who have thrown at least 60 innings this year with a similar pitcher in terms of ERA, in this case Phil Hughes to see if Lester's peripherals were out of line. I also compared this year with Lester's career numbers. I did not use Babip as I do not think this is a particularly useful stat. The stats, in order, are ERA, WHIP, K/BB, ERA+, HR/9, and WAR. Lester this year: 4.53/1.367/2.78/93/0.8/-.1 Lester (career): 3.62/1.297/2.49/124/.8/3.27 Hughes this year: 4.48/1.297/3.86/93/2.0/.8 Hughes' numbers are not out of line with Lester's. He has allowed more HR/9, but his K/BB and WAR is better. His WHIP and ERA+ is identical. I conclude that based on these stats, Lester is NOT better than his ERA indicates, though more players could be analyzed this way to better substantiate that opinion.

Hill is out for about 6 weeks starting about a week ago. He has tendonitis, I believe. You are right: no one gives a s*** about Jenks.

If I believe that something is right, until I am persuaded otherwise, I stick to my guns. On the other hand, if I am handed evidence that I am clearly wrong (happened here the other day when SCM told me that Aviles had screwed up an IF play, not Pedroia) I will gladly admit that I am wrong. That has not happened here. I still think that I am correct, for me at least. You can call it whatever you like. It IS a draw.

I never said the ERA is the ONLY useful statistic, just the most important single stat for a pitcher. Even babip has some usefulness, I suppose. The reason I quote ERA alone so often is in the interest of brevity when I post, both for me looking that stuff up and for people reading it. There are certainly other important indicators that need to be looked at if you want a clear picture of performance. I do not buy the BS that Lester has just been unlucky all year. One game or two games-maybe even three games, sure. But by now it should have evened out. He has simply sucked this year. It is US who are unlucky having to watch him.

Lester's BABIP tells me that a lot of the balls that opposing players are hitting off him are being hit hard, though not for HR. I know exactly what Babip means. For BTR, who is becoming very narrow minded and arrogant about this, here is the link for proof that I am not talking about something about which I know nothing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_average_on_balls_in_play I do not think that this is a particularly useful statistic. Its pretty far down the list for me. But hey look-keep using it and keep quoting it if you feel that its valuable. Since there is no one right answer (did you know that while the Red Sox use sabermetrics many teams in MLB do not put nearly the emphasis on it that we do?) I will keep on quoting the statistics that I believe are useful (#1=ERA, then WHIP, K/BB, ERA+ etc) and you can quote your stuff. As I said, I DO know what this stuff is; I just haven't been convinced that it beats ERA as a prime indicator of a pitcher's effectiveness. As I said, baseball is a simple game.

Balls that are hard hit (ie on a line) tend to find the ground or a wall before a glove. Lester tends to groove balls that may not go over the wall but are hit hard enough to become base hits, thus increasing his ERA. Good pitchers either strike out a hell of a lot of guys or do not allow solid contact or both. ERA rules.

He can also control hard hit balls by not tossing the 'ol baseball right down Main Street. I still like ERA and for now I see no reason to change. I also understand that other intelligent baseball fans prefer to use other stats to assess a pitcher's performance.

Sorry. Lester has SUCKED. It has nothing to do with luck. He has thrown too many fat pitches and lacks a real out pitch. His ERA is nearly 5. He might improve, but so far this season, he has struggled.

He makes his own luck.

There is no single statistic that accurately defines how well a pitcher is pitching. IMO the single best stat is ERA; there is a good arguement for ERA+ as well. WHIP and K/BB ratio are also important. The others IMO are of secondary importance.

Many in the baseball industry have been skeptical of the stock sports writers and baseball management seem to put in the randomness of BABIP. Any casual baseball fan understands that some hard hit balls end up being outs and some bloopers end up as hits, but, to the naked eye, there also seems to exist a direct relationship between how hard a ball is hit and the odds of it becoming a base hit. Baseball players are human beings, not machines, so there stands reason to suggest that players would have some good performance years or outings as well as some bad ones. When a player’s BABIP fluctuates, it does not necessarily mean their luck is migrating to or from the mean, but instead they may be in a legitimate slump or on a legitimate hot streak in which their performance is actually changing. If this is the case, a bad BABIP year should not necessarily be considered randomly unlucky and conversely a good BABIP year should not be considered randomly lucky.

Four runs allowed in seven innings is a QS?