Greg Maddux.

Living proof that you don’t have to be tall or throw over 90 to be simply GREAT. Career ERA of 2.89 in a hitters’ time. 145 ERA+ from 1987 to 2003. Over those 17 seasons, he averaged 17 wins/yr and since 88, never had fewer than 15 wins/year. He averaged 231 IP/yr, 49 BB/yr, 3.29K/BB, 161 SO/yr, and 13 HR/yr (1 HR/ 17.8 IP) He also needed significantly fewer pitches than most pitchers to complete those innings – he said he believed that outs are more important than strikeouts.

Clemens (who pitched well tonight) is considered a far better pitcher and I don’t really understand why. He sure nuff has more strikeouts, has an average of 224 IP/yr (starting in 1986, his first injury-free year (to give him the benefir of the doubt) to 2003, 73 BB/yr, 216 K/yr, 2.96 K/BB, 17 HR/yr, 1 HR/13.2 IP, a 141 ERA+ and an average of 15 wins/yr, even tho he had losing records in 2 of those years.

So why is Clemens “better?” Well, they’re both born in Texas, so that’s a draw. But Clemens is MUCH taller and heavier and that’s BIG (hahaha), has played for prominent east-coast teams (muy macho) and throws faster (like, so?????) I thought it is ever so much harder to win with location and control without “blazing” speed. I guess it is just a lot less glamorous……

I must say that I also like Maddux because he is the same size as Roy-O, even though Roy throws faster. I wonder if, in these days of the worship of the largeness of the player and the radar gun if someone like Maddux would even get a chance to play…..

Over the past 3 years, Roy has a 4:1 K/BB ratio and 1 HR/21.4 IP and an ERA+ of 150. And only 15 HR/yr. With half of those games in the juicebox. W O W !!! He has had some very bad luck this year because the bullpen has lost him a few games. He did OK Sunday, 8K, 2BB, 1 HR and 4 ER in 7 IP.

I want to throw in my 2 cents about DIPS (defense independent pitching statistice), a stat invented by a lawyer named Voros McCracken who now works for the stat loving Red Sox. This number looks ONLY at the pitcher’s walks, K and HR, ignores hits, bunts and errors. The claim is that since those numbers are not consistent or predictable from year to year, only the first three are completely independent of the rest of the fielders, as well as the manager, coach and time of day or temperature….

I don’t believe it for one minute. What a pitcher throws depends on who is calling the pitches, who is at bat, who is on base, who is on deck, who is fielding, how the pitcher happens to FEEL at any given time (yes, men have emotions too and they affect their judgement, too) among other things… Of course I know that there are some hits, even HR, that wouldn’t get caught by a team of the best fielders in the game, BUT, fielders are positioned by coaches and/or other fielders and they may have been poorly positioned.

There is a HUGE difference between 70 and 75% of balls in play being turned into outs. So the performance of the pitcher cannot POSSIBLY be independent of defense or anything else, like his thoughts about how the current batter may have done against him in the past, or if the catcher will call for only fastballs to throw out basestealers, or if the curve/breaker is working (and if the catcher can catch it) or wondering if he should pitch differently with men on base if his fielders can’t catch or throw and NEEDS to get a K instead of an out. (So I guess I won’t be getting my Stat Geeks Unite Membership Card any real too soon.)

The reason I brought up DIPS is that I have seen that Roy tends to give up most of his runs right after one of the fielders has made an error or at least not made a good play. Like Sunday. After Biggio made that error in the 3rd, Roy gave up all his runs that inning and the next before he settled down. I think he tends to overthrow to get Ks and that’s when he gets lit up. I can’t get good numbers on this because no one I know of makes a note of hits/runs given up after errors/missed outs and I’m going to try to do this myself for the rest of the year to see if observation matches reality.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. What shall I call my new stat?
HORRORS (Hits Or Runs Rost Over Realbad Screwups)
OOOOOOOOOOOH I luv stats… specially when I get to make em up.

Greg Maddux.

Living proof that you don’t have to be tall or throw over 90 to be simply GREAT. Career ERA of 2.89 in a hitters’ time. 145 ERA+ from 1987 to 2003. Over those 17 seasons, he averaged 17 wins/yr and since 88, never had fewer than 15 wins/year. He averaged 231 IP/yr, 49 BB/yr, 3.29K/BB, 161 SO/yr, and 13 HR/yr (1 HR/ 17.8 IP) He also needed significantly fewer pitches than most pitchers to complete those innings – he said he believed that outs are more important than strikeouts.

Clemens (who pitched well tonight) is considered a far better pitcher and I don’t really understand why. He sure nuff has more strikeouts, has an average of 224 IP/yr (starting in 1986, his first injury-free year (to give him the benefir of the doubt) to 2003, 73 BB/yr, 216 K/yr, 2.96 K/BB, 17 HR/yr, 1 HR/13.2 IP, a 141 ERA+ and an average of 15 wins/yr, even tho he had losing records in 2 of those years.

So why is Clemens “better?” Well, they’re both born in Texas, so that’s a draw. But Clemens is MUCH taller and heavier and that’s BIG (hahaha), has played for prominent east-coast teams (muy macho) and throws faster (like, so?????) I thought it is ever so much harder to win with location and control without “blazing” speed. I guess it is just a lot less glamorous……

I must say that I also like Maddux because he is the same size as Roy-O, even though Roy throws faster. I wonder if, in these days of the worship of the largeness of the player and the radar gun if someone like Maddux would even get a chance to play…..

Over the past 3 years, Roy has a 4:1 K/BB ratio and 1 HR/21.4 IP and an ERA+ of 150. And only 15 HR/yr. With half of those games in the juicebox. W O W !!! He has had some very bad luck this year because the bullpen has lost him a few games. He did OK Sunday, 8K, 2BB, 1 HR and 4 ER in 7 IP.

I want to throw in my 2 cents about DIPS (defense independent pitching statistice), a stat invented by a lawyer named Voros McCracken who now works for the stat loving Red Sox. This number looks ONLY at the pitcher’s walks, K and HR, ignores hits, bunts and errors. The claim is that since those numbers are not consistent or predictable from year to year, only the first three are completely independent of the rest of the fielders, as well as the manager, coach and time of day or temperature….

I don’t believe it for one minute. What a pitcher throws depends on who is calling the pitches, who is at bat, who is on base, who is on deck, who is fielding, how the pitcher happens to FEEL at any given time (yes, men have emotions too and they affect their judgement, too) among other things… Of course I know that there are some hits, even HR, that wouldn’t get caught by a team of the best fielders in the game, BUT, fielders are positioned by coaches and/or other fielders and they may have been poorly positioned.

There is a HUGE difference between 70 and 75% of balls in play being turned into outs. So the performance of the pitcher cannot POSSIBLY be independent of defense or anything else, like his thoughts about how the current batter may have done against him in the past, or if the catcher will call for only fastballs to throw out basestealers, or if the curve/breaker is working (and if the catcher can catch it) or wondering if he should pitch differently with men on base if his fielders can’t catch or throw and NEEDS to get a K instead of an out. (So I guess I won’t be getting my Stat Geeks Unite Membership Card any real too soon.)

The reason I brought up DIPS is that I have seen that Roy tends to give up most of his runs right after one of the fielders has made an error or at least not made a good play. Like Sunday. After Biggio made that error in the 3rd, Roy gave up all his runs that inning and the next before he settled down. I think he tends to overthrow to get Ks and that’s when he gets lit up. I can’t get good numbers on this because no one I know of makes a note of hits/runs given up after errors/missed outs and I’m going to try to do this myself for the rest of the year to see if observation matches reality.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. What shall I call my new stat?
HORRORS (Hits Or Runs Rost Over Realbad Screwups)
OOOOOOOOOOOH I luv stats… specially when I get to make em up.

Tags: Braves, Houston Astros, MLB

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Astros baseball, Biggio, Pitchers, Roger Clemens, Roy Oswalt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.