The shortest radio interview in history

I never said I feel writers are above explaining. I said I don't necessarily think they HAVE to. And this whole thing is Exhibit A. People demand an explanation, he gives it, he gets trashed.

 

So it's clear, this isn't me speaking, as in, this is my opinion, re: pitching to run support. ... But there is not much of an argument to make when it comes to pitching to the run support your team gives you. A pitcher's won-loss record makes that argument, doesn't it? As in, "On days you pitched how often did you give up fewer runs than your team scored." Do that, and your won-loss record will reflect it.

If you look at the column Maffei wrote, Randy Jones said, "Wins are the most important thing in the game. You need to pitch to the run support you get, whether that's one, two, three or 12.” I personally don't agree with making that the sole, or even a majority, factor in a Cy Young vote, especially when it was coming down to Scherzer vs. a pitcher who got almost comically shitty run support. It's one thing, and yeah, wins are important, but there are lots of things that you can value in a pitcher as much or more. If that is your argument, though. ... I don't know how you support what you are saying beyond, "Look at their records."

 

1) You are criticizing him for some kind of ianalysis that he never made. He simply said, "Wins are important, and I value a pitcher who gets them." To put it simplistically, at least. Now you can argue against that being a sole criteria for a Cy Young, or even any criteria. But unless I was missing something, I didn't see him getting into the kind of thing you are trying to paint him into about breakdowns about when he gave up runs, his team scored runs, etc. That is you, not what he actually said. Unless I was missing something.

2) I am always wary of vague, "It's been studied" comments. I don't mean that personally. But athletic performance is part talent, but there is also an element of how you react situationally -- there is a mental aspect to competing. Not all games are equal, for example. A normal person is going to feel different pressure pitching in a meaningless mid season game than they are in a late-season, close pennant race game. And I would bet for certain that there have been some players that perform well in different situations, and some that don't perform as well. Just as I would guess that there are some who handle a tight game where their team isn't scoring runs better than some other pitchers. We are talking about people, not robots. Where a lot of people go wrong, in my opinion, is that they think everything about athletic performance can be distilled down to broad numerical formulas of some sort. Typically, they are trying to break it down into just single numerical values (and some of the formulas they come up with are ludicrous, because they add human bias -- adding random controls -- into how they try to calculate their number), which is absurd, because there are way more inputs that go into what makes a good player (in any sport) than even the best controlled, and sound, statistical analysis could ever account for. Even worse, though, a lot of people who don't even get into those kinds of statistical weeds (which are exercises in futility anyhow), distill things into broad statements like, "pitchers' performances don't change based on the score." Maybe that is true. I'd guess it's way more likely untrue, if you are looking at it beyond an aggregate look. Even if that is true of the broad swath of pitchers, let's say (and I have no idea if it is), can you really find me a study (one that isn't made of mud and bullshit) that demonstrates there is no such thing as ANY pitcher who handles pressure better than most other pitchers do? A guy who in tight games consistently pitches better? Even if you go through history and could find only handful of pitchers from any era who defy a broad, "studies show" thing in that regard (and I would bet you would), I'd suggest that there might have been something special about those handful of pitchers that made them extraordinary. When trying to find extraordinary performance, you should never look at the average performance. You need to look at the outliers, and then consider what made them outliers.