2013 MLB Regular Season running thread

Baseball is more team-dependent than football? You really keep 'em coming, don't you?

Oy.

 

Absolutely. You give Peyton Manning a horrible supporting cast and he still wins 10 games. You put Miguel Cabrera on these Marlins and they still stink.

 

Thank you for once again demonstrating that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about no matter what the subject. I find your consistency to be a true comfort.

 

Really? How so? He took some pretty bad Colts supporting casts to the playoffs year after year.

 

I think Moddy has the right attitude. Maybe this conversation would be worthwhile with somebody else, but not you.

 

Josh Johnson scratched from his start with triceps tightness:

https://twitter.com/jonmorosi/status/327772095079661568

And so it begins ...

 

For colleges which play a mix of 7-inning and 9-inning games, how do you compute those ERAs? Just go with 8 on average, or figure them using a formula based on how many innings of each type they pitched?

 

Are minor league ERAs adjusted at all for seven-inning doubleheaders?

 

So I'm perplexed.

Are advanced statistics a "fine thing" that you choose not to care about?

Or have they "ruined" baseball?

 

Advanced stats have not ruined the game for me one whit. They're a curiosity to be delved into — and ignored — at one's leisure.

I do agree BABIP is a little overrated. It favors pitchers with good backing defenses.

 

One problem, I think, is that a lot of information is being grouped under "advanced statistics," and summarily dismissed by people like Moddy and others (including, before him, the late, great spnited.)

It seems like each statistic, "advanced" or not, should be evaluated on its own merits, no? A lot of people here don't like WAR, for various reasons. Some don't trust it to evaluate defense, and felt redeemed last year by the Brett Lawrie glitch. Others think that it's too many steps removed from an actual batch of data, too derived, to be of much use to them.

But some of these "advanced statistics" are clearly useful, and actually not that "advanced," to be quite honest. When Roy Halladay struggles out of the gate, Pitch/fx data is used to show that his velocity is down. For other pitchers, it lets us know if a guy is relying on his fastball, his breaking ball, or something in between, and how that compares to when he was at his best. Objective evidence, at one point, indicated that on-base percentage was undervalued by teams. The A's took advantage of that, famously.

Admittedly, a lot of of what "advanced statistics" bear out just confirm our intuitions. Little League coaches are apt to yell out, "A walk's as good as a hit!" when the bases are empty. Not so much when there are guys on second and third. Hence, we've always kind of understood that walks are slightly less valuable as singles. But now there are statistics that not only back that up, but pinpoint that comparative value.

I can understand feeling that you only care to know the general notion that walks and singles - and this is just an example - are comparable, but not equal. But I don't get why people feel the need to take the next step and dismiss this information as not being useful. It's useful.