The shortest radio interview in history

[Tarheel316]

I normally don't agree with JC about anything but he's rocking this thread.

 

[JC]

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 bullshirt) 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.

The good old eye test has no human bias involved. These debates are ridiculous in 2018, your side lost, they lost years ago.

You are skeptical but every team has an analytics department.

 

[JC]

I normally don't agree with JC about anything but he's rocking this thread.

That means you are normally wrong.

 

[JC]

Here's a beauty of a thread from 10 years ago about wins and losses.

AL Cy Young

 

[justgladtobehere]

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 bullshirt) 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.

1) Even if he did not state it explicitly, he made the argument that a pitcher can control the timing of the runs he gives up in order to increase the probability his team wins games over the simple win % expected based on runs scored and runs allowed. He should show some proof of that. A couple of games where Scherzer gave up meaningless runs when his team was up big or point out that the Nationals rarely came from behind to give Scherzer a win. It would show up if its there.
2) It's long a season. A pitcher is going to make 30+ starts. Most are run of the mill and no pitcher knows what his team is going to give up going into the game.The simpler explanation, that a pitcher controls runs allowed, period, is more likely than he has some finely tuned sense for each game to account for an ERA difference of .8.

 

[The Big Ragu]

1) Even if he did not state it explicitly, he made the argument that a pitcher can control the timing of the runs he gives up in order to increase the probability his team wins games over the simple win % expected based on runs scored and runs allowed. He should show some proof of that. A couple of games where Scherzer gave up meaningless runs when his team was up big or point out that the Nationals rarely came from behind to give Scherzer a win. It would show up if its there.
2) It's long a season. A pitcher is going to make 30+ starts. Most are run of the mill and no pitcher knows what his team is going to give up going into the game.The simpler explanation, that a pitcher controls runs allowed, period, is more likely than he has some finely tuned sense for each game to account for an ERA difference of .8.

Maybe I am wrong. I didn't see that argument. ... I thought he was simplistically saying, "Wins matter and a pitcher who gives up less runs than his team scores a lot, deserves Cy Young vote credit."

As for your second thing. ... I was making a broad point that may not have been clear. Because in these conversations, people don't stick to a point (not a criticism of you) and try to make it into a simplistic "analytics" vs. "eye test" dismissal. Even if the person never said anything like that.

What I am wary of, are broad statements. Well, that and misuse of statistics. Teams with analytics departments don't use statistical masturbation to evaluate players. They use models that produce finely tuned probabilities that can give small edges in what makes for wins vs. losses. They use those probabilities in very narrow ways, because the information they glean from their models is narrow in scope. It can still have a major effect on a team, because you can make a dollar stretch a little further, or you can eek out a few more wins that might be the difference. But some broad "analytics" magic wand doesn't tell anyone what makes a great baseball player, and it certain doesn't answer a Hall of Fame question or a Cy Young vote. One major point that I wanted to make with regard to the "studies show" thing, is a common mistake people make. I don't know what studies you were talking about, but if it is some kind of aggregate look at something -- and I'll assume the methodology was statistically sound, because very often these things in the wrong hands are not -- a study might give you an average of some sort. The problem with that for these types of conversations is that we aren't talking about averages. We are talking about specific players. So let's say that you have 100 pitchers, and you can conclude somehow that on average, they don't pitch much different in a 1 run ballgame than they do in 10 run ballgame. The problem is that in order to determine if there are players who are extraordinary in some way, an average is meaningless. You need to look at just the outliers. Within that average, you might have 80 pitchers who always pitch about the same, 10 who pitch worse in tight games, and 10 who pitch better. That might give you an average that suggests on average pitchers do the same. But the meaningful thing to consider would be, "Is there something about those 10 who do better in those kinds of situations that makes them remarkable?" I didn't mean my comment to be anything personal about you, but I have seen people do those "studies" comments pointing to averages of some sort in these kinds of conversations. I don't even know if that was what you were doing, because you didn't say what studies you are talking about. But I find it very difficult with some people to explain why averages are almost meaningless in most conversations like this, because we are trying to find people who were remarkable -- outliers if they exist -- not come up with an average.

 

[justgladtobehere]

When the voter argues for wins meaning more, what is he advancing other than the 'winning' pitcher has a talent for winning games that is not directly related to his ERA and the runs his team scores? If he wouldn't agree to that statement, then his support for wins as a deciding stat is utterly empty and even more ridiculous. And this is the quotation that Maffei included as his only support: "You need to pitch to the run support you get, whether that's one, two, three or 12."

If there are outliers, they have not been found. CC Sabathia and Morris have been looked at specifically, just to name two.

CC Sabathia and Pitching to the Score | FanGraphs Baseball

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In all the years the clutch or pitch-to-the-score type claims have been debunked, I have yet to see anybody point to an example of an individual with a high level of these abilities. Season to season individuals show little skill in these areas. Sabermetrics has been picking at the conventional thought for decades. There are people with advanced science and math degrees involved and everything is open sourced. The work has been checked.

 

[Tarheel316]

ERA is the most important stat for determining a starting pitcher's effectiveness.

 

[Tarheel316]

That means you are normally wrong.

Nah. It means you're normally wrong.

 

[JC]

Nah. It means you're normally wrong.

Lol, ok.

 

[Alma]

Before the writer could even say anything, the host he was doing a favor by calling, was lobbing insults at him. He was perfectly justified in hanging up. I think most people on here agree with that.

He may have thought it was a purposeful hatchet job. You get an email from a producer, say yes, and that's the voice you hear? I'm not doing that for 15 minutes, either.

I did some radio interviews back in the day. I never hung up in a huff, but there were a few "OK, what are we doing here?" moments on the air. For me, it was never arguing; I could do that. It was the jackass who tried to ask me the same thing three different ways. Usually, a "yep, that's what I said" moved things along.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

1. Somers has been a professional ass for many years.
2. I sure would have voted for de Grom over Scherzer, but the latter is hardly a terrible choice, merely second-best.
3. After thinking this over for quite awhile now, I have decided that "I won't put up with this shirt, good-bye" is a defensible, no, laudable reaction to the entire talk radio trolling bit. fork those guys.