But you’re the one who’s arguing that his inconsistency can be measured by his W-L record. What does his W-L record tell us about his “consistency from start to start”?
I’m not saying that you’re wrong about his consistency. You might be right. I just don’t understand why his winning percentage is the key to comprehending his inconsistency.
Absolutely.
When you have more money than just about everyone else, and are willing to spend it, then it becomes difficult to assign value to your players using the same scale as everyone else. The Yankees can afford to pay Derek Jeter $20 million, despite the fact that Jeter isn’t really worth that much, because Jeter is a very good player and the extra millions he earns from the Yankees don’t really put much of a dent in that massive budget.
When your total budget is up around 200 million bucks, paying 5 or 10 million too much for a very good player isn’t a big problem. When your total budget is 60 or 70 million, that same contract is impossible to justify.
Because most of the pitching stats that people look at(including all of the stats you quoted) are averages, and averages don’t have any measure of consistency. It wouldn’t be hard to come up with new stats based on variance that would measure consistency(and personally, I’d be quite interested to see the variance of Roy Halladay’s stats compared to AJ’s).
I understand the limited usefulness of wins for measuring anything. The point I was trying to make was that a pitcher as inconsistent as AJ is going to be around .500 no matter how much run support he gets.
Forget numbers and look at players. Fat, slow power hitters. They don’t last, and once they start to fall apart it’s over quickly. Why deny it? Mo Vaughn, Cecil Fielder, whomever; they don’t last as long as more athletic players.
No, it’s not. The Red Sox do not use AA as their key player development stage, at least not for position players, and neither does anyone else; this is a silly myth. Almost all hitters in all thirty major league systems prove themselves at AAA before getting major league jobs. Exceptions like Albert Pujols are very unusual. Dustin Pedroia played twice as many games in AAA as he did in AA; Jacoby Ellsbury played more games in AAA than he did in AA; Kevin Youkilis played parts of three seasons in AAA; Jed Lowrie played exactly as many games at AAA as he did at AA. All their hitters developed in house prove themselves at Pawtucket before becoming major league regulars, and so did most of the hitters they have who were developed in other systems.
Boston’s not bringing any of their current AA hitting prospects straight to the majors, so who’s down there is not relevant to whether or not Ortiz can be replaced from within the Boston system.
Who said it was? Boston will no more release Ortiz now than they would burn down Fenway Park. What’s good is not always what is politically feasible.
I have seen you pull this a few times now, and I really don’t understand it. Why can people disagree about players and stats and whatnot without one party saying that the other “Doesn’t watch games” or “isn’t a true fan”. There is plenty of room for debate without these meaningless comments that simply cause ill will and make the debate mean spirited from the start.
In this case, it’s about the inanity of pretending a player hasn’t gotten out of a slump in his last 3 games by averaging stats over the last 10. Somebody who was paying attention to the guy, even if he hadn’t seen his swing suddenly kick in, wouldn’t have that sort of thought occur to him. Only somebody who pays way too much attention to numbers and not enough to actually watching the game could say something so silly. Only someone who really doesn’t understand the excitement and relief of seeing a well-beloved great player get his life back would even look for a reason to pooh-pooh someone who does.
Does that make sense to you? If it doesn’t, I can’t help. Please do reconsider which sort of comment is, as you call it, “mean-spirited”, though, at least.
Guys who get hurt fall apart fast, and fat guys recover more slowly, true. But Ortiz is not nearly as fat as Vaughn or Fielder (pere ou fils, take your pick). And what does that have to do with him being “back”, anyway? Intradivisional jealousy, perhaps?
Which is why I called it a “finishing school”. The big step in a player’s development isn’t there, though, it’s lower. As I said.
All came out of college programs which are the equivalent of AA.
Reread “finishing school” comment as many times as it takes.
It seems to me that it’s two people disagreeing about sample sizes. You say 3 games is enough to say he is back, and he is saying let’s wait and see. I don’t see how either opinion implies an inability to watch the game. After 10 games you can easily say “told you so!”
But, yes, even though you have described the difference in opinion well in that post I tend to think telling someone they don’t watch the game and rolling your eyes is not a good recipe to start a good natured debate.
That’s when the step change happened. It isn’t about sample sizes; that concept doesn’t apply to steps, even within statistical theory, which is *about *averaging things out. That is simply an inappropriate conceptual framework even if you are trying to apply analysis to fun.
One is based on watching the games. One is based on some web site devoted to stats. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Even in response to being jumped on so childishly for something as simple and joyful and fanlike as “Papi’s back”?
Please reread the relevant posts in order if you’re going to pretend to have something useful to say about them. “Mean-spirited” indeed.
Can we all just agree that Big Papi is a likable, rotund fellow who may or may not have much left in the tank, but will nevertheless be on the Sox roster for the remainder of his contract? That way we can get back to discussing why A.J. Burnett is consistently inconsistent.
Who gives a rats ass about Big Papi anyway? Whoopity skippy. Question is when will Beltre be back? When will Balentein start hitting? The Ms only have two, two! hitters over .300 in the regular line up. The fact we’re only 4.5 back is astounding.
Ortiz is *not *rotund, certainly not compared to the other hitters he has incredibly been compared to here. Likeable, oh my yes, and that’s part of why it’s fun to be a fan of him personally as well as of the team, and that is why it’s been so much fun to see his swing kick back in and his smile return, and to hear the fans’ chants change from encouragement to congratulation.
You can’t tell much by last night’s game, though - Wang and Hughes never gave him something decent to hit at a time when it wasn’t better to just take the pitch. There were pitches he walked on that he’d have swung at in desperation just a few weeks ago, though.
Speaking of Chien-Ming Wang, what the hell happened to him, anyway? He used to be able to dominate pretty consistently, but he’s made Burnett look like the Rock of Gibraltar this year. Another injury-based mental block like Papi’s, maybe?
Arm strength, leg strength and mechanics. The holy trinity. When he was rehabbing from his foot injury he wasn’t running. His arm strength still isn’t there, even though he was hitting the mid-90s, he runs out of gas. His arm is all over the place. I think he can still turn it around, but might benefit from some more time as a long reliever to work out the kinks.
I guess the proof is in the pudding, and he’s been pounded. It does not say a lot about the year he’s having that in his last game he got pummeled for 4 runs in two and a third, and in the game before that five runs in four and two thirds, and those games made his ERA go down.
I just can’t help but think that they’ve rushed him back solely because “ohmigod we can’t miss the playoffs again” and that in the long run it could be a horrible decision.
The thing that bothers me is that there’s no real immediate need. They have 5 starters with CC, AJ, Pettitte, Joba and Hughes. They were surging. What’s the urgency? Sure the pen was thin and under performing, but if their “solution” was to bolster the pen by adding a starter who can’t go more than 90 pitches *at his best *right now, you have to question it.
6Ks for Gallardo today (2 earned!)…bullpen blows it.
It’ll still say…Tell me in April “Hey, your Brewers are gonna get high Ks and great starts out of your starters, but the bullpen is shaky”. I never would’ve believed you. Still love 'em, still have faith in them overall. But win the ones you are supposed to win!
Man. I thought the Phils would be lucky to get out of New York with one win. Great to see them win the series. And, they got a little bit of the bad luck they suffered in LA back.
Hopefully, they can play just as well against the Red Sox. They are going to have to break this home curse at some point.
It’s going to be more tough games for Happ and Bastardo. Both, young guys have been pitching well. We’ll see how they can manage against one of the AL’s best teams.
Funny how both teams are just wrapping up series with their bitter NY rivals.
