Preventing a run is very slightly more valuable than scoring one. Not ten percent more valuable, but it’s like 51-52 percent pitching and fielding, 48-49 offense.
The primary reason for this is that each fewer run you allow has an increasing marginal value in winning. Every run you score has a decreasing marginal value.
Suppose an average team scores 4 runs and allows 4 runs, on average, per game. Their record will be about 81-81.
Now say they add lots of offense and average 5 runs a game, allowing four per game still. What will their record be? About 97-65.
What if instead they added a lot of pitching and allowed 3 runs a game, while still scoring 4? Their record would be about 102-60.
Speaking of pitchers and asking as a very casual fan at best, is a “good-hitting” pitcher in the NL ( by pitcher standards ) worth any premium at all over an average or lousy one? Or is it functionally a completely irrelevant stat when evaluating hires?
i.e. will a professional staff ever prefer recruiting/hiring a good-hitting pitcher with a very marginally higher ERA over a total crap hitter with a very marginally lower one?
A pitching machine and a real life pitcher are apples and oranges. If a pitcher could hide his pitch like those machines can, he’d strike out 400 guys a year.
On the same subject. Didn’t 47 year old Will Ferrell manage to foul off a pitch in his spring training stunt? I’m NOT saying a guy off the street can walk in and hit .200, but I am saying machines and people throw the ball completely differently.
“On the subject of hitting in general, Dean Chance was the worst hitter ever to amass a full season’s worth of major-league at-bats; his .066 batting average (he was a pitcher, obviously) is a reasonable guess as to what an average 20-something in good shape with lots of time to practice would be able to do.”
Obviously a pitcher being able to hit is of value. Zack Greinke’s ability to hit, sort of, is of value. Better to get an extra few hits than not, right? But the safest route is simply to pick pitchers based on how well they pitch. Pitchers, more so than hitters, are unpredictable, mercurial, and prone to sudden collapses because of injuries that are often hard to detect.
In addition to generally not hitting well, pitchers also don’t hit much, so the ones who can hit a little don’t have a lot of opportunities. The aforementioned Mr. Greinke’s career high in at bats is 67. The difference between him and a typical pitcher in an average Greinke year is maybe four runs, a difference that would be swiftly made up by any measurable difference in pitching skill.
I immediately thought of Micah Owings, who was a good hitter in college and has a career 813 OPS in the big leagues. He didn’t last terribly long (despite his hitting prowess) because his career 4.86 ERA left a bit to be desired.