# Baseball September 2009 **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [September 2, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570 "2009-09-02T00:03:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/81 "2009-09-21T18:10:18Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Whenever someone disagrees with you about the relevance of statistical analysis to baseball, you accuse them of not watching the game, not liking the game, and not understanding the game. :shrug: What else do you ever talk about \*but \*stats? Thes discussions would be much more pleasurable if appreciation and discussion of other aspects of the game were not dismissed as “anti-intellectual” and so forth. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/82 "2009-09-21T18:20:21Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > Yeah, most of the division races are dusted … So really the only thing to talk about right now … Not even that. The teams that are in the postseason are setting up for it, the teams that are out are setting up for the hot stove league. There’s no real point in discussing the remains of the regular season, I agree. We can certainly talk about the playoff matchups, though. Boston-LA: The Sox are suddenly healthy again (mostly), VMart, Gonzo and Wags were just what we needed to plug the holes, Bay and Drew are hot again (true, it’s against the O’s), Buchholz has grown into the job, and Dice-K looks like he should have looked all season. I like a Beckett-Lester-Buchholz-Matsuzaka rotation, with Bard and Wagner setting up Pap, better than anything the Angels can put together, and there’s that mental block issue they always have to deal with. Gathright is around for some pinch-run antics, too. Boston in 6, and that’s being cautious. New York-Detroit: Tiggers’ hitting is just too spotty, and they can’t pitch Verlander every day, either. Yanks pitching has solidified in time, their older hitters have new life, and they should take it in 7, tops. Boston-New York: Too early to be confident, but I’ll go with pitching in any postseason series, and Boston’s is better. I wouldn’t have said that in July and August, but that isn’t when the playoffs are played. National League: I don’t follow the minors, sorry. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/83 "2009-09-21T18:24:55Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Boston in 6, and that’s being cautious. > > \ > > …they should take it in 7, tops. That will be quite an accomplishment, considering the Division Series are the best of five games. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/84 "2009-09-21T18:28:41Z")
Ah, of course. :smack: So many championship-contending teams in so many sports in this area, it’s hard to keep track sometimes. Gotta suck living in Kansas City or some other hopeless place like that. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/85 "2009-09-22T05:09:25Z")
It sure didn’t suck to be a Kansas City fan tonight! What a comeback! I think I’m going to become a fan of these guys with “KC” on their hats who came back from 6-0 and 8-2 deficits to beat the Red Sox, instead of being a fan of the Royals. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/86 "2009-09-22T06:39:12Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Why Greinke? Who else? Greinke’s year is one of the 2 or 3 best of the last decade by a pitcher not named Pedro Martinez. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/87 "2009-09-22T11:24:38Z")
Yookeroo: > [@](#): > > Greinke’s year is one of the 2 or 3 best of the last decade by a pitcher not named Pedro Martinez. Actually, it’s one of the 2 or 3 best of the last decade _including_ any by Pedro Martinez. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/88 "2009-09-22T13:17:28Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > :shrug: What else do you ever talk about \*but \*stats? > > Thes discussions would be much more pleasurable if appreciation and discussion of other aspects of the game were not dismissed as “anti-intellectual” and so forth. > > Thank you. As a Royals fan who has tried to watch as many Grienke games as possible, I can only say that looking at his stats makes me appreciate him even more - because individual pitching performances can be so easily dismissed as aberrations (the other team was resting its starters; they had an off-night; the opposing pitcher was yadda yadda yadda). In addition, it’s hard to nearly impossible to compare multiple pitchers by just watching the games. BBWAA writers are assigned to their home team (or the nearest MLB club) - they have a focus on 162 games for their own team. The Rangers’ beat writer isn’t focusing on comparing Grienke with Sabathia - all he knows is that after a night of writing about Kinsler struggling at the plate, Hamilton motorboating some barfly, and Chris Davis lowering the Arlington median temperature a few degrees with all his whiffs, he doesn’t have much time to watch 3 more games that night - he’s just looking to see who picked up the W. God forbid he take three more seconds to see who allowed one less run (each and every single game he enters). ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/89 "2009-09-22T13:53:42Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > It sure didn’t suck to be a Kansas City fan tonight! What a comeback! I think I’m going to become a fan of these guys with “KC” on their hats who came back from 6-0 and 8-2 deficits to beat the Red Sox, instead of being a fan of the Royals. Is it _really_ necessary to point out that the Sox were using the game to assess if Wakefield is going to be physically able to pitch effectively this postseason, or if Delcarmen is going to pull it back together enough to even make the postseason roster (“No” to both, btw), \*not \*as an opportunity to win? Gloating over winning an exhibition game is just sad. But you get so few opportunities, I suppose you can have this one. What does last place and hopeless taste like, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Hawkeyeop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/958977/32.png) [@Hawkeyeop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hawkeyeop)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/90 "2009-09-22T13:53:45Z")
What else are you going to use besides statistics? No one is able to watch every game of every player. Even you could, you would probably be unlikely to tell who has given up less runs or a higher avg without keeping track unless there were major discrepencies. A hit a week is a huge difference in batting average, but barely noticable to the viewer. Same with a run every couple of weeks. Besides, a traditional baseball writer uses stats, he just uses different ones. So the question isn’t whether to use stats, but rather which stats to use. Do you like stats likes wins and rbis or ones like warp and dera? I prefer the latter, because I find they correlate much more with success on the field. Greinke should win the Cy Young, and I think he probably will. The wins (at last check the Royals have a losing record when he starts, how is that even possible?) hurt him, but his other numbers are enough better than everyone else that I think the writers will overlook it. There also isn’t any other obvious candidate, the 2nd best pitcher, Felix Hernandez, doesn’t have any more wins than Greinke and no one else is going to put up a huge win total like Colon did when he won. Now the interesting question is does Greinke have a MVP argument? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/91 "2009-09-22T14:40:21Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Gloating over winning an exhibition game is just sad. But you get so few opportunities, I suppose you can have this one. What does last place and hopeless taste like, anyway? You have a weird definition of the word “gloat”. Oh - and you’ll have to ask Cleveland that last question. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/92 "2009-09-22T14:49:14Z")
ElvisL1ves: > [@](#): > > What does last place and hopeless taste like, anyway? 25 years of it tastes pretty bad, but only about 1/3 as bad as 80 years of it must have… ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/93 "2009-09-22T15:34:41Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Gloating over winning an exhibition game is just sad. But you get so few opportunities, I suppose you can have this one. What does last place and hopeless taste like, anyway? Wow. Really? A guy who supports a losing team takes some pleasure in the fact that they have a couple of surprising, exciting comeback wins over a playoff team, and you feel the need to talk that sort of smack? Not only that, but you started it with, “Gotta suck living in Kansas City or some other hopeless place like that.” You’re a really unpleasant person to talk baseball with. Are all Boston fans like you? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/94 "2009-09-22T15:49:28Z")
Oh Christ, DNFTT, please. As to AL MVP, I think Mauer’s easily the choice, but then I thought he should have won it it 2006 and had a pretty good argument last year. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/95 "2009-09-22T15:54:25Z")
> [@Hawkeyeop](#): > > What else are you going to use besides statistics? To do what? Enjoy the game? There’s TV highlights, news reports, insider stories … the Web is full of fun stuff. > [@](#): > > Greinke should win the Cy Young, and I think he probably will. Agreed, mainly because he’s gotten people out so consistently well without a solid team behind him. > [@](#): > > Now the interesting question is does Greinke have a MVP argument? Oooh, oooh, is it time for the “Pitchers have an award of their own already” argument yet? Is it? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/96 "2009-09-22T15:58:36Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > 25 years of it tastes pretty bad, but only about 1/3 as bad as 80 years of it must have… Yep, nobody misses it, despite all that bullshit from the dilettante pseudointellectual literary crowd about expecting and even wanting failure to be ingrained in the New England psychology or something. Claiming to be a Red Sox fan is still trendy, but among a different set of dilettantes now, not the John Updike wannabes anymore. And you have your memories of George Brett and Frank White to sustain you. **RickJay, mhendo** , get a grip, both of you, okay? Enough with the threadshitting, please. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/97 "2009-09-22T16:13:10Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > As to AL MVP, I think Mauer’s easily the choice, but then I thought he should have won it it 2006 and had a pretty good argument last year. Yeah, Mauer is so far ahead of the other position players that it isn’t really even close. He leads in both OBP (27 points ahead of his nearest rival), and in SLG (56 points ahead. What is, perhaps, the most amazing is that Mauer also leads in VORP. This is incredible because VORP is an incremental or “count” statistic (like hits or home runs), one that basically increases with every game you play. So, the more games you play, the higher your VORP will be. Mauer leads the AL in VORP by 25 runs worth of value, despite missing a month on the DL. He’s that far ahead of the second place hitter (Derek Jeter), despite having 135 fewer plate appearances. Greinke isn’t too far behind Mauer in VORP (87 v. 80 right now), but if i were voting it would be Mauer all the way. He could sit out the rest of the season and still get my vote. If Greinke does win the Cy Young (which i believe he should), he will be the first pitcher ever to win it with fewer than 18 wins (excluding years where there was not a full season of games). I think it’s a good year for it, because the win leader (Sabathia) hasn’t been near as good as Greinke, and has had an incredible amount of run support for some of his more mediocre starts. Greinke, on the other hand, has had some diabolically bad run support from the Royal, including four starts where they couldn’t score at all. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/98 "2009-09-22T16:24:51Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Really? You need to ask? > > ERA of 2.14, WHIP of 1.06, gave up 59 total runs (earned and unearned) and only 11 home runs in 210 innings pitched. Each of those figures was best in the AL, by a pretty comfortable margin. > > I’m not saying he’s the only contender, or that there haven’t been other great pitching performances this year, but Greinke seems to be a pretty clear leader. Sabathia, Hernandez, and Halladay would probably all deserve a look. > > Basically, the only things weighing against Greinke are his Wins total, and the fact that his team isn’t in contention for a playoff spot, both of which are basically unrelated to his pitching excellence, and which should be irrelevant, but which the dunces who vote on Cy Young awards tend to give way too much weight.. Well, I have always felt Cy Young should go to the best pitcher, but I am one of those dunces that consider Wins important too. So silly of me where in the end, it is the most important stat even if you don’t actually have control over it. It is his very lack of Wins and innings per game that make me question him as a sure fire Cy Young candidate. He is a very good candidate, but not sure fire. As to MVP, I feel it is meant to go to a player that helped his team the most and all players on non-competing teams do not qualify unless there is no good candidate. As the Twins climbed back into the race and made September meaningful, I think Mauer should win easily. Earlier in the month when it looked like they might finish under .500 and not contending in September, I would not have given him a vote. More importantly, the Yanks are playing poorly and the Sox are red hot, meaning that the AL East race I thought was done is not. Though like the Dodgers and Rockies, the Yanks and Red Sox are simply jockeying for position, not elimination. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/99 "2009-09-22T16:36:59Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > You’re a really unpleasant person to talk baseball with. Are all Boston fans like you? In my experience, yes. I keed, I keed… ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570/100 "2009-09-22T16:38:56Z")
So, What Exit?: how many wins does Mauer have? Since they’re assigned to pitchers (who as you say have no direct control over them) - there’s no reason to not assign them to the other eight/nine players on the field, right? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/baseball-september-2009/508570.md?page=6)