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SABREMETRICS RUN AMOK
Guest Sat Nov 20, 2010 11:01 am
13-12 Felix Hernandez won the American League Cy Young Award this past week. He led the league in ERA and Innings pitched and finished second in strikeouts. He also finished third in shutouts and first in a whole series of the Sabermetric statistics including Hits per nine innings, Adjusted pitching Runs, Adjusted pitching Wins, Base Out Runs saved etc.
He clearly had an outstanding season. He also won only 13 games in 34 starts. Seattle won 61 games. That means that Seattle had about the same chance of winning when Hernandez started as when somebody else did. That's a problem in my mind.
Sabermetrics have made an invaluable contribution to understanding baseball. But they aren't remotely complete or perfect. The fundamental flaw of many of these Sabermetric models when applied to pitching are two questionable assumptions.
1) All runs given up are equally important
2) Winning is NOT a skill
I take issue with both assumptions. First not all runs are equally important. Giving up the first run of the game matters as does giving up runs that otherwise turn a lead or a tie to a deficit. Why? Because in all those situations it changes offensive strategy as well as bullpen strategy and has an impact on the psychology of the team during that game.
On the other hand, giving up two runs with a 5 run lead because a pitcher is saving himself is not only likely to be irrelevant to the outcome of that game it may well be a wise and team helping move by a pitcher looking to his next start.
The importance of runs are highly situation dependent and Sabermetrics don't recognize that.
Related to this is the idea of winning. The game is played to determine a winner. Everything else is tertiary. It may be fascinating, but it is tertiary. Winning a game is the thing. Winning is a skill in and of itself. Simply put, what usually separates good teams and bad ones is not talent,but mistakes, or a lack of them. Good teams take the extra base, don't get thrown out at third with two outs, work the count, hit the cutoff man, move the runner over when called for, don't miss signs etc. A team doesn't, and a player shouldn't get credit or blame for the margin of victory. A 4-3 win is no more inherently valuable than a 4-2, 4-1 or 4-0 win. THIS is one thing a top pitcher understands, or should. Starting strong, when given a lead not giving it up and not using yourself up so the next game can be won too are in some ways as valuable as having the nerve to fight your way through a long inning with a one run lead without your best stuff. It used to be called bearing down. That of course implies that there are times NOT to bear down because there is a cost to that and not all situations are critical to winning.
The Baseball Writers got this one wrong in my view. David Price and CC Sabathia were both a better choice.
He clearly had an outstanding season. He also won only 13 games in 34 starts. Seattle won 61 games. That means that Seattle had about the same chance of winning when Hernandez started as when somebody else did. That's a problem in my mind.
Sabermetrics have made an invaluable contribution to understanding baseball. But they aren't remotely complete or perfect. The fundamental flaw of many of these Sabermetric models when applied to pitching are two questionable assumptions.
1) All runs given up are equally important
2) Winning is NOT a skill
I take issue with both assumptions. First not all runs are equally important. Giving up the first run of the game matters as does giving up runs that otherwise turn a lead or a tie to a deficit. Why? Because in all those situations it changes offensive strategy as well as bullpen strategy and has an impact on the psychology of the team during that game.
On the other hand, giving up two runs with a 5 run lead because a pitcher is saving himself is not only likely to be irrelevant to the outcome of that game it may well be a wise and team helping move by a pitcher looking to his next start.
The importance of runs are highly situation dependent and Sabermetrics don't recognize that.
Related to this is the idea of winning. The game is played to determine a winner. Everything else is tertiary. It may be fascinating, but it is tertiary. Winning a game is the thing. Winning is a skill in and of itself. Simply put, what usually separates good teams and bad ones is not talent,but mistakes, or a lack of them. Good teams take the extra base, don't get thrown out at third with two outs, work the count, hit the cutoff man, move the runner over when called for, don't miss signs etc. A team doesn't, and a player shouldn't get credit or blame for the margin of victory. A 4-3 win is no more inherently valuable than a 4-2, 4-1 or 4-0 win. THIS is one thing a top pitcher understands, or should. Starting strong, when given a lead not giving it up and not using yourself up so the next game can be won too are in some ways as valuable as having the nerve to fight your way through a long inning with a one run lead without your best stuff. It used to be called bearing down. That of course implies that there are times NOT to bear down because there is a cost to that and not all situations are critical to winning.
The Baseball Writers got this one wrong in my view. David Price and CC Sabathia were both a better choice.
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