Which is it?

Dave – not sure I agree with this statement without knowing the alternative plan. Do you have a post on how the team should be built? (Link?)

This is sort of related, although not entirely, because it relates to payroll, and sometimes you payroll can be bizarre. But Baseball Prospectus studied this and found that the “happy zone” for expenditures on pitching payroll is more than 33% of your payroll, but less than 50%. Teams that spent more than 50% or less than 33% on pitching tended to be bad.

Why is this? Here’s a simplified explanation. There are two parts to baseball: Run creation and run prevention. Offense is all there is to one-half of the game. But pitching does NOT equal the other half of the game, because it is split between pitching and defense. So too much focus on pitching can be self-defeating unless you managed to acquire amazingly dominant strike-out pitchers. It is therefore a bad idea to think that good pitching can carry a team that is bad at defense and offense, because defense and offense are more than half the game. Pitching is also far less consistent than either hitting or defense. So you are putting yourself in a situation where catastrophic bad luck is more likely to strike your team than otherwise.

Pitching becomes more important in the playoffs because dominant starters and closers become more important, due to a variety of factors. And maybe that is what makes people think that you should build a team around a pitching staff. But then we are usually talking about teams that are at least decent at offense and defense, not horribly bad, like we are.

They’ve compounded that inefficiency with their money by having a terrible defense back up three pitchers whose assets are that, given a solid defense behind them, they can fool you into thinking they are much better than they actually are. I’m convinced that if we actually HAD a world-class defense behind these guys, at least one of them would be having an Aaron Sele/Paul Abbott/Ryan Franklin in 2003 sort of mirage year. Instead, the defensive shortcomings make them look like garbage.

This is why you don’t build a team around a pitching staff.

Dave – not sure I agree with this statement without knowing the alternative plan. Do you have a post on how the team should be built? (Link?)

The Mariners built this team around a pitching rotation of “five number ones”.

do we excuse that comment as it came out of the mouth of their pitching coach, who is paid to shine them up?

They are saying we must encourage Howard Lincoln to get rid of Chuck Armstrong and replace him with someone like Terry Ryan or Larry Beinfest so the repairing can begin, then this new president can fire Bavasi and other people that need to be fired.

Man, these ponies are smart.

Interestingly, during a game in which we were getting blown out last year and our thoughts started to drift elsewhere, someone had mentioned that they always thought Rizzy reminded them of Neil Diamond. Actually, I could see that, too.

I just had a brainwave: With the perma-tan and the glinting teeth and shiney eyes, Rizzs reminds me of George Hamilton playing a vampire in Love at First Bite.