Now that’s something
Despite entering the game with a 2.84 ERA, Jarrod Washburn has spent the first part of 2007 doing exactly what he’s done the last three years. He faced some lousy opponents who couldn’t hit a baseball, and it made casual fans think he was pitching far better than he actually was.
Last night’s performance was totally different, however. He wasn’t facing a bad line-up. He wasn’t throwing the ball over the plate and watching the hitters put fly balls in the outfield. He threw strikes, but not contact strikes. He kept the Yankees off balance with his breaking ball and made a conscious effort to induce swings and misses. Last night, Jarrod Washburn pitched a tremendous game. No caveats included. It was the best game he’s ever pitched as a Mariner.
If you want to get excited about Jarrod Washburn’s early season performance, get excited about last night. If he does that all year, then we have something.
DMZ – ok, fair enough. Still though, there are comments here and I at least find a give and take serves a purpose. Obviously I really enjoy the posts here or I wouldn’t spend as much time as I do reading this site, but I also like seeing the counterarguments presented. If nothing else, that’s useful so Dave can remind me when I space an entire season of a pitcher’s record.
#50 AuburnM Says:
At his worst, Washburn has had an ERA of 4.5. That’s three runs over 6 innings – which is the definition of a “quality start.â€
Because a 4.5 ERA can define a quality start, that doesn’t make a starter with an ERA of 4.5 a quality pitcher, or better yet, not a pitcher you fork over nearly $40M and say is your #2 pitcher.
Dave said:
“I disagree. I think Auburn is a relatively intelligent person who has spent a long time believing what ESPN and the Seattle Times have told him. He’s only been exposed to USSM for a few months. I think there’s a good chance that, if he’s willing to open his mind up a bit, he’ll come around eventually.”
I understand the idea of killing him with kindness, but even then I find this pretty over-the-top.
Auburn has showed us time again that he is pretty closed off from accepting any new ideas or even recognizing the opinions of others.
Auburn has showed us time again that he is pretty closed off from accepting any new ideas or even recognizing the opinions of others.
If you go read through the archives of the usenet group alt.sport.baseball.sea-mariners for posts by “Rick Cameron” or “Richard Cameron”, you’ll find a pretty close minded guy who had no interest in learning from those who knew more about baseball than he did. In fact, here’s a pretty good example.
That was me about 13 or 14 years ago. I’m glad people didn’t throw me out on my ear as a troll then.
I don’t want this to be a place where we all agree, either. I want people to challenge me on stuff – I just want them to do so with some substance. I think there’s a legitimate counter-argument to be made for a lot of the stuff I say. My patience just runs thin with people who don’t want to take the time to back up their opinions with any kind of evidence, logic, or reason.
If anyone wants to come in and have a conversation about why I’m wrong about the predictive value of FIP, and doesn’t bother to stoop to the normal “you hate the Mariners” crap, I’m more than happy to have that conversation.
I’m proud of the fact that USSM has served to help a lot of people understand the game a lot better, and I want it to continue to do so. I just would prefer to have a higher level of discourse than “you’re biased, you’re a Bavasi hater”.
#95, #101
And who do you have in your mind when saying that?
Participants need to agree on the rule of the game if differences in opinion are to be all good and productive. The USSM guys do not expect readers to think the same opinion, but they sure expect us to think in the same mode of analysis as theirs, i.e., (at least make efforts to) backed up your argument and conclusion with information, reason and logical thinking.
Auburn hasn’t met this expectation, at least so far. But it’s up to the USSM crew what to do with him.
(Sorry, Dave said it all just above.)
auburnM
Using ERA to justify a quality start is not going to carry a lot of weight.
Washburn allow three runs over 6 innings and
a.) the eight defensive players behind him are all gold glove caliber and get to every ball possible but the opposing hitters hit three ball over the fence.
b.) the eight defensive players all are over 500 lbs and do not move well. They are unable to get to balls average player can.
After an entire season would Washburn have better era with situation A or B taking place over and over again?
This is extreme but it is my feable attempt to explain this to you.
#104:
Dave, thanks for that post. From someone reading more than posting AuburnM has sparked a ton of interesting discussions; its those voices that force everyone to justify why Vidro hitting third makes us angry. Not saying I agree with the opinions but I’m glad someone’s providing the contrast.
#96: “Also, for those who want to go to the end with the Sonics, check out 82games.com”
82games.com is excellent, but the overall best site for application of sabrmetric principles to basketball is the “apbrmetrics” site at
http://www.sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/
SonicsCentral.com is also the best overall Sonics’ site, but ironically, the group there is not all that strong on statistics.
And yes, “apbrmetrics” is an appallingly ugly word as well as a ripoff of “sabrmetrics”.