Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Tabe

"ever so slightly elevated numbers", LOL.

Laugh all you want, but the numbers that actually matter, the ones that aren't subject to luck were nearly identical to his prior years (12.0 K/9 vs 12.3, 3.4 BB/9 vs 3.3, 3.35 FIP vs 2.82 and 3.42). If that's not "ever so slightly elevated", then I don't know what is.

But you can keep looking at ERA if you want to. The imbeciles always do.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Laugh all you want, but the numbers that actually matter, the ones that aren't subject to luck were nearly identical to his prior years (12.0 K/9 vs 12.3, 3.4 BB/9 vs 3.3, 3.35 FIP vs 2.82 and 3.42). If that's not "ever so slightly elevated", then I don't know what is.

But you can keep looking at ERA if you want to. The imbeciles always do.

Those are the product of the same set of games you dismissed as being too small a sample size to be meaningful, so why are they now meaningful when they favor your argument?

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Those are the product of the same set of games you dismissed as being too small a sample size to be meaningful, so why are they now meaningful when they favor your argument?

Because the sample sizes needed for those statistics is remarkably smaller than it is for ERA, and thus their corresponding confidence intervals are much narrower. This is because they are not nearly as subject to luck as ERA is. It takes years for ERA to converge. It takes months for K/9, BB/9, and even FIP.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Laugh all you want, but the numbers that actually matter, the ones that aren't subject to luck were nearly identical to his prior years (12.0 K/9 vs 12.3, 3.4 BB/9 vs 3.3, 3.35 FIP vs 2.82 and 3.42). If that's not "ever so slightly elevated", then I don't know what is.

But you can keep looking at ERA if you want to. The imbeciles always do.

So a 20% jump in FIP is "ever so slightly"?

His home runs were up 40%. OPS was up 20%. Line drive% was up 33%. All that stuff says guys were hitting the ball hard off of him A LOT more than the previous year - and the rest of 1998 and the next four years.

Please specify the EXACT number of starts and/or innings to qualify as NOT a small sample size. Just for grins.

p.s. Name-calling reflects poorly on you. Do better.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Tabe

So a 20% jump in FIP is "ever so slightly"?

His home runs were up 40%. OPS was up 20%. Line drive% was up 33%. All that stuff says guys were hitting the ball hard off of him A LOT more than the previous year - and the rest of 1998 and the next four years.

Please specify the EXACT number of starts and/or innings to qualify as NOT a sample size. Just for grins.

p.s. Name-calling reflects poorly on you. Do better.

Irrelevant man. Once the ball leaves the bat, it has nothing to do with the pitcher, it's just dumb luck and coincidence, or a function of other factors beyond the pitcher's control such as fielding. BABIP is binary -- either it's a hit or it's not -- and the rest is meaningless. Besides, every number you cite suffers from small sample size and confidence interval issues -- only numbers that support the thesis that his first half was just random are reliable.

All pitchers are essentially fungible beyond their ability to strike batters out. Maddux is the same as any other 6K/9 pitcher you can name. Johnson's K's stayed up, so all the rest is noise.

[G1911]

If it was all dumb luck, then BABIP would, over the course of long careers, all come out about the same when you factor in the defense behind the pitcher. There would not be pitchers who have incredibly successful and long careers, not giving up many runs, while being contact instead of strikeout pitchers. It doesn’t.

If it’s all dumb luck, how are contact pitchers often just as successful as strikeout pitchers? Maddox and Randy Johnson put together similar total careers. Johnson’s BABIP is league average, Maddux, like most hall of fame contact pitchers, is well below it. They achieved similar ERA’s and total careers via very different methods, in huge sample sizes.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

If it was all dumb luck, then BABIP would, over the course of long careers, all come out about the same when you factor in the defense behind the pitcher. There would not be pitchers who have incredibly successful and long careers, not giving up many runs, while being contact instead of strikeout pitchers. It doesn’t.

If it’s all dumb luck, how are contact pitchers often just as successful as strikeout pitchers? Maddox and Randy Johnson put together similar total careers. Johnson’s BABIP is league average, Maddux, like most hall of fame contact pitchers, is well below it. They achieved similar ERA’s and total careers via very different methods, in huge sample sizes.

Maddux's success was the result of dumb luck!! 21 years of it, well, maybe 16 of which really defined him.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Maddux's success was the result of dumb luck!! 21 years of it, well, maybe 16 of which really defined him.

Well, he pitched for 21 years which seems like a lot, but it was only 5,008 innings. The sample is just too small. Maddux was lucky. Also a bum because only K pitchers who played after Spahn, except for Koufax who is exempted because I don’t know, are any good.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by G1911

Well, he pitched for 21 years which seems like a lot, but it was only 5,008 innings. The sample is just too small. Maddux was lucky. Also a bum because only K pitchers who played after Spahn, except for Koufax who is exempted because I don’t know, are any good.

Snowman is always right. Just ask him.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by G1911

Well, he pitched for 21 years which seems like a lot, but it was only 5,008 innings. The sample is just too small. Maddux was lucky. Also a bum because only K pitchers who played after Spahn, except for Koufax who is exempted because I don’t know, are any good.

Maddux also pitched in the NL, in a pitcher's park, and with one of the greatest defensive center fielders of all time catching balls for him. His BABIP would be expected to be lower than MLB average. If you look at Smoltz and Glavine's numbers during the same time, they also both beat league average MLB BABIP.

Perhaps you should read up on BABIP? I somewhat excuse the level of ignorance on these topics by the non data savvy people in this thread because it's not exactly their job to understand numbers. But if you are serious about being a data analyst, your perpetual ignorance displayed throughout the entirety of this thread with respect to just basic statistics and simple statistical concepts is remarkably embarassing. You should be ashamed of yourself. Go read a book. Or three.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by G1911

Well, he pitched for 21 years which seems like a lot, but it was only 5,008 innings. The sample is just too small. Maddux was lucky. Also a bum because only K pitchers who played after Spahn, except for Koufax who is exempted because I don’t know, are any good.

I'll give you $1k right now if you can repeat my arguments in a way I'll sign off on. Good luck.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Irrelevant man. Once the ball leaves the bat, it has nothing to do with the pitcher, it's just dumb luck and coincidence, or a function of other factors beyond the pitcher's control such as fielding. BABIP is binary -- either it's a hit or it's not -- and the rest is meaningless. Besides, every number you cite suffers from small sample size and confidence interval issues -- only numbers that support the thesis that his first half was just random are reliable.

All pitchers are essentially fungible beyond their ability to strike batters out. Maddux is the same as any other 6K/9 pitcher you can name. Johnson's K's stayed up, so all the rest is noise.

I appreciate you clearing it up for me. It seems so simple when you explain it that way.