Dave Parker - HOF?

[HistoricNewspapers]

Originally Posted by G1911

Yes, I understand that. I am saying it is not really possible, in a direct conflict between hitter and pitcher, for an event to be almost insignificantly harmful to the offense but hugely beneficial to the defense. That makes no logical sense. If it doesn’t really hurt the offense much, then it cannot help the defense much.

The reason why pitcher strikeouts are viewed a little differently than hitters strikeout is that pitcher strikeouts are a good indicator that the skill of getting the batter out was close to 100% done by the pitcher when it was a strikeout, whereas, if a pitcher induces a ground out, then the fielding ability becomes a factor into how much the pitcher or fielder was responsible for the out.

That comes into play when predicting future performance of a pitcher. That is why when measuring a pitcher, when you look at their strikeout and walk ratios that is a good indicator of how good they are as opposed to if it was good defense behind them. Same for home runs allowed by a pitcher. Home runs allowed by a pitcher removes teams' defensive ability from the equation.

That doesn't mean that pitchers can't induce weak contact too, because they can, and some can repeat that year after year...but it is not on the same level of predictability as strikeout to walk ratio and home runs allowed.


Other than that, from the pitcher's perspective, an out is still just an out whether a ground out or strikeout occurs. What it comes down to is limiting baseruners and limiting home runs. The better you are at that, the better pitcher you will be. That is why someone like Greg Maddux was superior to Nolan Ryan despite that vast difference in strikeouts.

Same for hitters, it comes down to getting on base and getting on base efficiently(done in the least amount of outs made with the most amount of bases taken in one plate appearance).

Hitting the most home runs while making the least amount of outs is the most optimal way of hitting.

Then you have a sliding scale of hitters who get the most BB, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR while making the least amount of outs....and it may make a 2% difference if the outs are batted ball outs or strikeouts, because what really matters is how many HR, 3B, 2B, 1B, and BB you get with home being the obvious most valuable in that line of importance.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by HistoricNewspapers

The reason why pitcher strikeouts are viewed a little differently than hitters strikeout is that pitcher strikeouts are a good indicator that the skill of getting the batter out was close to 100% done by the pitcher when it was a strikeout, whereas, if a pitcher induces a ground out, then the fielding ability becomes a factor into how much the pitcher or fielder was responsible for the out.

That comes into play when predicting future performance of a pitcher. That is why when measuring a pitcher, when you look at their strikeout and walk ratios that is a good indicator of how good they are as opposed to if it was good defense behind them. Same for home runs allowed by a pitcher. Home runs allowed by a pitcher removes teams' defensive ability from the equation.

That doesn't mean that pitchers can't induce weak contact too, because they can, and some can repeat that year after year...but it is not on the same level of predictability as strikeout to walk ratio and home runs allowed.


Other than that, from the pitcher's perspective, an out is still just an out whether a ground out or strikeout occurs. What it comes down to is limiting baseruners and limiting home runs. The better you are at that, the better pitcher you will be. That is why someone like Greg Maddux was superior to Nolan Ryan despite that vast difference in strikeouts.

Same for hitters, it comes down to getting on base and getting on base efficiently(done in the least amount of outs made with the most amount of bases taken in one plate appearance).

Hitting the most home runs while making the least amount of outs is the most optimal way of hitting.

Then you have a sliding scale of hitters who get the most BB, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR while making the least amount of outs....and it may make a 2% difference if the outs are batted ball outs or strikeouts, because what really matters is how many HR, 3B, 2B, 1B, and BB you get with home being the obvious most valuable in that line of importance.

I’m fully aware that a strikeout is a credit to the pitcher (or a debit to the hitter). Not striking out is similarly a credit to the batters eye and pitch waiting.

An out is an out most of the time, the hitting metrics recognize the K has little actual value these days. If this is true, then it is not logically possible in a directly adversarial game for the K to have great value to the defense. Yet the advanced analytics for pitchers tend to focus heavily on the K, it’s a big part of why pitchers accumulate WAR faster now, because it favors the K for pitchers without an equal punishment for batters in an era where hitters don’t care about whiffing 150 times a year. This isn’t logical in a direct adversarial game if a strikeout barely hurts the hitter. It either is significant to both, or it is not significant to either when we are measuring what produces wins. Outcome A can not logically be significant to Team A’s winning odds but insignificant to Team B’s winning odds when there are two teams.

[D. Bergin]

More batted balls, leads to more errors and puts more pressure on a defense. 1 error can swing a game one way or another.

I don't know if any of that is true or not, but it sounds pretty good in my head.

[HistoricNewspapers]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

More batted balls, leads to more errors and puts more pressure on a defense. 1 error can swing a game one way or another.

I don't know if any of that is true or not, but it sounds pretty good in my head.

Ironically, it is often the guys who strike out a lot who reach base just as frequently on errors because they hit the ball harder on their contact.
Those guys and the super speedy guys.

LH batters have an advantage in that area as well.

[HistoricNewspapers]

Originally Posted by G1911

I’m fully aware that a strikeout is a credit to the pitcher (or a debit to the hitter). Not striking out is similarly a credit to the batters eye and pitch waiting.

An out is an out most of the time, the hitting metrics recognize the K has little actual value these days. If this is true, then it is not logically possible in a directly adversarial game for the K to have great value to the defense. Yet the advanced analytics for pitchers tend to focus heavily on the K, it’s a big part of why pitchers accumulate WAR faster now, because it favors the K for pitchers without an equal punishment for batters in an era where hitters don’t care about whiffing 150 times a year. This isn’t logical in a direct adversarial game if a strikeout barely hurts the hitter. It either is significant to both, or it is not significant to either when we are measuring what produces wins. Outcome A can not logically be significant to Team A’s winning odds but insignificant to Team B’s winning odds when there are two teams.

That is because WAR is isolating the factors that are fully known to be in the pitchers control as opposed to in the control of the defense behind them....and they are giving a bigger validity factor to the pitchers that are producing a high level of K/BB ratio and home runs allowed, because they know that the pitcher is in control of those.

Basically, they are ignoring weak contact allowed by the pitcher and putting all contact in play into the hands of the defense.

They then try to add how much the defense was a factor in how many runs were allowed and that is when things go haywire because it is extremely hard to do that and you can get a lot of odd results in pitcher WAR.

WAR for pitchers is awful. It is hard enough to measure the value of a single defender, let alone measure an entire team defense and try to decipher if weak contact outs were the product of the pitcher or the defense.