Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Something New for Tonight

Instead of posting a recap for tonight's Cubs game, I am going to write a Bill Simmons style game diary. Odds are it will be really long and mostly boring, but I'm going to try it for one night. If this works I think I will do it for one game a week, if it doesn't work we never have to see or hear from it again.

Also here is a blind player comparison to hold you over. This one is a bit tricky and complicated, it involves two historically great players. One is still active while the other is old. These are the best four year stretches of each players career. I'm not using wins and losses because pitchers wins is the dumbest stat ever.

Player A
905.1 IP 2.16 ERA 28 CG 11 SO 219 ERA+ 1153 K .925 WHIP 11.2 K/9 2.0 BB/9 3 CY Young

Player B
1192.2 IP 1.86 ERA 89 CG 31 SO 172 ERA+ 1228 K .909 WHIP 9.3 K/9 2.0 BB/9 3 CY Young

So who would you take based on the stats? I'll have the players and a bit of an argument for each after the reveal. 


4 comments:

  1. I am going to go ahead and pick A. B is definitely the older player because of the inordinate amount of complete games. Being a pitcher now is much harder than it was back then with players on roids, smaller ball parks, lowering of the mound, elimination of the spit and such. I don't even think this is close. A has a much better ERA+, 47 is a huge difference in that stat. So even though B has beeter peripherals perhaps — which is debatable — A wins hands down. I would guess A would be Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez (prolly the later based on control) and B might be Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson.

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  2. I'll take Player B - not just to be devil's advocate, but also I like the smaller WHIP and less reliance on strikeouts. It's very close between the two. As Josh pointed out, though, it's difficult to compare pitching in two very different eras. 89 complete games - I thought it was a misprint when I first saw it. Ridiculous.

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  3. At first I thought player B might be Bob Gibson, but I think he only won two Cy Young Awards. Its hard to imagine, but Bob Gibson threw more complete games than he had career victories. Nowadays, pitchers would be lucky to pitch 20 CGs in their entire career.

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  4. Who knew that Dan liked Bob Gibson? I'm joking, but no Bob Gibson isn't part of this list. Just for fun here is Gibson's best four year stretch.

    1158.1 IP 996 K 2.32 ERA 152 ERA+ 99 CG 25 SO 1.077 WHIP 7.7 K/9 2.5 BB/9

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