Tuesday, July 29, 2008
This is why I hate stat nerds.
Brad Doolittle (who has the world's most appropriate name) has posted this article in which he advocates that the Royals go back to using pitchers the way they did 30 years ago. In this article he cites a stat that proves that modern pitching usage makes batters 3.4% WORSE in late innings than they were back then!
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2 comments:
Are you trying to bait me again?
I don't know this Doolittle character, but from reading this article I think I would agree with at least some of what he has to say. You cherry-picked a little from his article in criticizing him - he was saying that while there is some value to the way relief pitchers are handled now (such as the stat you quoted), overall teams do not get as much value from their best relievers as they should.
I think he's right on that account. The save rule's almost arbitrary structure make it so that the pitcher that finishes the game gets credit, when that may not necessarily be the most important part of the game.
Take tonight's Cubs game for example. If Zambrano gets pulled after seven innings and the Cubs are up 3-2 and Braun, Fielder and Hart are due up for the Brewers in the 8th wouldn't you want your best reliever to pitch that inning? But because of the save rule, the best reliever is often saved for the ninth inning, which is crazy. Fuck the save - win the game.
As for Soria pitching more innings - yeah, I guess I agree with that to a certain extent. But that issue isn't as egregious as saving your best relief pitcher for the last three outs because of some arbitrary statistic. that is being a stat nerd.
Doolittle is "The Stat Guy" in the Kansas City Star, he has a column in the sports section a couple of times per week.
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