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Wednesday, July 08, 2009
I don’t buy it.
If it was a case of someone being so far above everyone else (say a Babe Ruth as a hitter), then I can believe that whatever downward adjustment you want to apply will still reasonably keep him as the best hitter of all time, then fine. But, Lefty Grove is not that. When you see a list like this:
Pitcher Career WAR
Lefty Grove 98
Warren Spahn 94
Randy Johnson 92
Steve Carlton 81
Tom Glavine 67
Sandy Koufax 65
Carl Hubbell 64
Hal Newhouser 57
Then how can you still claim to have Lefty Grove as the best LH ever? As I said, this doesn’t happen in the other sports. The greatest hockey player of all time will only go back as far as Gordie Howe. Even the revered Maurice Richard doesn’t enter the discussion. And with Howe, it’s easy to believe, seeing how well he played even as he hit fifty years old. So, a very freak-of-nature kind of player. Jean Beliveau is very highly regarded, but he takes a back seat to Mario Lemieux. As all the older players should. Today’s players are simply bigger, stronger and faster. Somehow, we are supposed to believe that the older players are their equals or better, because they made up for it with more heart and better fundamentals.
It’s Randy Johnson, and I don’t think it’s particularly close either.
Who’s the oldest player in the NFL that is talked about as being possibly “the best”? Unitas? Jim Brown? How about in the NBA? Bill Russell?
Fifty years from now, I’ll believe that Gretzky was the greatest ever, if only because he dominated his peers at such a level, that even if you apply a timeline adjustment, he’d still rank high (like Babe). Lefty Grove is not it.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Cool graphics site.
Hat tip: Craig.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Interview from 2002 of RJ:
7. Where did you get the nickname Big Unit?
Here, from Tim Raines. He was coming out of the batting cage, bumped into me and looked up and said: “You’re a big unit.” I don’t know that it stuck with me then, but he called me unit a few more times and it caught on.
8. Your wife, Lisa, must have a different nickname for you?
(Puzzled look) Well, I am her husband. So it’s “honey.” Or Randy.
...
15. All this talk about juiced baseballs and juiced hitters. Is today’s pitcher at a disadvantage?
Without a doubt, the balls are harder than they have been in prior years, the bats are a little harder, the fields are a little smaller, and the strike zone varies on any given day. With those intangibles, I think a lot of pitchers would agree - even if few hitters would - that hitters have an advantage. ... From what I’ve observed the past 14 years in the major leagues, things have changed considerably. The numbers indicate that. For whatever reason, there are more home runs being hit now. And that was even before the steroid controversy came up.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Chris Jaffe:
Card collecting: it was fun while it lasted, but it’s done.
Chris is about 7 years younger than I am. I pretty much stopped at around the same age that he did. The whole article is probably true of most people our age (cards and comics). I actually used to cut my cards smaller so I could sticky tape them to my oversized workbook. When I started buying doubles of comics for their value, and buying the full set of cards in one shot, I knew that it was time to move on: it was collecting for the sake of collecting.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
In response to this thread about Zambrano, I wrote:
Ken Dryden, retired age 31, played only 8 seasons, 5 times 1st-team all-star (i.e., elected goalie of the year by the writers), six Stanley Cups, elected to hall of fame (as you can see, quite silly the need to have a “10” seasons minimum requirement). He also articled for a law firm while sitting out a year in that time period.
That’s quite an accomplishment for someone through his age 31.
Then, he wrote a best-selling book (one of the best sports-books ever), along with several other books, became a commentator (including next to Al Michaels), president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Cabinet member in Parliament, ran (and lost) to be leader of the Liberal Party.
Somewhere in there, I think he also was a full-time lawyer.
That’s something like 6 different peaks. I suspect virtually all athletes would not be able to be satisfied in their non-sports lives the way Dryden was.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Poz on Lefty Grove:
But if people keep insisting on looking back on baseball history as one long continuum — if people keep insisting that Babe Ruth is the greatest baseball player ever, Ted Williams the greatest pure hitter ever,
Joe DiMaggio a player of incomparable grace … well, it seems to me that Lefty Grove should finish better than fifth in a poll of greatest lefties ever.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Several weeks ago, I suggested that Poz, Bill James, and Neyer ought to band together to make one kick-ass blog. Well, we get a preview of that as Poz and Bill get into an email exchange. I think these roundtable things work better with a moderator, as clearly Joe’s put himself on some sort of leash. Anyway, some nice little tidbits along the way, the I would of course have a huge problem with James’ “system”, as I have no doubt it is biased toward high-K pitchers, contrary to his position that his system is “fair”.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Mark Messier, the day before the big game: I guarantee that we will win.
Gary Carter, 23 years after the possibility of a big game: We would have found a way to win.
Is everything out of a baseball player’s mouth a news story?
And for people too young enough to remember how much Mike Scott got in their heads, there’s this classic picture (of Gary Carter), standing at the plate, turning back to the catcher, pointing to his mitt with the ball, and yelling to the umpire to check the ball for scuffs. Gary Carter was the phony-baloney before ARod and Tiger Woods made it famous.
Hat tip: Repoz.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Dave Cameron gives us 4 names to consider.
Ever since Wayne Gretzky was traded at the prime of his career (already racked up 8 MVP’s in 9 years!, and he earned another MVP his first year), there is no such thing as an untouchable. Dave’s list are player’s past their prime, or yet to achieve their peak. So, while at first it may seem impossible to trade Ortiz, doing that is nothing compared to more celebrated trades.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Is there a historical card price tracker like we see for stocks?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
This was last year. I would have thought that I linked to it, but I can’t find it. Enjoy an athlete who doesn’t repeat the Bull Durham cliches:
“Look at my xFIP,” he is saying as he pulls out a few pages he printed off the Internet site, “The Hardball Times.” ... “Look at that,” he says again. “I’m actually pitching better than I was last year. My xFIP is down. It’s just that I got lucky last year.”
The author of the piece is none other than Joe Poz (how lucky are we that at the intersection of athlete and saber-thought exists the one guy who gets it, and can articulate it for the mainstream reader) who concludes:
Then he stares at the numbers for another few seconds, and he offers a frustrated smile because he knows that, in the end, nobody else really cares about his xFIP. Nobody else really cares about his skyrocketing Left on Base Percentage. All anyone cares about is that he’s getting lit up. He’s giving up many more runs than he gave up last year. And Bannister knows that despite all his analysis and study, in this crazy pitching game, it really might be better to be lucky than good.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
This post is only for those who sees this from a clinical rather than moral perspective. Please ignore this post if you are in the latter group.
Can someone send me email addresses or post links to various race- or ethnic-based research, where the researcher compiled a database denoting the players by ethnicity, race, or skin color?
My plan is to do the following:
Read More
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Not only does Rally come out with a good idea regarding Adenhart, but he gives us the payoff line as well.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Dan gives us the lowdown on the best baseball families in the Retrosheet era.
The fact that a single family can repeatedly produce some of the top baseball talent in the world is staggering to me. You don’t really see it happen in any other sport, although basketball is beginning to see a legacy effect.
I would bet that hockey has far more, especially if you look at brothers-only. Off the top of my head, the best brothers is probably Richard(*) and Esposito. Sutter is the biggest, with pretty good talent. Staal and Sedin among contemporaries. Really, it’s so prevalent that it’s pretty easy to not even realize it. The Hansons 
Hunter, Dineen, Dryden, Kostityn, Primeau, Stastny. I could go on forever. Parise among father-son. There’s also lots of hope that the brother-gene is an indicator. Gretzky, Lindros, and Lemieux brothers know about that.
(*) Here’s a good Richard story: a third brother.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
One of Kahrl’s readers pointed out that Microsoft (!!) has a collection of scorecard templates.
And everything and anything you wanted to know about scoresheets can be found on Patriot’s site.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Patriot quotes an FC Lane (the father of Linear Weights) book:
On such occasions a pitcher is said to have a poor inning, whereas he may have been at his very best in that unlucky frame. But the accumulated chances were precipitated on him all at once.--Christy Mathewson
A hall of famer pitcher stating that he was at his best, and pure bad luck contributed to a bad inning? Blasphemy. However, he got his nose out of his abacus and played the game… where the hell can we send him now?
Patriot himself says the apt quote when he concludes elsewhere:
The only difference is that each previous generation attempts to enshrine itself as the paragon of virtue and moral superiority.
That fits my defintion of The Holy Writers to a tee. Let us hope that Posnanski, Neyer, and Law won’t be assimilated into the collective when their time comes.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
What lawyer came up with that b.s.?
“This was my experience,” McCarthy said. “And this is what I heard people talking about and saying. And I stand by that.”
Monday, February 23, 2009
Here’s one for the Expos. As I wrote to the author:
Good list. I like how you split it up into homegrown and acquired. How about a third list: all-time giveruppers, starting with Randy Johnson. So, anyone that has passed through the Expos (homegrown or acquired) but did alot for other teams in their post-Expos career while also did very little for the Expos. So, this excludes Raines, Pedro, Larry Walker, etc.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Post your email in the comments area:
I am a middle school gifted teacher in St. Louis, MO and my students are currently doing an independent project on a topic of their choosing. One of my students wanted to study the Black Sox scandal. One of the requirements is that they perform an expert interview of three questions. I was wondering if you would be able to put me in touch with someone that would be able to help with this. Thank you and keep up the good work.
Whenever there is talk of having a tie-breaker for baseball, someone invariably says “might as well do it by HR derby then”. In hockey, the most tense moment for me as a hockey fan was the 94 Olympics where Peter Forsberg scored perhaps the greatest goal ever. And here are the top shootout goals in the NHL. Fans go nuts, just crazy for this. And the difference between a shootout and the HR derby is that breakaways and penalty shots are a part of hockey. An exciting part of hockey. The HR derby has nothing at all to do with baseball.
This is why I applaud the international baseball rules to have a tie-breaker by starting with men on base. Having runners on base is exactly baseball.
***
In baseball, they used to use one, maybe two pitchers, per game per team. Now, the average is four. Do we REALLY want to see those middle reliever guys? Really? Really, really? 7-innings.
I know, blasphemy. But, other than the playoffs, how often do you guys actually watch a full 9-inning game at home?
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