THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

1, 3, and 4 were all pretty tough. 2 is kind of a joke but I have a feeling you are trying to make a point there.

Look at what Kershaw is doing this year - and his age.  If you believe this control improvement will persist, he is a tremendous asset.  I didn’t vote for him - but I certainly thought about it.

Kyle: no, no point.  The pitchers were grouped mostly along age lines.  Felix is odd because he started pitching in MLB when he was 18, and he’s never gotten hurt.  So, you’d think of him as an old man like Weaver, but he’s much younger.

Do we have to spend $100 M on a pitcher?

John Danks seems so out of place. What got him included?

Just went by age.  It was him or Price or a couple of others.  I didn’t really think it mattered, given that Felix and Kershaw was there anyway.

Who would you take, Tom?

My take: polls #1 and #2 are 2-horse races, there are 3 defensible candidates in poll #3 and there’s not a wrong answer for poll #4.

Also, I think Tommy Hanson belongs in either poll #1 at the expense of MadBum/Cahill or poll #2 at the expense of Danks.

Hanson was also one of the late cuts.  I didn’t put too much effort for the bottom guys.  I really only wanted 3 guys in each poll, but I couldn’t cut any one from the 4th poll, and I had to put those 4 together.  So, I went 4-deep across the board.  I mean there’s also Anderson. 

I have to draw a line somewhere, and there’s always going to be a dispute about anyone on that threshold regardless of the decision. 

As long as I didn’t ignore the main guys.

"So, you’d think of him as an old man like Weaver, but he’s much younger.”

It’s interesting how well their careers track on a year to year basis.  Both came up in mid seasons and dominated their rookie years.  By ERA+:

Weaver 179, Felix 158

Then 3 years of good, but not dominant pitching:

Weaver 112, Felix 110

Then in year 5, elite status.  Since start of year 5:

Weaver 146, Felix 158

Yet while Felix is one year ahead of Weaver in MLB time, he’s 3 years younger.  Another illustration of the value of a college education.

Rally, I don’t get your last line.  Do you mean that Weaver’s growth was stunted by 4 years?  Or, do you mean that Weaver needed those 4 years to be on par with Felix?  Or something else?