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Cy Young Awards thread

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Sep 28, 2012.

  1. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    That's fair. I'm not trying to say he's not good; just that he's flown under my radar, like thousands of other writers, I'm sure.

    Can't recall his work ever being posted here, and definitely not on Baseball Think Factory or some of the other sabermetric sites, that's all.

    But that FIP column was good. He made a strong, well-thought-out case for Carpenter and, as someone who grew up watching the groundball-loving Greg Maddux, I can appreciate the argument that strikeouts are not the be-all, end-all to pitching dominance. (I do think he glossed over the IP problem, since 32 innings is a huge difference between pitchers — Lincecum made 4-6 more starts.)

    I still wouldn't say BABIP is used by anyone credible in the sabermetric community as a major factor in award voting. It's really not that important of a stat, despite the fact that quite a few non-sabermetric people latched onto BABIP as a high holy sabermetric number for a while only to become disillusioned that it didn't tell you more than ... what it's trying to tell you. BABIP has been refined over the past 10 years just like WAR. We now know that certain types of pitchers — for instance, knuckleballers like Dickey — DO have an ability, a talent, to keep their BABIP consistently lower than average. Not the case for power pitchers, as Verlander is finding out this year. Major league hitters will always be able to time a great fastball and hit more line drives ... eventually.

    Anyway, you can probably find plenty of Internet bloggers (or professional contrarians like Keith Law) who will cherry-pick any stat they can find in support of the pitcher they like. But they don't know what they're talking about and shouldn't be taken as representative of the sabermetric community any more than loudmouth Jason Whitlock should be taken as representative of all sports journalists. He's a fool with a platform.
     
  2. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I think a lot has to do with the BABIP chapter in "Moneyball." It was, as Lewis passages are apt to be, quite persuasive. And also did not leave any room for nuance whatsoever.
     
  3. deviljets7

    deviljets7 Member

    Buck,

    I don't get to read as many sabermetric articles as I used to so I might be wrong on this one, but for me the issue with BABIP and some other stats is how they are used.

    I think the stat is very valuable and useful for predicting the future and examining the likelihood of a player maintaining his performance. That said, I do think it is unfair to us it as a way to credit or discredit a player's performance when it comes to award voting, because someone feels the result "should" have been different.
     
  4. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Good call. Our understanding of BABIP has evolved quite a bit since then, but you're right, Lewis beat that dead horse like Ike Turner.
     
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