"Steve Moyer < 1%"

Of all the controversial posts in SportsJournalists.com history, this one seemed the most innocuous at the time it was made. Posnanski column. Makes complete sense that a walk isn't as valuable as a hit. And yet it has inspired a lifetime of mockery.

 

Yes, but look which posters the mockery comes from. For the most part they still fall in the old school numbers crowd. RBI, Wins etc.

 

JC, context is as valuable as reading comprehension. Bone up on both

 

Which, to some degree, makes it even stranger. Isn't one of the major accusations levied at statheads that they fetishize walks? Here was a concession that, indeed, hits are more valuable.

 

It's harmless, kind of like those spoofy credits at the end of movies, where they will list a person as "Best Boy" and then list Adolf Hitler as "Worst Boy."

Zuckers did that a lot.

 

Not a big deal.

Heck, the Celtics drafted a paralyzed player.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19820705&id=PQEzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WBMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6039,1401592

 

To threadjack the hell out of this, wouldn't it be easier to find the pitchers with the most quality starts or maybe add a category of exceptional starts (seven or more innings with two or fewer runs allowed)?

 

No, what you were doing was trying to support Posnanski's absurd assertion that Olerud was a Hall of Famer, which not even a fetishizing of sabermetrics supports.

 

The walks/hits comparison was about hitters, not pitchers.

But going along with your threadjack: I always find it odd that people object so strenuously to "quality starts" because it includes starts of six innings allowing three runs. "That's a 4.50 ERA!" Sure, but that's also the extreme limit of what would be counted as a quality start - the lowest innings married with the highest amount of earned runs. It's just a rough guideline stat, and I think the tradeoff in simplicity is well worth the occasional 6 IP, 3 ER line that gets swept in.

 

Your objection has always been with the conclusion that walks are worth about 0.7 singles, not with the conclusion that Olerud is a Hall of Famer. You even made the 0.7 assertion your avatar for a while, not John Olerud.

 

John Olerud posts here?

 

Yes.

Also: I am a backwoods hick.