Success and failure

HOF debate is literally the last thing I'd like to get involved in, anywhere. I just wanted to introduce to Soylent Green (interesting name, by the way), the statistic called WPA. Also, to the fact that during higher leverage situations and in higher leverage games, Jack Morris performed significantly worse than he did in lower leverage situations and lower leverage games, throughout his entire career.

Jack Morris from Jun 1 to the end of 1984 regular season, 9-10, 4.82, Tigers went 12-11 in his starts. The Tigers were cruising though, so it didn't really matter. He did pitch well in 3 post season games, but the Tigers only lost 1 game of the 8 they played, so it's not like Morris was the difference maker.

In '87, arguably his second best season, the Tigers were 1/2 game ahead of the Blue Jays on Sept 20 after Morris started this streak, 0-3, 3.19 over his last 4 starts, including a Sep 24 loss to the Blue Jays that kept the Jays within 1.5, and an Oct 3 start in which he pitched well but took a ND in a game in which Mike Flanagan went 11 innings, and Alan Trammel drove in the winning run in the 12th in a game that gave the Tigers a one game lead with 1 to play. He then gave up 6 runs in his only post-season start (a loss) to the Twins, who beat the Tigers in 5.

In '91, he did pitch well all season, but the Twins didn't relinquish the division lead after Jul 11, and didn't have a lead smaller than 6 games after Sep 1, so it's not like his stretch contribution was notable.  He had one mediocre and one good start in an ALCS where the Twins pen didn't allow a run in 18 innings (5 more than Morris pitched) and Kirby Puckett (series MVP) and Chili Davis carried the offense. He was brilliant against the Braves, though at least some of the fame (or infamy) belongs to Lonnie Smith and whoever it was who deked him (I forget).

In '92 he was pretty average overall for a team that scored a bunch of runs, though he was solidly above average in September in a race that was at least marginally contested. He was then thoroughly the worst starting pitcher for the Jays in the ALCS and WS, taking the loss in 3 of the 4 games the Jays lost, but the Jays won in spite of his terrible pitching.

That's absolutely the story of a good pitcher who was in the right place at the right time, was occasionally brilliant, occasionally terrible, and mostly above average for good teams

I'm certainly no sabremetrics expert, but WPA is a dubious stat at best.  It doesn't allow for isolating a players contribution from his teammates, for one thing.  And the fact that a guy pitched less effectively in "high leverage" situations vs "low leverage" situations isn't earthshakingly insightful news. You're right that WPA is an attempt to place some greater value on one moment of a game vs another, but it is not at all the same thing as what I described above.  It doesn't begin to represent the arc of a given season let alone a guys career.  It basically assigns greater statistical weight to certain ABs based on eventual game outcome and "win expectancy theory".  You're looking through the wrong end of the microscope.  That this sort of nonsense gets offered up as "evidence" as to a players historic value demonstrates my overall issue with relying too heavily on sabremetrics.  Like lot of stats, it can be used within reason... moreso to measure event impact within a single game.

Jacjac mentioned Mark Langston having better numbers than Morris in an earlier post.  I looked it up, Langston pitched all of 2 post season innings in his 15 year career.  Langston was a legit ace, but put down the calculator already.  It simply doesn't matter if his numbers were better, worse or exactly the same as Morris'... sort of like it doesn't matter if one guy has a faster FB or a better vertical leap.  What matters is who the guy was to the game during his era... What he did on the big stage... What sort of success he achieved for all to witness.  Success as in multiple rings, not endless formulae.  I have acknowledged that Jack Morris is a borderline candidate for the Hall, but statistics are only part of the equation.

What I'd like to see established is a new Hall of Baseball Statistical Measurement, to be located anywhere you like other than anywhere near Cooperstown, New York.  You can enshrine or decline anyone you like and split hairs ad infanutum.  I just doubt many baseball fans will make the pilgrimage to view all the bronzed spreadsheets.

So, now a defining criteria for being a HOF'er is having pitched in post season games?  I wonder how many guys in the HOF now never made it to the post season, or never won a WS?  Are they not worthy because of that?

If you had read previous posts, that subject was already covered.  To repeat, I'm not suggesting that post season is a prerequisite to the Hall, but it is certainly worth factoring in... particularly in the case of a borderline candidate.  With Morris, it's the post season success... including one of the all time great pitching performance in Series history... that puts him over the top, IMO.  Even in his final Championship Season, where he didn't pitch well in the Series... he was still the Jay's staff ace wire to wire, the game one series starter, a key team leader, and a 20 game winner.  HOFer.

Originally Posted by Soylent Green:

The answer is basically in how stats can be weighted in a given calculation.  Choices or biases can come into play, intentionally and unintentionally.  This can happen comparing two players from the same season, let alone a group of players from various different eras, ie HOF comparisons.

Ok, now I understand, and yes it can and does happen. However, for the venues I work in, that being done on purpose is a stretch. It might happen by accident when someone is trying to find something new. Its happened to me more than once. But in my case its not because I’m trying to bend the number to meet what I expect, but rather that I haven’t thought out what I was doing very well. There just aren’t a lot of folks at my level who are trying to do a lot more than basic numbers, yet.

That's a great example.  Statistically, those games count exactly the same.  In reality, the final game where the post season is on the line means infinitely more.  The competitive level is simply not comparable (and I think not calculable), even if the lineups and pitching match up happened to be exactly the same as the fist game months earlier.  Performance in that latter game is what defines championship players... It's historically been a separator for the HOF.   Back to my original point, Jack Morris pitched more of these type games... and not just the final game of a season and probably the greatest WS pitching performance ever... But a greater number of meaningful games in general owing to the fact that he was the No 1 pitcher for three (3) unique World Series championship campaigns... Pitching as the ace down each stretch run.  That's something different, in my book, than putting up numbers in otherwise mostly meaningless games with no post season implications.  No MLB game is meaningless, mind you... but I use that term just in comparison.  Still on the Morris soapbox, I'll repeat that all three teams WON the championship.  Winning pennants and WS should mean something!  As the ace, a guy is a key team leader... leading the staff and setting the tone in the clubhouse, on the field, in spring training.  Either Morris was a great competitive championship leader, or was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time... three times.  Numbers on a page just can't reflect the competitive reality.  That's why knowledgeable contemporary writers are supposed to do the selecting, not computers.

Well, this gets really close to a discussion on “clutch”, and as far as I know its not that it can’t be calculated, but rather that no one’s been able to show someone to be a better “clutch” player as they can show a player to have a consistently better OBP or ERA.

As far as the argument for or against Morris goes, to me its pretty simple. The way I remember it, whether it was what you’d call a meaningful or meaningless game, when the Indians faced him, I knew they were in for a very difficult time of it.

Not in any sort of college or MLB evaluation, no.  But for a kid and parents to "evaluate" how a kid is progressing through levels of competition, how he stacks up to other kids at same level, and for identifying consistent strengths and areas to improve... Sure.

Why not for an evaluation for another level? Remember I said the stats would be equivalent to ML stats, which to me means the same kind of validity. The thing that’s always stopped them from being used, is that not every AB or every pitch of every game is cataloged accurately and stored so that all can see it, not that the math doesn’t work.

Heck, at the HS level, if every player, especially the “better” ones had everything logged, there’s every chance it wouldn’t be unusual to see hitters with 500-600 PAs and pitchers with 100-150 IPs every year. That should be a sufficient sample for even those who incessantly use that as a reason why the numbers at this level aren’t worth spit.

Choo is a solid player and fits nicely with the Rangers offnsive needs. He'll be a good addition In the short run.  My point is that the team overplayed mightily for him... And this is due in part to other moves that have been made, and not made, putting them in a position where they felt like this is what they had to do.

Unfortunately that’s the nature of the game. When he was with the Indians, like all “new” players, he didn’t get paid squat compared to what he was really worth compared to the market. That almost inevitably means they’ll be paid far more than their worth on the other end of their careers. Zito and Pujols come to mind quickly, and I have no reason to believe Cano won’t fall into that mold as well. It’s a shame, but the game has been set up that way for reasons most of us can’t even comprehend. If a team wants a really solid player, they’re just gonna have to pay.

Two things.

1, in regard to the Choo discussion.  Just hope he doesn't turn out like Uggla did for the Braves.  Haha.

2, in regard to pitching in the big games.  I have yet to meet a high level player who doesn't want to win and pitch well in every game they play.  If you have a pitcher that doesn't put as much pressure on himself to perform and win in EVERY GAME HE PITCHES, I don't really want him on my staff.  Yes, there are some who do not succumb to the pressures of the big games.  But, I would venture to say that they put the same pressure on themselves to perform and win whether it's their first start of the season, their 15th start of the season or Game 7 of the WS.  If a pitcher underperforms during the regular season, but amps it up for the big games, I'm not sure they are who I want.  There are 162 games in the regular season, but most teams only make it to the WS or post season once in a while (unless you're the Yankees - I'm not a Yankees fan).  I want a pitcher that will bust their a$$ every game he goes out there like it's Game 7.  Not one that only does well in that one game.  

Just some thoughts.

Except that Jack Morris is only a borderline candidate in the first place because of the game 7 vs the Braves, and because he had a fairly pedestrian career as the #1 starter for a bunch of really good teams. Put him on the '84 Mariners and Langston on the '77 Tigers and Langston goes something like 210-150 and gets 3 rings and is the borderline candidate everyone's talking about (the Curt Schilling-lite career) while Morris is largely forgotten going more like 220-195 for a bunch of crappy teams.

For the most part, Jack Morris didn't carry the Tigers (and Twins and Blue Jays), He was never the best player, or pitcher, on a championship team (and it's not particularly close). He was probably the best player on his own team only once, in '79.  If Jack Morris is a HOFer, it's because he had one really great game, and a bunch of really good, often underrated, teammates.

Uh, it's pretty easy to understand.  MLB is an oligopoly that has been given the power to artificially restrict the freedoms of it's workforce.  Given the restrictions in place, only certain, mostly near the end of or past their prime players, are freely available. Those guys are, naturally, overpaid because teams have relatively few alternatives to fighting over them. The players with the most vested interest in changing the system, have the least power to do so, and the overpaid veterans have every incentive to keep the system as is, once they're no longer the ones getting the shaft.

Thanks for this... I think this is probably the crux of where you and I completely disagree.

On paper, strat-o-matic boards, fantasy leagues and video games... you can play with such theoretical assertions.  In the real world, it's only the doing that bears out the point.  You could be right that plugging Player XYZ into Morris' factual spot in history might have produced the same or even better results... but that will always be purely academic... conjecture.  Grist for a barroom debate... not a HOF ballot.

Morris performed the feat. Period. Full stop. 

And to say that Morris didn't contibute mightily to all three of his Championship teams as the undisputed staff ace... of each!... is silly.  He was the game one pitcher for all three Series... that's not a ceremonial designation, Jacjac.  Managers go with their best... they are trying to win the Series.

A man accomplishes demonstrable greatness... ie the staff ace of multiple World Series Champions... and the argument becomes "a lot of guys could have done that"!?  That's truly vintage peanut gallery.

Jack Morris finished 3rd on his own team in the 1984 AL Cy Young voting (7th overall), and 2nd on his own team in 1991 (he did manage to get the most CY Young votes on his own team in '92, though Guzman was markedly more deserving, but the AL Cy Young voting was really awful that year, as only 4 of the 10 best pitchers received votes and a deserving Roger Clemens finished a distant 3rd, two places ahead of Morris). Morris never won a Cy Young, never finished higher than 3rd in fact, and got 6 first place Cy Young votes, no first place MVP votes, in his career.  The contemporary consensus of his performance was that he was never the best player or pitcher in the league, and rarely, if ever, the best on his own team.

When he debuted on the HOF ballot in 2000, less than 1 in 4 of the voters thought he was a HOF. He owes his rise up the ballot as much to the fact that there's only been one SP inducted since his debut as to anything he actually did in his career.

SG,

Take a look at the Statistics & Scorekeeping forum and see if I at least am on the right track.

In all fairness, to assert that a pitcher is the second best pitcher on his team is not really an argument. Is Drysdale any less of a great HOF pitcher because he was second best on his team? I think not. Is Willie McCovey any less of a baseball great because he wasn't the best on his team(Mays).? Is Berra diminished because he played with Joe D. and the Mick? The answer is no! Did it mean David Ortiz is an inferior ballplayer because he played in the shadow of Schilling, Pedro, Manny et al..? No, what you do on the field  when the palms get sweaty and the money is on the table is what you should be judged on. Not whether you were the best player on your team. Just my two cents. And as an aside how good a pitcher you are is negated by your team. To put a twist to your post how much would the 84 Mariners have been with Tom Seaver? And 220 wins is not something to sneeze at seeing that the holy grail is 300.

bballman, agree with you all the way. But I think what is meant in some of these posts is the ability to amp it up to a higher degree in post season or pennant race type games. That's how I am taking it. Such as the ability to come back on one or two days rest and bring home the bacon! You would never ask a pitcher to do that during the regular season.

Ignoring for the moment that Drysdale was the best pitcher on his team multiple times, being second best to Koufax is a bit different than second best to Kevin Tapani, Dan Petry or Willie Hernandez.

And you're kidding yourself if you think a 220-195 Jack Morris with no rings and no game 7 makes it past his first year on the HOF ballot.

Oh, and there's no season in Morris' career that would have made a difference on the '84 Mariners, but '71 or '73 Seaver in place of '84 Matt Young would likely have been enough to make up the 10 games back they finished behind the Royals, and either of those Seaver seasons might have actually given them a chance vs the Tigers in a short series (probably not unless they could figure out how to have him start 3 games, though).

Clutch doesn't exist except as the human instinct to see patterns in otherwise normal data.

Who was talking about clutch? Look at my example, it has nothing to do with clutch and everything to do about getting your game to a higher level during times of do or die. No one ever uses the word or implies being 'clutch' when they talk about Sandy taking the ball on 1 or 2 days rests and go out and throw a complete game in game 7 with nothing but a fastball and enough pain in his elbow to stop an army of pitchers! That is what im talking about, the ability to do in the pennant races and post season what one would never be asked to do in the regular season. And yes adrenaline is real also. Excitement and over excitement are real. Nerves must be combated in pressure situations when the glare of the spotlight shines brightest. That is all real. Much different pitching in May then in October.

Who said anything about Morris at 220 going to the HOF. I never even said I thought he should be in! But I will stand by my statement that 220 wins is nothing to laugh at or make fun of. And as an aside, and I am  a huge Tom Seaver fan, he never was really dominant in post season a .500 pitcher.

I'm not sure what the functional difference is between commonly accepted definitions of clutch and "getting your game to a higher level during times of do or die".

Sandy Koufax didn't do what he did because of some mythical ability he had and Drysdale (for instance) didn't.  Jack Morris wasn't brilliant in game 8 because he was "grittier" or "tougher" or whatever you want to call it.  He was brilliant because good pitchers are often brilliant for one game.  Hell, bad pitchers are often brilliant for one game. People just think it was special, because that one time he did it, it was the last game of the season.

And, as a measure of his HOF worthiness, the fact that he did it is worth something, even if it wasn't due to some special ability that only he possessed.  It's clearly enough to turn him into a borderline HOF candidate when in different circumstances (being an '80s Mariner instead of an '80s Tiger) he'd never get considered.

Tom Seaver was a better post-season pitcher than Jack Morris, it's not his fault he pitched for poorer performing teams/vs better ones than Morris did (nor should it be to Morris' credit).

It truly surprises me when I see people attempting to make a logical rationale pertaining to a big league pitcher's success by using pitcher wins. I was under the impression that most recognize the uselessness of the figure as an individual statistic. The amount of wins a pitcher has means absolutely nothing with regard to how good that pitcher is.

To be clear, I don't disagree with this.  I've mentioned wins where I have to point out how differently Morris (and others) would be perceived in different circumstances precisely because people are inordinately attached to wins.

actually Koufax had that mythical ability and Drysdale while a great pitcher, didn't. It wasn't Drysdale who was asked to go in game seven, It wasn't Drysdale whopractically threw a fastball on every pitch that seventh game with his arm swollen and in pain. It wasn't Drysdale who could do that. Hell, maybe a handful of MLB pitchers in the whole history of the game could do that. Yes, there is a special something in some ballplayers, something you cannot quantify with straight up stats or numbers or any other metric you want to use. I will go to my grave with that belief. Its the same thing that makes ordinary men become heroes in extraordinary situations, Aint no metric for that!

And stop using the Morris thing with me. I don't even think I mentioned him. I posted as e response to your assertion about being second best on a club being somehow a bad thing. Let me be known as second best or third best on a major league club and I would buy you a steak dinner!

Well, probably because most wins are a result of pitching well enough to keep your team close, in the game, with a chance to win. That is what a pitchers job is. The win is a by product of that. I certainly would not want a pitcher who consistently goes 2-12 every year.

So your conclusion is that had Alston decided to hand the ball to Drysdale, he wouldn't have been able to win that game 7?

Out of curiosity, since Koufax was clearly special, is there a particular reason he didn't bother to throw a shutout in game 2 instead?

No. Wins are a product of the team's offensive ability to generate more runs than they gave up…as long as the lead is not surrendered at any point beyond when the pitcher "of record" is taken out, he is rewarded as such. 

The pitcher's job is not to "keep his team in the game." The pitcher's job is to get the opposing hitters out. That's it.

Wins have absolutely nothing to do with a pitcher's abilities. When I am handed statistical information about a pitcher, I immediately erase the "W-L" column. It's meaningless.

oldmanmoses,

I’m finding it extremely difficult figuring out who you’re directing your posts to. Would you please include some indication of who it is you’re trying to communicate with. Thanx.

I don’t know if your remarks about clutch are aimed at something I said, but if they are all I can tell you is, a “do or die” situation seems to me as defining the epitome of what clutch is all about. A batter gets a hit with no one on in a game his team is already ahead 10-0 and the game means absolutely nothing in the standings is not a clutch hit, where if that same hit comes in the bottom of the 9^th in game 7 of the WS with 2 outs, the bases loaded, and the home team down a run, most people would consider it a clutch hit.

jacjactk, under those particular circumstances maybe not. Remember when he was pressed into a world series start when Sandy decided not to pitch game one because of Yom Kippur. Drysdale lost.

Stats, I apologize to you. Your are correct. I will remember that in the future.And no we are pretty much on the same page when it comes to clutch or however it is defined.

JH, by getting hitters out on a consistent basis the result is your team is always in the game. So yes, a pitchers job is to give his team a shot to win and to do that he must get hitters out. As far as wins go what pitcher was 2-9 at the break and made the all star team because he was so dominant  but couldn't win? What pitcher with a losing record is in the HOF? It just doesn't make sense that people discard wins. Not all games are 12-9. Wins are a by product of good pitching.

jacjacatk, as far as Seaver pitching for a poorer performing team his team in69 swept Atlanta then beat Baltimore in 5 games. In 73,they beat the Reds and then took mighty Oakland to game 7 of the WS. Not a poor performing team to be sure. He just had a tough time in the post season. A couple of mistakes and that was that. He still is in my top 5 of all time. But his post season is what it is.

JH, by getting hitters out on a consistent basis the result is your team is always in the game.

Not true, in the slightest. There is hitting and defense involved, as well.

So yes, a pitchers job is to give his team a shot to win and to do that he must get hitters out.

Ok...

As far as wins go what pitcher was 2-9 at the break and made the all star team because he was so dominant  but couldn't win?

I care even less about All-Star game appearances than I do pitcher wins…which says a lot, because I don't care about pitcher wins. Perhaps he "couldn't win" because, ya know, maybe his 24 other teammates didn't perform well enough to win the game.

What pitcher with a losing record is in the HOF? 

Rollie Fingers, Bruce Sutter, Satchel Paige and Hank O'Day. 

It just doesn't make sense that people discard wins.

Yes it does. It doesn't make sense that people think pitcher wins mean anything.

Not all games are 12-9.

This is a true statement.

Wins are a by product of good pitching.

No, they aren't. Pitcher wins, as I addressed previously, are a byproduct of a team's ability to have more runs than the opposition, and maintain that lead until the end of the game, in order for the "pitcher of record" to be credited with a win. In some instances, a scorekeeper has the ability to credit someone with the win, at his/her discretion. A pitcher win is 100% a byproduct of a team effort and, therefore, is a completely irrelevant statistic for analyzing an individual pitcher's performance.

As I mentioned previously, I will never take into account a pitcher's win total or loss total when evaluating performance, and I don't think I know any analysts for big league teams that would either. Each stat is completely pointless. 

I'd prefer not to take up bandwidth here discussing something that has very little to do with high school baseball. If anyone would like to discuss the statistical analysis of the game (especially at the big league level) to a greater length, you're welcome to send me a PM.

Rollie Fingers and Bruce Sutter.  And 11 other guys not in for being pitchers. Eppa Rixey at .515 and Nolan Ryan at .526 are the "worst" of the starters.

Guys get picked for the AS game on the basis of lucky W/L records all the time, and then completely blow in the 2nd half, that's actually an argument for ignoring W/L.  But, FWIW, terrible guys occasionally get picked in spite of their record, too. Mike Williams was 1-3 6.44 when selected to the 2003 AS team. Oh, and 5-7 1987 Nolan Ryan deserved to go, as did 7-5 2010 Felix Hernandez (I'm sure there are more).

Wins are a byproduct of terrible pitching for good teams, too.  See, for instance, Jack Morris.  Morris is tied for 7th all time in wins in which the SP gave up 6 or more runs, with 14.  He's 14-62 in those games with 13 ND.  By comparison, Nolan Ryan was 5-81 in games where he allowed 6+ runs, also with 13 ND, even though he started 246 more games than Morris. So Morris allowed 6+ runs in 16.9% of his starts yet won 15.7% of those games,  while Ryan allowed 6+ runs in just 12.8% of his starts, but won only 5.1% of those.  Explain to me exactly what it was that Morris was doing differently that made him so much better when he sucked.

That is one hilarious sentence.