Johan has just been a little bit better and has pulled away in this race with a few amazing starts while Halladay was getting incredibly unlucky. It's no knock on Doc.
santana really isnt just "a little" better.. the strikeout difference between the two is huge, santana is a dominant and feared pitcher.. while halladay is just another guy who seems to put together wins and pitches by getting batters to groundout.. hes a good pitcher yes, but no where near santanas league.. and you should have expected a huge 2nd half from johan, he does it every year
First of all, strikeouts are just outs. They may be more effective because the balls aren't played to your defense and errors can't happen, but in the end they are all just outs. What you basically seem to be saying is...Santana is a better pitcher because he strikes out more batters, while Halladay isn't as good because he doesn't. That doesn't make much sense. Doc has the ability to K guys, but he just pitches for the ground outs. He realizes that strikeouts usually take more pitches then just getting somebody to make a little bit of contact on the first few ptches. In that way he is far more efficient than any other pitcher in baseball (excluding Wang, who I believe is the only pitcher with few pitches per inning than him)
And I disagree when you say he's nowhere near Santana's league. Halladay pitched much, much better than Johan last year in the first half. If Doc didn't get injured it's very likely that he would have gone on to a very easy Cy win last year, he was that good over the first half of the season. Their stats were also extremely close for the 3-4 months of the season until Johan went on this run. I'm willing to admit that Johan has been the better pitcher than Doc this season (he's clearly been the more effective of the two), but you still can't take anything away from Halladay's season, it's been very good.
Laean wrote:i'm pretty sure when your strategy is to get groundballs instead of strikes, you're going to end up giving up more some hits, so no a lower BAA is very not relevant in evaluating whether or not you're a more effective starting pitcher than another pitcher who happens to be a strikeout pitcher.
I'm not sure what your definition of an effective starting pitcher is but giving up less hits would be a pretty big factor for me. Apparently not for you.
you keep trying to make things look like they are simpler than they are, but all it does it makes you look stubborn/slow because what i'm saying isn't that complicated either.
BAA does matter, but not so much when you're trying to judge between the performance of a groundball pitcher to a strikeout pitcher. not all pitcher are the same.
with a flyball pitcher (for example), you'd expect more HRs given up than with a ground pitcher wouldn't you? but just because a flyball pitcher has given up more HRs don't mean he's less effective pitcher than a pitcher with lower HRs given up. with groundball pitchers, you got to expect higher WHIP and BAA because they doesn't try to make the batter whiff as much as let them hit into a groundout. groundball pitchers also should get more double plays, thus negating the higher BAA.
my point is that you can't look at just BAA and say "well he's better than this guy." if you want to look at halladay's BAA, also got to look at halladay's GIDP and santana's HRs, etc.
Johan has just been a little bit better and has pulled away in this race with a few amazing starts while Halladay was getting incredibly unlucky. It's no knock on Doc.
santana really isnt just "a little" better.. the strikeout difference between the two is huge, santana is a dominant and feared pitcher.. while halladay is just another guy who seems to put together wins and pitches by getting batters to groundout.. hes a good pitcher yes, but no where near santanas league.. and you should have expected a huge 2nd half from johan, he does it every year
First of all, strikeouts are just outs. They may be more effective because the balls aren't played to your defense and errors can't happen, but in the end they are all just outs. What you basically seem to be saying is...Santana is a better pitcher because he strikes out more batters, while Halladay isn't as good because he doesn't. That doesn't make much sense. Doc has the ability to K guys, but he just pitches for the ground outs. He realizes that strikeouts usually take more pitches then just getting somebody to make a little bit of contact on the first few ptches. In that way he is far more efficient than any other pitcher in baseball (excluding Wang, who I believe is the only pitcher with few pitches per inning than him)
And I disagree when you say he's nowhere near Santana's league. Halladay pitched much, much better than Johan last year in the first half. If Doc didn't get injured it's very likely that he would have gone on to a very easy Cy win last year, he was that good over the first half of the season. Their stats were also extremely close for the 3-4 months of the season until Johan went on this run. I'm willing to admit that Johan has been the better pitcher than Doc this season (he's clearly been the more effective of the two), but you still can't take anything away from Halladay's season, it's been very good.
well said. Ks are good for fantasy, but it's just an out in real life. though it does keep people on the bases from having any chance of moving, it also doesn't let you make doubleplays.
also, an advantage that groundball pitchers have over K guys is that they usually pitch more innings, since they pitch less times each inning. instead of trying to get an individual batter to K which requires at least 3 pitches, a groundball pitcher could get a guy out in first pitch, or get 2 guys out with a doubleplay, etc. this results in heavier weighed ERA, saves the bullpen by consistently going into the 7th and 8th innings, etc.
Cafe Home
Fantasy Football
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Hockey
by Mugrila » Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:03 pm 
