5 comments Friday Fun With Jemele Hill and Rob Neyer

I'm going to start off with talking about Rob Neyer for today. Apparently ESPN has a group of "blogs" about MLB Baseball teams that are called "SweetSpot Blog Network." I say "apparently" because I had no idea these networks of blogs existed. I guess it is a way to reach out to each individual fan of a MLB team for coverage of that team, but I have to say if I was a fan and wanted a site about the Atlanta Braves, I would go to a network of blogs not affiliated with ESPN. This is just my personal preference.

So Rob Neyer, who I deeply respect and like as a writer (cue me now ripping him), is having difficulty filling in some of the spots for this network. He has 21 of the 30 teams covered, but he also has high standards. Apparently, to be a columnist you can call someone "Tim Joyce" or put out an article that has errors in it to be fixed at a later date and be fine, but bloggers are held to a higher standard than that. Who knew, right? You can't just write 1-2 articles a week and hope your editor fixes mistakes, you have to write daily and be accurate.

So the title of Neyer's post is "Blogging's Harder Than It Looks," which goes against everything I have learned. I thought to blog all you needed was a mom, a basement/attic, and a computer. That's what the mainstream media has always taught me. Yet here we are, learning from Rob Neyer that blogging is actually difficult. Actually blogging well and daily is difficult, but I will let Rob Neyer explain why he can't fill the open positions in his super-select SweetSpot Blog Network...

I get these all the time, figured I should finally respond to one ...

Rob, I'm a big fan of your SweetSpot Blog Network, as well as a big fan of the Troy Haymakers (yes, we do exist!). However, I've always been a bit melancholy because of the lack of blog coverage for the Haymakers. I'm current a junior in college, so you can imagine all the spare time I have, and I was hoping to inquire how I could have a blog entered in your Blog Network. Please let me know if such a thing could happen and how.

Thanks. - Billy

This is the email that initiated the post by Rob.

As you've noticed, Billy, we don't yet have all the teams covered. I'll be completely honest with you ... I thought we'd have 25 teams covered by now,

He is four short of his goal right now. Here are the teams that the ESPN SuperSelect SweetSpot Blog Network, sponsored by Applebees, don't have in their network right now. This list is sponsored by Coors Light.

Arizona Diamondbacks
Cincinnati Reds
Colorado Rockies
Florida Marlins
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland A's
Pittsburgh Pirates
Tampa Bay Rays
Toronto Blue Jays

So these are the teams that Rob hasn't been able to find a person who wants to sell his soul to ESPN for a little bit of exposure for his/her blog. I'm going to just eyeball this and say Rob Neyer either has incredibly high standards or there is some messed up stuff in the contract ESPN wants the writer to sign to become a part of the network.

Instead we've got 21, with (at this moment) no real prospects for more. I do think we'll make some progress this season. I just don't know when, or how much.

Here's how I understand the contract ESPN wants the ESPN SuperSelective SweetSpot Blog Network writers to sign...

(Blogger) "Do I get paid?"

(ESPN) "No."

(Blogger) "So I bring you traffic and you benefit? Why would I do this?"

(ESPN) "You get exposure."

(Blogger) "What good does exposure get me if I can't make money off of it?"

(ESPN) "I am sure you can make money, just not with us."

(Blogger) "I run a really popular site, but I feel like I need to partner with another site to help bring different content to my readers. What can you do in this respect?"

(ESPN) "I don't think you are the right fit for us right now."

I don't mean to get too far into the specifics of the agreement between a writer and ESPN, because I don't know and even some of the research I did seems pretty hazy on what exactly the agreement entails.

You can read that article I linked if you would like, it was one of the few in-depth discussions of the SweetSpot I found in the time I searched for information about it. It seems like it was written by a guy who writes for a competitor of the ESPN SweetSpot, so it may just be a recruiting tool for other bloggers to come to his network and I am sure it contains some biased representations of what the SweetSpot stands for, besides super-selectivity of course. So the purpose of the linked article was to show some of the criticisms of the ESPN Super-Selective SweetSpot Blog Network sponsored by Applebee's and also show potentially why the nine slots haven't been filled yet.

I am not really trying to knock the SweetSpot or compare it to other networks, I just wanted to give a reason why it may be hard to find professional bloggers that can meet Rob Neyer's standards. That's what this rambling post is about...Rob Neyer's journalistic standards.

I do get a lot of "letters" like yours, Billy. And my best advice, if you're sincerely interested, is simple: do it.

I don't really get the "do it" advice given here because I am not sure Billy was asking how to start a blog, he was asking how to get his blog put on the ESPN Super-Selective SweetSpot Blog Network sponsored by Applebee's. It seems like he would need the help of Rob Neyer to join the network. I am pretty sure this writers knows how to start a blog.

Last time I checked, the barrier for entry was exceptionally low. I believe it takes about three minutes to get a blog up and running.

More like five minutes, you have to think of a title for your blog as well. Some of my early names for this blog, and actually the name of the blog for the 1st two days, were not very good and quite lengthy. So it takes three minutes to get a blog up and running and at least five minutes if you have to think of a title for your blog.

Of course, there aren't any guarantees.

What? There are no guarantees? That means blogging and writing is exactly like the rest of life. As a person who hasn't seen the sun in 17 days, I don't know if I could handle this. I thought I could just plop some shit down on a page, get published and call it a day.

(I know, there are obvious jokes about Rob Neyer having high standards for his bloggers, but ESPN has some of the most worst, in my opinion writers on the payroll for Page 2. It turns out Rob Neyer's standards are higher than the network he writes for.)

The sad truth is that even if you've got the time to write about your favorite team every day, you probably don't have the analytical skills or the writing chops we're looking for.

This is the centerpiece of this post in my mind. This isn't the sad truth, this is a complete and utter assumption that most likely is really wrong. So Rob Neyer is saying a person who has time on his hands is naturally not employable to be a writer or this person doesn't have enough skills to write well? Are his current ESPN Super-Selective SweetSpot (sponsored by Applebee's) bloggers all employed somewhere else and have very little time to write about their favorite team? Is that a job requirement? That a person has very little time...because that doesn't seem conducive to getting a group of people who write well either.

This is a stupid assumption. He can't just assume a person who has some time on his hands doesn't have the analytical skills or writing chops to write a daily blog about his/her favorite team. This type of thinking is what has caused newspapers to go belly-up and explains why there is such a large gap between professional journalists and the unprofessional bloggers of the world.

You might, someday.

Someday you may be able to write articles with rhyming puns in the name like Woody Paige, write a fake letter to the Chicago Bulls from LeBron James like Gene Wojciechowski has done, call for someone to get fired like Jay Mariotti does weekly, or even write a 500 word story that plagiarizes a previous story you wrote like Rick Reilly does. Some day, if you keep writing, and kiss the right asses you may be in the company of these individuals.

But writing, like most things, takes a fair amount of practice.

Apparently it doesn't count as practice if you currently write every single day on a blog about your favorite team. Because I am sure there are many people who have applied for the one of the open positions and been turned down even though they write everyday about their favorite team. I am not sure what would constitute practice more than that, outside of an English degree.

Obviously the quality of the writing should be a part of the decision, but I would hope writing your own blog about your favorite team everyday would constitute some form of practice to Rob Neyer.

If it were easy to write (and analyze) well, we wouldn't have nine openings in the SweetSpot Network, because I would have filled those slots already from among the many dozens of unaffiliated blogs that are out there right now.

And as stated above, Rob Neyer is looking for people who have little time on their hands to fill these open vacancies. You have all day to write and analyze your favorite team? You're a hack shithead. We want people who have a regular job and blog in their free time, that's the way to get quality writers.

Sometimes I worry that my standards are too high ... but that's better than the alternative, right? If I'm going to err (and I will, inevitably) I would rather err on the side of good writing and analysis.

No one can really disagree with this reasoning. It's just the idea that a person who has time on their hands doesn't have the analytical skills required to write a blog about their favorite team and have it affiliated with ESPN.

The bottom line is that if ESPN doesn't pay its bloggers in the ESPN Super-Selective SweetSpot Network (sponsored by Applebee's) then they will have to hire people who make money some other way (unless it is from the blog itself), which also cuts down on the amount of time they are able to write, and therefore cuts down on the quality of the writing.

So that's where we're at, Billy. I get letters like yours all the time, and my advice is always the same. Do it. Write about your team, and prove to me that you can write often and well and smartly. Then we'll talk.

And use "and" three times in a sentence when making a list. I am sure this was learned through constant practice.

At least Rob Neyer pays attention to bloggers, which is a step up from how normally mainstream writers treat the people they see as the scum of the Earth in regards to writing.

Enough rambling, but if a sports network as large as ESPN can't find nine bloggers to cover nine MLB teams on for their sports network, something tells me there is a problem outside of the quality of the writing and analysis on the site of the blogs which are applying for the network.

-Let's get to JemeHill's story of seduction at a bar in South Africa. Thanks to reader Tom for the link to this article.

It was a little before midnight, during the Brazil-North Korea game, which I was watching at an adult beverage establishment.

I don't know what that is. I am mentally handicapped.

OK, a bar.

Thanks for clearing that up. Always assume your readers are as stupid as you are. That's a great standard to use when writing.

And walking through the door wasn't Idris Elba -- my dream man -- but a World Cup coach who shall remain anonymous. And let's just say he didn't sidle up to me because he wanted to discuss soccer strategy.

(JemeHill searching desperately to make this blog posting about race...she can't do it, so she settles for just telling the story)

Before your minds dive into the gutter, nothing came of it, and his misdirected romantic intentions were spurned. But the encounter was comical because he spoke only Spanish and I'm extremely proficient in English.

I may argue JemeHill's extreme proficiency in English at a later date, but everyone probably wants to hear this tale of seduction without me rambling any further.

However, I remembered enough Spanish to know that this coach was trying to pick me up.

JemeHill, who knows no Spanish outside of minoring in it at Michigan State and she hasn't used the degree since, is ABSOLUTELY SURE this guy was picking her...despite the fact they didn't speak the same language. Let's just remember this is a writer who starts many of her columns with a false premise which she pretends everyone believes, then she attempts to disprove this false premise in an effort to show how what everyone thinks is wrong. She sometimes seems to have a warped view of what people tend to believe it true. Let's remember this before we just assume this guy was picking her up, though he very well could have been.

But even if I hadn't known a lick of Spanish, I think I still would have figured out this coach's ultimate aim. The amorous look in his eyes, the winks that punctuated every sentence and asking for my room number made it a dead giveaway.

I think the conversation went like this:

(JemeHill) "Hi, how are you?"

(Soccer coach) "Fine, (touches her shirt) I like your shirt it is very pretty. What are you drinking tonight? I don't want to drink a crappy beer. (points at her beer) I think I am going to have what you are drinking, would you like for me to order you another one?"

(JemeHill) "No thanks, I actually am here by myself and would like to keep it that way."

(Soccer coach) "I enjoy looking at that shirt you got, it reminds me of one my wife has. It makes her eyes (points to his eyes) sparkle with beauty (gets a big smile on his face)."

(JemeHill) "I know what you are doing and I am not interested."

(Soccer coach) "I know who you are and I read your columns. My wife loves you. Perhaps we could get together sometime and you could meet my wife. You could also do a brief interview with me if you would like."

(JemeHill getting upset) "I don't know what you are trying to accomplish, but it isn't going to work."

(Soccer coach) "My wife loves your writing. I promise, there will be no interview if you don't want, she just wants to meet you. We are in Room 214. What is your room number? It will only take five minutes."

(JemeHill splashes a drink in his face and makes a note to tell everyone she got hit on at a bar)

Thankfully, I remembered three Spanish words that put a halt to his advances -- "Tengo novio" (I have a boyfriend)

(JemeHill after throwing a drink in his face) "Tengo novio."

(Soccer coach wiping his face off) "He would be upset if you met my wife? What kind of person is he? I would think a person wearing a shirt as pretty as yours would have a nicer boyfriend (smiles at her). Five minutes to meet you is all I ask. Our anniversary is next week and it would be a great present to her. We'll come to your room, what's your room number?"

and "Soy la periodista para ESPN" (I'm a journalist for ESPN).

(JemeHill) "Soy la periodista para ESPN."

(Soccer coach) "I know who you are. That is why I want you to meet my wife, it would make her very happy. She knows very well who you are (puts his hand on her shoulder and smiles again to try and convince her to meet his wife) and loves your writing."

After I said that, he nodded and said something about being "amigos."

(JemeHill) "You are a pig and I don't want to do anything with you."

(Soccer coach) "But we are amigos, can't you just do the meeting for me? How about 11am tomorrow?"

Then we ended our conversation on a handshake.

(JemeHill shakes his hand and begins to leave)

(Soccer coach) "So it is a deal then! I will see you tomorrow in my room at 11am with my wife. Thank you amigo!"

(The next morning at 11:45am the soccer coach is furious JemeHill never showed up and his wife leaves the room to go shopping in South Africa for the day and is flying home the very next day. The soccer coach is at the end of his rope now) "That puta!"

Nevertheless, it was flattering. I guess it's true that love -- or rather, lust -- is a universal language.

This is the most disturbing story I have read in a couple of days.

16 comments Steve Phillips Is a Crazy Person

Steve Phillips used to be the General Manager for a Major League Baseball team. I am sure everyone pretty much knew that, but I wanted to re-state that a team (the Mets) paid him to run their team, with the assumption he would lead the team to success. It didn't completely happen this way. This is a guy who didn't make altogether terrible moves with the Mets, but he traded for and signed veterans every chance he got. Along those lines, he stated two days ago he would trade Stephen Strasburg for Roy Oswalt. Steve Phillips is a crazy person.

Let's first look at Phillips' exact words and then go from there in discussing this.

"Here's the thing," Phillips told Mike Francesa on New York's WFAN Monday afternoon. "If I'm the Astros, I'm saying Washington Nationals, sure, [Roy] Oswalt, I think he'd fit great for you. I'll take Strasburg, and then I'll take...."

Here's the underrated part of this statement for me. It isn't just a straight up Oswalt for Strasburg trade, but Steve Phillips was going to try and ask for MORE players from the Nationals in return for Oswalt. I don't tend to overvalue prospects much, Strasburg is an exception. Strasburg is not only a marketing dream for the Nationals, but he is also a pitcher that AT WORST seems to be a quality #2 starter in the future. Oswalt is a #1 starter and a quality one at that. So it is not like the Nationals would be getting a crappy pitcher in return, but does Steve Phillips really think the Nationals would throw another player in the trade? It would have to be a AAAA guy who is in his upper-20's or a prospect that doesn't look like he has a bright future for me to think this is reasonable. Of course why would the Astros demand another player who doesn't look like he is worth having?

Of course there is a money aspect to this discussion as well. Oswalt is also 32 years old and costs $15 million this season, $18 million next season and has a club option for 2012 for $16 million with a $2 million buyout. I love Roy Oswalt as a pitcher and I can only think of two reasons the Nationals would trade Strasburg for Oswalt straight up.

1. The Nationals know something about Strasburg's future no other team knows (injury or he isn't that good of a pitcher). Neither of these situations seem to be the case here.

2. The Nationals want to win over the next two years and don't care what they have to do in order to make this happen. Bottom line, the Nationals aren't winning anything this year, so unless Mike Rizzo is delusional, this isn't the case either.

Where Steve Phillips has failed is he doesn't understand the Nationals marketing and pitching needs at this current point in time. Strasberg is a marketing dream for a team that can't get fan interest or ticket sales for their team. Strasberg is the future for the Nationals. To trade him is to essentially trade the future of the Nationals...until they draft Bryce Harper.

Phillips also doesn't understand that it doesn't even really make financial sense to trade Strasburg for Oswalt. Strasburg is a cheaper pitcher than Oswalt right now and is seen as the pitching savior of the franchise. Regardless of whether the actual trade makes sense in terms of value gained on each side, it doesn't make sense from a marketing, financial, and team competitiveness point of view. The Nationals aren't winning the World Series this year so they don't have a need to trade short term value for a long term value in Strasburg.

But yes, it would appear that Strasburg alone wouldn't be enough.

This is why Phillips is a crazy person to me. He wants the Nationals to give up more players than just Strasburg. Beyond what the point of trading Strasburg for Oswalt would be, how the hell does he really think the Astros could talk the Nationals out of giving up more players for Oswalt? Maybe Strasburg will never been as good as Oswalt is or has been, but try telling that to a Nationals fan base that has very little to cheer for.

A team shouldn't always cater to its fan base, but there comes a time when a team has to give a shit about selling tickets to the games.

Francesa immediately realized that this idea was, to use the technical term, dumb.

"Never," he said. "They won't do that. They won't do that."

"No, they won't do that," Phillips agreed, briefly reentering the earth's orbit. "But let me ask you this: Do you think that Strasburg is going to be Roy Oswalt in his career?"

This is another time where Phillips fails to understand what he is actually arguing. This isn't really even about whether Strasburg would be as good as Oswalt, but whether the Nationals think Oswalt will help them more over the next 2-3 years more than having Strasburg for a minimum of 5-6 years will help them and whether money spent on Oswalt wouldn't be better spent in another fashion to help the Nationals compete. Basically the Nationals are going all-in on this current season and next season by trading Oswalt for Strasburg and that's not smart for them to do. They aren't close enough to contending to make this move. The Nationals could use this money they would spend on Oswalt to get 1-2 quality position players this offseason or make another trade while keeping Strasburg.

Another factor in why this wouldn't work is one player is 32 years old and the other player is 21 years old. So essentially the Nationals would be giving up 11 years in the majors with Strasburg (of course there is the money they would have to pay Strasburg in that time as well) for 2-3 years of Oswalt.

"You think he will? I don't know that," Phillips countered. "And even if he is, if I think that I want Roy Oswalt to help me win this year, you know what?

Well you never KNOW how good a pitcher will be, but given Strasburg's numbers in the minors this year it doesn't look like he is going to struggle to adapt to the majors too much. There is easily $18 million in salary difference in what Oswalt would cost to keep over the next two years (I am assuming the Nationals pay $3 million of his salary this year and assuming Strasburg is making $2 million over the next two years, which is fuzzy math, but my point is there will be a massive difference in salaries of the two players) over what Strasburg would cost to keep. This is another strike against this deal.

Is Oswalt worth $18 million more than Strasburg over the next season and a half? There's no way he is. This is the exact reason Steve Phillips got fired from the Mets, he is constantly thinking about NOW and not thinking that the Nationals aren't in a position to compete this year (I don't give a shit what the standings say) so there is no reason to pretend they are in a position to compete.

Besides, if the Nationals can compete (as they have so far) without Strasburg or Oswalt, adding Strasburg to the rotation will only make them a better team. Oswalt isn't good enough to make an average team a Wild Card team. I don't think Oswalt's talent today and in the future is worth more than Strasburg's talent today and in the future when you include salaries and other variables the Nationals need to factor in.

I'm one of the guys, I make that deal, because...."

"One of those guys" being a crazy person. There is no other person or team who would make this deal. I think even if the Yankees needed pitching and they had Strasburg they wouldn't trade him for Oswalt...and the Yankees are supposed to hate their prospects, right?

I mean, this is a team coming off back-to-back 100-loss seasons, with the lowest season-ticket base of its history, now poised to draft the most exciting teenage hitting prospect in years, whose best player hasn't yet entered his prime and whose fan base has been waiting for sustained competitiveness built around the man nicknamed Jeezus. So you'd trade him to help you compete for a wild card this year?

Exactly. Essentially Steve Phillips is advocating trading one of the building blocks of the team for a run at the Wild Card in the National League for the next two years. Because the Nationals won't be going further than the NLDS this year and they can't win the NL East over the Phillies. Making this trade would be one of the worst examples of advocating a short-term benefit and ignoring a long-term benefit in Major League history. What GM trades a potential elite pitcher for a shot an outside the Wild Card? I can't believe how wrong Steve Phillips is about this.

"You can't give up Strasburg, though," Francesa said

"Absolutely," Phillips insisted. "I mean, listen, he was a good college pitcher, he's a good minor league pitcher so far. But if I can get one of the top, what, top 5 starting pitchers in the game today for Strasburg?

The Mets management have to be beaming with pride today that Phillips is talking like this. ESPN is probably jealous they had to fire this genius. I'm not being sarcastic, they probably think this argument would have been great on the Coors Light Home Depot "Six Pack of Questions" for Steve Phillips sponsored by Applebees.

Here's the point that Phillips keeps missing: The Nationals don't have a need for a Top 5 pitcher like Roy Oswalt. Their team is doing well this year, but this success will end. They have lost 100 games the past couple of seasons and seem to be on their way back to the NL East basement. So it does not make sense to trade for a Top 5 pitcher (even though I don't know if Oswalt is a Top 5 pitcher). Even proposing this trade shows absolutely zero foresight.

Strasburg has also been better than "good" in both the minors and college. He's been excellent.

Because I really, truly, I hope that he could be that guy. I have to tell you, I don't know that he could be that guy. And with his delivery, I could see the potential of a Mark Prior sort of breakdown."

Now Steve Phillips thinks he is a pitching coach. He doesn't like Strasburg's delivery! Alert the media, Strasburg is going to have arm problems because Steve Phillips doesn't like his delivery!

This opinion from the guy who traded for Mo Vaughn in 2001 even though Vaughn had missed the entire 2001 campaign with an injury. He thinks Strasburg will have his arm breakdown based on the video he has seen from him, but he also thought Mo Vaughn was in such great shape he could easily recover from his injury and play first base in the National League. Steve Phillips knew this because Mo Vaughn hit the ball well off a fucking tee after his surgery in 2001. I'm not kidding.

Steve Phillips may believe Mike Rizzo is into collecting a fantasy team and not trying to actually improve the Nationals for the future. Come to think of it, that could have been his problem with the Mets as well, Phillips thought he was collecting a fantasy team and not putting together a team of productive baseball players.

Rob Neyer chimes in on this discussion and imagines if it makes sense to trade Oswalt for Strasburg for any team. Let's enter the analysis of crazy person land now.

Not the Nationals, though. Given where they are in the development cycle, it's simply impossible to justify trading six years of Strasburg for 10 months of Roy Oswalt. And that would be true even if Oswalt wasn't slated to earn nearly $30 million through the 2011 season.

I know people say dumb things, but Steve Phillips didn't say it just once and then take it back, he kept saying over and over he would make this trade. Aren't experts not supposed to be idiots?

But what if you're a contender, and the money's not all that important? Who's more likely to get you into the playoffs this season, and help you win the World Series?

Oswalt, clearly.

This is correct, but I don't think even the most eager World Series contender would make this trade. I can see what Rob Neyer is saying, but the fact is to have this trade make sense a team would have to want to win this year and not care about next year or two years after that. It isn't simply a discussion of whether a team could win with Oswalt or Strasburg in the rotation because there is going to be a next year.

If you were really trying to win, you might remove him from the rotation in July or August and deploy him for the rest of the season as your not-so-secret bullpen weapon, like the Rays used David Price in 2008. But if you'd given the Rays a choice between Price and Oswalt that summer, wouldn't they have chosen Oswalt?

The Rays would have taken Oswalt over Price, but I don't know if the Rays would have actually traded Price for Oswalt. Every MLB team would want to trade prospects for proven players, but this trade doesn't exist in a vacuum and that is why I don't think even the most World Series-needy team would make this trade. To have this trade make sense for the team getting Oswalt, the only variable that will have to be paid attention to by a GM is the opportunity to win the World Series, and be willing to do anything to reach this goal.

Obviously, the Rays wouldn't trade Price for Oswalt today ... but it's worth mentioning that Price is now in his third major league season, and he's still not the pitcher we once thought he would become.

What does this tell us? The Rays may have made that trade, but they wouldn't have re-done the trade two years later, even when Oswalt is a better pitcher than David Price now (which I would perhaps start a debate over). It tells me no team is going to be so short-sighted as to make this trade.

Besides, David Price is currently 7-1 with a 2.41 ERA, ERA+ of 176, and a WHIP of 1.14 at the age of 24 years old. What kind of pitcher did Rob Neyer expect Price to be? I think he is pretty damned good right now. I don't know what potential Rob Neyer sees in him that he doesn't currently seem to be reaching.

Take the money out of it, and if I'm trying to win right now, I would rather have Roy Oswalt than Stephen Strasburg in 2010 and '11, because I think Oswalt is going to win more games in these two seasons.

Even if you take the money out of it, you still have to pay attention to two years down the road and whether Oswalt is THE missing piece that will guarantee your team a World Series. This trade only makes sense in a short-sighted vacuum where all other variables outside of "whether the trade will win a team the World Series" are ignored.

If I'm the Nationals, though? Fuhgeddaboutit.

I would say if you are any team in the majors, then it wouldn't happen. Teams that have GM's terrible enough to make this decision in such a vacuum aren't good enough teams to win the World Series with Oswalt anyway.

I am skeptical this crazy idea of Steve Phillips' would work in any situation, even for a World Series contender. Like I said, no team that has a GM stupid enough to trade Strasburg for Oswalt will probably be contending for a World Series title. That's not to say a stupid GM's team won't luck out and be competing at this point in the season of course, but generally dumb GM's have made stupid moves that don't put their team in a position to make the World Series. Obviously there are exceptions.

If a team needed a pitcher that badly, why didn't they go for a pitcher who cost a little bit less to acquire? Sure you wouldn't get a Roy Oswalt in return, but you also wouldn't be trading a guy with as much potential as Stephen Strasburg has.

One thing is for sure, Steve Phillips is a crazy person and it is not shocking he was fired by the Mets. I am not sure a Roy Oswalt for Stephen Strasburg trade would ever go down no matter the circumstances, but if it did then the reasoning would have to exist in a vacuum based on solely on winning the World Series THAT YEAR. I don't know how a team that thinks like this would compete beyond 2011.

23 comments Wins Are Not A Good Indicator

I was going to do a post on Ron Gardenhire that was posted by Jeff Passan over at yahoo, but then I found this over on Rob Neyers blog. Its an article about how wins are a useful statistic and can show how good a pitcher is. The author seems to be a very smart and sabermetric type guy, so I'm curious as to why he would write something like this. Wins, by all accounts, are a terrible measure for evaluating pitchers. As Dak points out in the glossary of the now shut down Fire Joe Morgan site "The reason being – and again, you know this, intuitively, even if you have never quite expressed it to yourself – if Carl Pavano gives up nineteen runs in five innings but the Yankees score 20 runs, and they hold on to win, and Pavano gets the win, is Pavano a good pitcher? No he is not. (This scenario is assuming he ever comes back and actually pitches, btw.) If Francisco Liriano throws 9 innings of no-hit ball, but gives up a run on four consecutive errors by Terry Tiffey and gets a loss, is Francisco Liriano a bad pitcher? No he is not". I think that about sums it up. I can remember being a kid and looking at the back of a 1990 Nolan Ryan card and seeing he didnt have a great winning percentage and thinking something didnt seem right because everyone thought of Nolan at the time as one of the greatest pitchers, so I was confused as to why he didnt have that great of a record. As Dak said, I knew intuitively that this didnt see right, but that was the common thought at the time: "Wins are all that matter". The author, who goes by the handle "The Professor", has multiple tables that supposedly back up his claims but, I'm going to do my best to go through and hopefully refute said claims. Now, enough with my Bengoodfella ramblings (Zing) and onto the article at hand.

How many times have you seen it written or heard somebody say:

“Wins is a useless way to evaluate a starting pitcher”

We have heard it so many times, that we have started wondering why we still track Wins for pitchers.

Exactly. Why do we keep using wins as a measure for pitchers? I can see it being a useful stat back when pitchers completed all their games (and even then you had to depend on your team to score runs), but there are so many variables that go into a W nowadays, such as: The Lineup, defense, and perhaps most importantly, the bullpen.

But does this mean Wins is a completely useless statistic? Over time, shouldn’t a a good pitcher win more games than a bad pitcher, regardless of other factors?

To answer your first question: yes. Yes, it does. As for the second question: All you have to do is look at Bert Blyleven's Baseball Reference page
and look at his 1973 season to see that, yes indeed, Bert got hosed. I mean, his ERA was 2.52, he struck out over 250 batters, and yet he still only had a 20-17 record. Do you know who led the league in wins that year? Wilbur Wood and his ERA of 3.46, almost a full run higher than Bert's. Joe Coleman had 23 with a 3.53 ERA, Jim Palmer had 22 with a 2.40 ERA, Catfish Hunter had 21 with a 3.34ERA, and Ken Holtzman had 21 and a 2.97ERA. So really, out of all those pitchers with more wins, only Palmer had an ERA better than Bert, but Bert had 100 more strikeouts which makes him even better. Not to mention Palmer had the far superior defense behind him with Robinson, Powell, Belanger, and Grich.

To answer this question, we looked at every pitcher over the last four seasons (2006-2009) with at least 600 innings pitched (150ip/season). We then removed anybody that had more than 10% of their appearances in relief. We ended up with a list of 51 pitchers. We tallied up their wins (as a starting pitcher) in those four seasons and compared it to their ERA+*.

He then follows up with a chart that supposedly backs up his claims. Well, I'm going to play his game, so here is the wins leaders from those 4 years with their ERA's.

2006 NL: Aaron Harang 16W 3.76ERA
Derek Lowe 16W 3.63ERA
Brad Penny 16W 4.33ERA
John Smoltz 16W 3.49ERA
Brandon Webb 16W 3.10ERA
Big Z 16W 3.41ERA

2006 NL ERA Leader: Roy Oswalt 2.98 ERA amd 15 Wins

2006 AL: Johan Santana 19W 2.77ERA
Chien Ming Wang 19W 3.63 ERA

2007 NL Jake Peavy 19W 2.54ERA
AL Josh Beckett 20W 3.27ERA

Ok, you know what, I'm getting lazy with this, but basically there are a lot of good pitchers that had great numbers but not a lot of wins. I mean, Aaron Harang--AARAON HARANG--was your 2006 leader in wins, so that right there should tell you all you need to know about the usefulness of wins.

What we see is a very clear trend. As a pitcher’s ERA+ goes up (bigger values are better, 100 is average), their win total goes up. Are there exceptions? Of course. Every statistic has exceptions. But even in the face of contradictions, we still see a very strong correlation

You know what else correlates strongly? Deeeeez Nuuts!! Yeah, what now, Professor? (Fred Trigger high fiving himself) Exceptions, like Aaron Harang?(sorry I just cant get over that he lead the NL in wins that year. That alone closes the door on Wins being useful. Harang is certainly a fine pitcher, but I wouldnt consider him elite by any means) Chien ming Wang had the same amount of wins that Johan Santana did, would you rather have him instead of Johan? Cole Hamels had less wins then Jeff Francis, who would you rather have?

Of course, a pitcher’s win total will be affected by the number of starts they make.

Is that all a pitchers win total will be affected by? Not how many runs his team scores? What about if every position player behind him is David Eckstein? Hes fucked then. How about if he goes 8 innings, gives up 0 runs, and his closer gives up 10 runs in the 9th to lose the game? What about that, professor? WHAT ABOUT THAT?!?!??!?!?!

The problem with Wins as an evaluator of starting pitchers is not that it is bad statistic.

Yes it is. I remain unconvinced by the charts you have shown me.

It is simply a matter of sample size. In a single game, a win or no win is not a good indicator. Why? Small sample size.

I want you all to remember this.

Can we use Wins to evaluate a pitcher over the course of one season? Maybe.

Really? REALLY? Your going to talk about sample size and then say that one season worth of wins is a good indicator. Again, REALLY? Hey how about that Fausto Carmona? You know, won 19 games back in 2007, so he really must be a great pitcher because of his 1 season worth of high wins and is surely on the fast track to the hall of fame. Wait.....whats that? He never really regained that form? But what about that year he had 19 wins?

To be fair he does go onto say in the next sentence that it still is a relatively small sample size, but that does not excuse the fact that he even insinuated that you can evaluate a pitcher with one seasons worth of wins.

But we can be relatively certain that an 18-game winner is better than a 5-game winner (with similar number of starts).

Can we be so sure? Lets take a look at the 2005 Cy Young award, shall we?

Chris Carpenter: GS 33, W 21, ERA 2.83
Dontrelle Willis: GS 34, W 22, ERA 2.63
Roger Clemens: GS 32, W 13, ERA 1.87

Yeah, I would sure take those 21 and 22 game winners over the guy who won 13, started just as many games and had an ERA almost a full fun below them. I actually remember this year very well because I was in school at Petaluma, CA and I remember there was a long period where Clemens just couldnt win a game because either A) his team didnt score enough runs or B) his bullpen blew the lead. Again, this is why wins are dumb. The same thing was true with the 2004 Cy Young voting where Johan Santana got robbed by Bartolo Colon and he even finished behind Mariano Rivera, who had a great year but pitched about 150 less innings. Speaking of which, they really need to make a seperate cy young for relief pitchers, and not that rolaids award. No one pays attention to that.

The other variables should be less of a factor in that case. However, when comparing two pitchers with a similar number of wins, those other factors (team defense, scoring, ballpark, etc.) become much more important.

What the fuck, Dude! "Yes, wins are important and tell you something. No, you have to take other factors into account." Which is it? That was some insane flip flopping there.

The problem with this post, is that taking a pro-Wins stance leads some to believe that we are anti-other stats. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Stats like ERA+, FIP and tRA are still better measures of how good a pitcher is (although we have minor quibbles with each). However, that does not mean Wins is a useless category. Nor does it mean there are 95 better ways to evaluate a pitcher.

Yes, it does mean there are 95 better ways to evaluate a pitcher. Well, maybe not 95, but at least 20.

In fact, in the absence of other stats, Wins is a very good, if not great, indicator of a pitcher’s value.

So.....if the other stats dont exist, wins are a good measure? Did I read that right? I'm pretty sure he just said that the only way wins are a good indicator are if the other stats didnt exist. Did everyone else read that the same way?

So next time you hear somebody say Wins is a crappy way to evaluate a pitcher, throw a drink in their face and then make them read this post.

Yeah, I'll direct them to this post where the author doesnt really convince me that wins are a good indicator. If I said wins are a crappy way to evaluate a pitcher and someone threw a drink at my face, I'm pretty sure I would be knuckling up with said person.

I dont get it. This guys seems to be a stat guy. He throws out ERA+, FIPS, he even has a chart with all his information. I just dont understand why he felt the need to try and defend pitchers wins.

You know whats really funny about all this. That THIS VERY YEAR the best pitcher in the league doesnt have the most wins. Actually the second best pitcher doesnt have the most wins, either. I think you all know I am talking about Greinke and Hernandez. So, I guess these might be the exceptions he is talking about. Whatever, this article is dumb.