John Means - Playoff Starter

[zweem]

12 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

GRod isn’t even remotely a “thrower”. He may have been that in the first part of his season but he is far from that now.

I already said he wasn't a thrower but there is a significant difference in command  between the 2 . If a pitcher leaves his stuff in the middle of the plate, MLB hitters do harm-- at least that is what that hack (palmer) says and he may even know what he's talking about.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

I'd say below average K/9. Granted it would be extremely unusual for Means to sustain his ERA with current 3.1 K/9. We will probably see both normalize. From what I saw last night though I would love for him to bring that kind of command to a playoff start and see what happens.

Sure..the bar isn’t high for the Os right now.

At this moment, Means should get a start over any starter that isn’t GRod or Bradish…of course matchups can be part of that too.

Kremer has good numbers vs Houston, so maybe he goes ahead of Means but Means is the better pitcher.

It’s one start..anything can happen in one start. It’s why mentioning how he does in one start is completely irrelevant and a poor example of things.

However, you hope that Means keeps building and you hope that he keeps getting better and last night was obviously better.

And btw, with regards to below average K/9, it depends on way more factors and just how below average the K/9 is.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, zweem said:

I already said he wasn't a thrower but there is a significant difference in command  between the 2 . If a pitcher leaves his stuff in the middle of the plate, MLB hitters do harm-- at least that is what that hack (palmer) says and he may even know what he's talking about.

There isn’t a significant difference in command. That’s just silly.

And yes, I’m glad you need to be told by someone that leaving pitches in the middle of the plate is a bad thing.  

 

Edited September 24, 2023 by Sports Guy

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

There isn’t a significant difference in command. That’s just silly.

And yes, I’m glad you need to be told by someone that leaving pitches in the middle of the plate is a bad thing.  

 

I liked that (hack) comment, as if anyone is suggesting Palmer is a hack.

[dystopia]

35 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

No, that’s not a problem for me. That’s 100% a problem for you because you are taking an extreme outlier and trying to make it mean something when, in fact, it means nothing. Anything that is an extreme is an example to throw out.

Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s probable, will be repeated or anything like that.

No, the issue here is that you seem to think a pitcher has no control over a ball put in play. Maddux refutes that argument. Doesn’t matter if he, as a player, was an outlier. If it was only a season or two then yeah, you can say it was an outlier, but it wasn’t. He did it for well over a decade. And you conveniently ignored the other examples I gave. There are more I could find too. Maddux was just the first one I thought of. 

[ChosenOne21]

44 minutes ago, dystopia said:

The problem for you here is that Maddux exists. Doesn’t matter if he’s an outlier. If you think every ball in play is either a hit or an out by random chance, then a career like Maddux isn’t possible. 
 

And he’s far from the only good pitcher with a lower (or at least average) K rate. 
 

Jimmy Key had a 5.3 K/9 lifetime and wasn’t far off from the HoF. 
 

Hell, Jim Palmer had a lifetime K/9 of 5.0. 

Jimmy Key wasn't that far off from the HoF? He was worth 48.9 WAR for his career, had a career ERA of 3.51 and an ERA+ of 122. He had 186 career wins and 1538 career strikeouts.

What says close to HoF to you? He needed about four more excellent seasons to hit what most people consider the HoF benchmarks. Great pitcher, but come on.

[dystopia]

40 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Do you just compare Ty Cobb's HR total with Ronald Acuna?

Context matters.  The K rate when Palmer pitched was hugely different than the rate in 2023.

Why should that matter for this argument? There’s still 9 men on the baseball diamond. If balls in play only become hits by random chance, then what era the game is played in shouldn’t matter. Math is math, right?

[dystopia]

1 minute ago, ChosenOne21 said:

Jimmy Key wasn't that far off from the HoF? He was worth 48.9 WAR for his career, had a career ERA of 3.51 and an ERA+ of 122. He had 186 career wins and 1538 career strikeouts.

What says close to HoF to you? He needed about four more excellent seasons to hit what most people consider the HoF benchmarks. Great pitcher, but come on.

Right, which is why I said he “wasn’t far off”. I didn’t say he should be in. But that debate isn’t what this discussion is about. 

[ChosenOne21]

1 minute ago, dystopia said:

Why should that matter for this argument? There’s still 9 men on the baseball diamond. If balls in play only become hits by random chance, then what era the game is played in shouldn’t matter. Math is math, right?

There's always a random element to whether or not a ball becomes a hit, but the probabilities change over time as the game evolves. Look at the old-timey baseball gloves with no pocket. Look at what the shift did.

[ChosenOne21]

Just now, dystopia said:

Right, which is why I said he “wasn’t far off”. I didn’t say he should be in. But that debate isn’t what this discussion is about. 

I guess we just have different definitions of close

[dystopia]

Just now, ChosenOne21 said:

There's always a random element to whether or not a ball becomes a hit, but the probabilities change over time as the game evolves. Look at the old-timey baseball gloves with no pocket. Look at what the shift did.

So you agree that obsessing over K rate is rather silly. 

[ChosenOne21]

Just now, dystopia said:

So you agree that obsessing over K rate is rather silly. 

Not sure what you mean by "obsessing" but the fewer chances you have to take on balls in play, the better. It's incredibly important, but it isn't everything.

[Sports Guy]

32 minutes ago, dystopia said:

No, the issue here is that you seem to think a pitcher has no control over a ball put in play. Maddux refutes that argument. Doesn’t matter if he, as a player, was an outlier. If it was only a season or two then yeah, you can say it was an outlier, but it wasn’t. He did it for well over a decade. And you conveniently ignored the other examples I gave. There are more I could find too. Maddux was just the first one I thought of. 

And there are many more pitch to contact guys that completely failed or had mediocre at best careers.

And I never said anything about whether or not a pitcher has control of a ball put in play however, the 3 things pitchers can control the most are Ks, BBs and HRs.

And btw, research has shown that pitchers can’t control the vary thing you are talking about.(or at least they can’t control it all that much and it’s not much of a repeatable skill)

https://diamond-mind.com/blogs/baseball-articles/77333188-can-pitchers-prevent-hits-on-balls-in-play

Edited September 24, 2023 by Sports Guy

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

And there are many more pitch to contact guys that completely failed or had mediocre at best careers.

And I never said anything about whether or not a pitcher has control of a ball put in play however, the 3 things pitchers can control the most are Ks, BBs and HRs.

And btw, research has shown that pitchers can’t control the vary thing you are talking about.

https://diamond-mind.com/blogs/baseball-articles/77333188-can-pitchers-prevent-hits-on-balls-in-play

Crap.

OK replace all references to Mike Fast (pitch framing guru) with Voros McCracken (FIP) in my earlier posts.

Sorry got my names confused.

[Sports Guy]

Another article…big conclusion in this is that the hitter has more influence on the ball in play than the pitcher does.

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/15532/spinning-yarn-who-controls-how-hard-the-ball-is-hit/