Steinbrenner's dead. I don't think the kids are going to throw money around like the old man used to.

The Bestest: and he didn't exactly have a stellar year.

He had the second best season of his career. Maybe the third best. Either way, he was pretty damn good.

Why would they let Wilson go and then sign CC? Does anyone think C.J. Wilson is going to cost more than CC Sabathia? Or does Wilson just want out of Texas?

The Bestest: I've mentioned before that I don't like WAR. Maybe the numbers counter my argument, but I know what I see, and what I saw out of CC this year, while not -bad- (unless you count the vs Red Sox starts, in which he WAS bad), certainly wasn't what I've seen out of him before, and he definitely wasn't the best pitcher in the league to my eye.

Well, I guess that settles it.

Consider for a moment how bad professional scouts are at assessing future talent. Think about how many pitchers get drafted for every one that makes it to the majors, and how many top-flight prospects never pan out. These professionals eyeball pitchers ~300 days a year, and they often can't tell the difference between great and good.

..and higher WAR than Verlander? Or even Weaver? How is that possible?

Fangraphs pitching WAR tries to separate out factors beyond the pitcher's control, such as pitching, defense, and park factors. For purposes of figuring out how much a guy is worth paying for, you want to have an idea how much skill the guy brings to the table, and not all these other factors.

If you compare CC to Verlander, it's close, but consider:
1) Yankee Stadium is a lot more offense-friendly than Tiger Stadium. Verlander would have given up more runs in that park.

2) Detroit had a slightly superior team defense to the Yankees, if you look at the percentage of batted balls turned into outs (70.8% vs. 70.3%). They also allowed only 55 batters to reach on error, vs. 67 for the Yankees. (These don't show up in ERA, but they make the pitcher face extra batters, and force him to pitch from the stretch, with the infield in, etc. All pitchers perform worse with runners on.) Verlander's teammates likely saved him a handful of baserunners.

3) Detroit's catchers controlled the running game slightly better. Batters tried to steal more often against the Yankees, and succeeded at a slightly higher rate.

4) The numbers suggest CC was unlucky-- batted balls turned into hits significantly more often than they should based on his career trends and his GB%/FB%/LD%. Verlander had a freakishly good year in terms of turning batted balls into outs, compared to other years where he pitched well. Historically, pitchers have only a limited ability to control this, which is what I mean by lucky/unlucky.

5) CC left 18 runners on base for the Yankees' bullpen, and they allowed 5 to score. Verlander left 11 for the Tigers' bullpen, and they allowed 0 to score. Those runs get charged to the starters, but they're only partially responsible for them.

If you were Texas and thinking of signing CC, you'd want to know that he put up the numbers he did while pitching in a difficult park, with an inferior defense, not getting as much bullpen help, and having some bad luck.

That's the kind of stuff that FIP/WAR tries to capture, and why you can't just look at ERA. For what it's worth, FIP/WAR point to CC being only a hair better than Verlander in 2011.

Brad_Will: ManateeGag: Steinbrenner's dead. I don't think the kids are going to throw money around like the old man used to.

The kids (though mostly Hank) are responsible for the A-Rod contract.

learn something new...

Please tell me one of the other kids is named Dean.

The Bestest: He's already the 3rd highest paid player in baseball and the highest paid pitcher, and he didn't exactly have a stellar year.

The sentence above is completely ridiculous, by the way.

Something else about Sabathia vs. Verlander:

Sabathia's in-division games are vs. Boston (5 GS, scores 5.40 R/G), Toronto (4 GS, 4.59), Baltimore (2 GS, 4.37), and Tampa (4 GS, 4.36).

Verlander's in-division games are vs. Kansas City (3 GS, 4.51 R/G), Cleveland (3 GS, 4.35 R/G), Chicago (6 GS, 4.04 R/G), and Minnesota (3 GS, 3.82 R/G).

Each got 15 in-division starts, but Sabathia had to pitch against better offenses.

ryarger: DeWayne Mann: But the thing is: that's not his fault. Pitchers have almost NO CONTROL over their BABIP.

Not only is there no proof of this, it's an outstandingly stupid assertion that somehow has gained a ton of traction in the baseball community.

Scratch the surface even the tiniest bit on the articles defending this and you'll see more hand waving than a Broadway musical and more argument by assertion than a Baptist sermon.

Huh?

People agree that you can control your BABIP a little by keeping the ball on the ground, but for the most part, you can predict a pitcher's career BABIP pretty well by knowing little more than the GB%.

Tim Lincecum? Career BABIP of .293.
A.J. Burnett? Career BABIP of .290, including .294 this year.
Cliff Lee? Career BABIP of .295, .291 this year.
Fausto Carmona? Career BABIP of .295, including .291 this year.
Roy Halladay? Career BABIP of .292.

That doesn't strike you as a tiny bit odd?

Zombie Hitler: Honestly, the hell with him.

Why? If I were him, I'd opt out, call Cashman and say "You want AJ Burnett to be the Opening Day starter? No? Then pay me a whole lot of money"

Lifeless: chimp_ninja: 2) Detroit had a slightly superior team defense to the Yankees, if you look at the percentage of batted balls turned into outs (70.8% vs. 70.3%). They also allowed only 55 batters to reach on error, vs. 67 for the Yankees. (These don't show up in ERA, but they make the pitcher face extra batters, and force him to pitch from the stretch, with the infield in, etc. All pitchers perform worse with runners on.) Verlander's teammates likely saved him a handful of baserunners.

It's also worth noting that the Yankees have a shortstop with notoriously low range; this would also be reflected in their pitchers' BABIP.

True. I like Defensive Efficiency, though, because it avoids trying to weigh a bunch of different players and gets to results-- if a ball is hit, does it end up as an out? Otherwise, you have to figure out how much Jeter/Nunez hurts vs. how much Gardner saves.

Range also gets funny because managers adjust to it. If you look at the charts for the Yankees, you might conclude that Granderson is terrible at making plays in LCF. But what's really going on is that Gardner has ridiculous range, so Granderson is usually deployed a couple steps towards RF to cover a little bit for Swisher. Swisher is above-average for a RF, too, so Granderson gets squeezed a little from both sides in terms of chances per 9.

ryarger: It's statements that anything except walks and home runs are "mostly pure luck" and that pitchers have "very little control" over other types of outs that are grating and unsubstantiated.

You keep saying this, but don't bother to back it up.

ryarger: If GB% strongly correlates to BABIP, then keeping the ball on the ground controls your BABIP more than "a little".

No, it weakly correlates. High groundball pitchers can sustain BABIPs around .285, some others drift towards .300. This probably moves your ERA a couple tenths of a point. It's smaller than park effects, for example.

Feel free to browse the five cases above-- Fausto and AJ suck these days, but they continue to "control" BABIP about as well as Lee/Linecum/Halladay. And CC (.291 career BABIP.)

Verlander's flukish 2011 brought his career BABIP all the way down to .285. History tells us he'll probably regress towards the mean next year.

lilbjorn: One weight-related leg or hip injury and he will be that guy.

Has anyone done a study on the durability of fat vs. medium vs. skinny pitchers? It seems like people always say that Sabathia is an injury risk because his weight puts too much strain on his legs, but Lincecum is an injury risk because his arm is too fragile to absorb the shock of pitching for years.

If I see three pitchers, all the same height/weight/age/ability, but one weighs 180, one weighs 220, and one weighs 260, who do I draft first?

I mean, both Maddux and Clemens lasted ~5,000 innings, and their body types (and, uh, chemistries) were very different.

chimp_ninja: If I see three pitchers, all the same height/weight/age/ability, but one weighs 180, one weighs 220, and one weighs 260, who do I draft first?

Use the same metric we use to judge all guys: how hot is the person he's nailing?