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Performance Of The Week | 8/9/10-8/15/10
By Paul Casey Gotham
It is that time again. Let’s hear from you readers. We had another week of stellar performances. Pick the ONE that stands out to you, and tell us a story.
I am going with the New York Mets pitching staff. Met arms tossed three shutouts in the past week and going back a little further the hurlers of Flusihng had four shuouts in six games. Johan Santana tossed a complete-game in a 4-0 win over Colorado, Thursday. R.A. Dicket followed suit the following night blanking the Phils 1-0. Mike Pelphrey, Hisanori Takahashi and the tempest, Francisco Rodriguez, combined for a 1-0 triumph over the Rockies on Tuesday.
Who gets your POTW?
22 Responses to “Performance Of The Week | 8/9/10-8/15/10”
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I vote for Adam Wainwright who, at 17-6 with a 1.99 ERA, has quietly become the leading candidate for the NL Cy Young…now that Ubaldo Jimenez has come down to earth. Wainwright only pitched once this past week, but he shut down the Reds the day after the brawl (7 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 0 ER, 4 SO) to put the Cardinals in first place…although they’ve since slipped out of that spot.
Sadly, though the Mets have the most shutouts in MLB, with like 18, they are still a healthy 10 games or so out of first. Santana and Dickey both pitched great games. But I’ll give it to the Little League playoffs – not for any game in particular, but just because it’s so much fun to watch (well, aside from one or two baseball player announcers who, uh, should stay away from microphones).
And since last time I gave a trivia answer too quickly, I’ll let you stew on this gem from the Mets game the other night – Of the top 100 strikeout leaders in MLB, which 7 are still active? Hopefully I still have the list here somewhere.
My POTW goes to Pete Dye and the staff at Whistling Straits for making this past week’s PGA championship a tournament to remember. The course was laid out in quite a challenging manner and rewarded great shot-making. I could see myself playing every whole down in one of those bunkers or in the weeds next to Lake Michigan. As tough as it was, the guys who stayed near the fairway most of the time were rewarded with subpar scores and the leaders were still able to be double digits below par. All in all, a great event and special congrats to Kaymer, Watson and Johnson for the tight finish. Ya know, Bubba Watson hardly looks like a “Bubba”, but he sure can turn on that ball like Bubba. Skinny guys hitting the ball 360-380 is just not right.
Now on to Bill’s trivia question … off the top of my head: Pettite, Halladay, Moyer, Santana, Wakefield. How am i doing?
Well, Wally, I won’t say either way to give others a chance, but I will say you got at least one right.
I am going to second Wally’s nomination of Pete Dye and all of the grounds people at Whistling Straits. There are very few times where I describe a golf course as “visually stunning”. Every shot of a golfer lining up for a shot or a view of a particular hole could have been used as a postcard or could have very easily been the wallpaper on my computer.
But I am going with Jon Lester, who last week was 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA. Lester won both games and manage to average 7 innings per start. Not bad when I believe they were against the Yankees and Rangers. Lester had 11 Ks in those 14 innings with a .84 WHIP. In a season where injuries have just obliterated the Sox – Lester has been one of the constants.
C’mon Chas. Where the heck are you?
Add Oswalt and Livan Hernandez to Wally’s list.
Pettitte, Santana, Sabathia, Moyer, Wakefield, Halladay, Livan Hernandez.
Those are my guesses. The only one that wasn’t already fed to me by Wally and Casey is Sabathia. This is a tough one. I probably wouldn’t have come up with Livan if it wasn’t for Casey’s guess.
I just looked up the answers and we missed two guys completely. I think they’re going to be surprises.
Sabathia is 102nd. Chan Ho Park is 112th.
okay, the answers are: Moyer, Petitte, Millwood, Hernandez, Vasquez, Wakefield, and Santana.
Good question (the Mets broadcast always seems to have good ones), and equally good guesses/answers.
Vasquez? No way was I getting that one. We should have figured out Millwood.
I wouldn’t have thought of Wakefield, but thinking about it, it makes sense.
Where does Halladay rank? He’s got to be close, i’m surprised.
Vasquez?!?! Seriously?!?! He’s the new poster boy for the argument that strikeouts are over-rated.
Halladay is 118th.
Vazquez is 34 years old and he’s always been an innings eater. He’s 5th among active pitchers in innings pitched (12 consecutive seasons of 150 IP or more), so that’s why he’s on this list, not because strikeouts are over-rated.
I’m even surprised Vasquez is that high on the IP list, too. I used to call him “5 inning Vasquez” when he was with the WhiteSox. Seemed to always completely fall apart in the 5th or 6th after looking really good in the first 4 innings.
Still … Strikeouts are indeed over-rated.
No, they’re not.
Strikeouts are overrated!!
Well, I’m sure both of you will agree that there are situations where a strikeout is preferable to an out that can advance runners, get a runner home from third, etc. But, I’m positive we all agree on that, we’ll assume that we’re just talking about the bigger picture.
There are two ways of looking at whether or not strikeouts are over-rated. I’ll agree that an out is an out, and a pitcher’s performance should be evaluated on his ability to get outs. However, when evaluating a pitcher’s potential to repeat prior performance, luck needs to be accounted for.
Can we agree that a pitcher who gives up a screaming line drive that a fielder makes a great play on was a little luck in that instance? Can we also agree that a pitcher who gives up a bloop single was a little unlucky? Lastly, can we agree that when a pitcher who strikes out batter, there is virtually no luck involved?
That’s all I’m trying to say. Maybe we can agree that strikeouts tend to be a little over-rated by some people in some circumstances, but that having “swing-and-miss stuff” is not over-rated.
Chas –
Valid points for sure, but what we have to keep in mind is that strikeout pitchers tend to a) throw a lot of pitches, thereby limiting potential to go further into ballgames, and b) they tend to walk a lot of guys as well … putting more runners on. Now, I did say “Tend to”. It’s obviously nice to have that ability to throw it by guys and/or have the great curveball that makes hitter’s knees buckle, and admittedly some situations in a ball game demand a strikeout. But they also demand a pop-up or grounder back to the mound.
Nolan Ryan is comfortably in first place on the all-time K list, and probably the leader in K’s per 9 innings (not sure), but he’s also the poster child for my argument. All those K’s … but how many Cy Young awards? How many 20 win seasons in that long career? Where does his career ERA stack up vs the other greats? As a counter-measure, I’ll give you Greg Maddux or Whitey Ford … guys who really got it done with much less dependence on the K.
If Nolan Ryan is the poster boy for your argument (and I agree that he’s a Hall of Famer, but not one of the absolute best of all-time), then Randy Johnson (first all-time in SO/9 IP) is the poster boy for mine.
Actually, I have a better poster boy for you: Oliver Perez.
But, there of course, are exceptions to every rule. And don’t go bringing the walks argument into this, because I didn’t say “at the expense of all else, strikeouts are king.” In fact, I would argue that SO/9 IP, BB/9 IP and HR/9 IP are the three most important statistics in evaluating future potential performance.
So, I’ll paraphrase myself…strikeouts are a bit over-rated by some people in some circumstances, but the ability to strike people out is not over-rated.
HELMET STICKER for this discussion. Please continue.
Nah … I’m tuckered out from this one. And now I’m distracted with glee since finding out that Brett Favre is playing … whooopeeee!
Puh-lease !!!