Morris & Trammell Elected to HOF

[packs]

Originally Posted by Gnep31

Yes...absolutely!

The guy who only won 11 games shouldn't have given up the runs in the situations he did or else he probably would have more wins.

Stats cannot paint an accurate or true picture on how runs were given up. The person with the higher ERA might have given up runs late in games that were already decided. He might have gotten roughed up on a day or two his arm was on fire. ERA doesn't factor in the guy who eats up innings, but gives his team a chance to win every time he takes the ball.

As a coach I take winners over stats guys all day every day. I've had players and teammates who rack up stats but choke in big situations or big games and cost us wins. They can't make the game winning shot or get the big out when it really matters the most. Players and coaches want to be around winners not stats guys.

That makes very little practical sense. Everyone knows you have to score more runs than the other team to win a game. A pitcher who is going to give up less runs, i.e. has a low ERA, is going to put his team in a better situation to win. A guy with a higher ERA means his team has to score more runs to win the games he pitches.

[Topnotchsy]

Originally Posted by packs

That makes very little practical sense. Everyone knows you have to score more runs than the other team to win a game. A pitcher who is going to give up less runs, i.e. has a low ERA, is going to put his team in a better situation to win. A guy with a higher ERA means his team has to score more runs to win the games he pitches.

ERA tells the number of runs but not when they were given up. Not every run affects the outcome of the game the same. If we accept the idea that some people fold under pressure and others rise to the occasion, 2 people won’t the same ERA may be diifferent in how likely their team is to win.

A stat calculating win probability and the pitchers impact on it each time they give up a run could he’d light. I assume this exists somewhere...

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by Topnotchsy

ERA tells the number of runs but not when they were given up. Not every run affects the outcome of the game the same. If we accept the idea that some people fold under pressure and others rise to the occasion, 2 people won’t the same ERA may be diifferent in how likely their team is to win.

A stat calculating win probability and the pitchers impact on it each time they give up a run could he’d light. I assume this exists somewhere...

Yeah. There's a stat for that.

Win Probability Added (WPA) captures the change in Win Expectancy from one plate appearance to the next and credits or debits the player based on how much their action increased their team’s odds of winning. Most sabermetric statistics are context neutral — they do not consider the situation of a particular event or how some plays are more crucial to a win than others. While wOBA rates all home runs as equal, we know intuitively that a home run in the third inning of a blowout is less important to that win than a home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of a close game. WPA captures this difference.

[btcarfagno]

Not surprisingly, Jack Morris' WPA isn't anything special, much like the rest of his body of work. Thus disproving the notion that "he only gave up runs late in games that were blowouts" or "he gave up most of his runs in games where his team scored a lot of runs anyway".

Nope.

WPA values for the players from my list whom I said were better pitchers than Jack Morris:

Mike Mussina 37.67
Kevin Brown 31.63
Bret Saberhagen 25.62
Kevin Appier 23.13
David Cone 23.03
Jimmy Key 22.34
David Wells 20.60
Dwight Gooden 20.19
Dave Stieb 20.11
Frank Viola 17.16
Steve Finley 16.84
Rick Reuschel 15.23
Jack Morris 14.08
Kenny Rogers 11.79
Mark Langston 11.73
Bob Welch 10.31
Frank Tanana 10.07

So Morris is anywhere from somewhat below to way below most of the players on my list when the context of play by play comes into frame.

Still not a Hall Of Famer by any stretch.

[Gnep31]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

WPA values for the players from my list whom I said were better pitchers than Jack Morris:

Mike Mussina 37.67
Kevin Brown 31.63
Bret Saberhagen 25.62
Kevin Appier 23.13
David Cone 23.03
Jimmy Key 22.34
David Wells 20.60
Dwight Gooden 20.19
Dave Stieb 20.11
Frank Viola 17.16
Steve Finley 16.84
Rick Reuschel 15.23
Jack Morris 14.08
Kenny Rogers 11.79
Mark Langston 11.73
Bob Welch 10.31
Frank Tanana 10.07

So Morris is anywhere from somewhat below to way below most of the players on my list when the context of play by play comes into frame.

Still not a Hall Of Famer by any stretch.

We obviously are not going to agree about metrics in regards to Morris being HOF worthy, which is ok. Tell me this...as a hitter, who would you least like to face from your list? Take all numbers out of the equation...as a baseball player who would be the toughest pitcher to face? Give me your top 3.

Mine would be:
Doc Gooden
Frank Tanana (in his prime)
Jack Morris

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by Gnep31

We obviously are not going to agree about metrics in regards to Morris being HOF worthy, which is ok. Tell me this...as a hitter, who would you least like to face from your list? Take all numbers out of the equation...as a baseball player who would be the toughest pitcher to face? Give me your top 3.

Mine would be:
Doc Gooden
Frank Tanana (in his prime)
Jack Morris

At the top of their game?

Gooden
Cone
Saberhagen
Mussina
Brown
Stieb
Key
Morris

Tanana before his arm fell off would have to be in there as well.

Tom C

[darwinbulldog]

Gooden's the only one who was outrageously good for more than a year (and not by much even in his case), so I'd put him first, then Mussina. Everybody else just seems like a regular good pitcher, no one to be particularly anxious about. I'd have Dave Stewart and Dennis Martinez and a dozen other guys like that in the same group, except that a few of them (e.g., Reuschel) sustained that level for long enough that I think they belong in the Hall. Not Jack though. He wasn't the best pitcher of his generation or his time-frame or whatever any more than Dave Stieb was.

[darwinbulldog]

I just found this (text copied below) in an Excel file I created several years ago. I knew I had done something like this at some point but couldn't remember where I'd left it. Anyway, here it is. I'm sure we'll all agree, and there will be no further discussion.


Pitchers better than Jack Morris but not in the Hall
Roger Clemens
Mike Mussina
Jim McCormick
Curt Schilling
Bob Caruthers
Kevin Brown
Charlie Buffinton
Tommy Bond
Rick Reuschel
Roy Halladay
Urban Shocker
Noodles Hahn
Tony Mullane
Luis Tiant
Dave Stieb
Ron Guidry
Frank Tanana
Mel Stottlemyre
Steve Rogers
Tommy John
Larry Jackson
Jerry Koosman
Johan Santana
Bobby Mathews

[h2oya311]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

Not surprisingly, Jack Morris' WPA isn't anything special, much like the rest of his body of work. Thus disproving the notion that "he only gave up runs late in games that were blowouts" or "he gave up most of his runs in games where his team scored a lot of runs anyway".

Nope.

WPA values for the players from my list whom I said were better pitchers than Jack Morris:

Mike Mussina 37.67
Kevin Brown 31.63
Bret Saberhagen 25.62
Kevin Appier 23.13
David Cone 23.03
Jimmy Key 22.34
David Wells 20.60
Dwight Gooden 20.19
Dave Stieb 20.11
Frank Viola 17.16
Steve Finley 16.84
Rick Reuschel 15.23
Jack Morris 14.08
Kenny Rogers 11.79
Mark Langston 11.73
Bob Welch 10.31
Frank Tanana 10.07

So Morris is anywhere from somewhat below to way below most of the players on my list when the context of play by play comes into frame.

Still not a Hall Of Famer by any stretch.

I hope you meant Chuck Finley and not Steve Finley in this analysis...although Steve did pitch one inning in his career, and it happened to be for the World Series champion Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001. Perhaps that warrants a 16.84 WPA??

[Gnep31]

Originally Posted by packs

That makes very little practical sense. Everyone knows you have to score more runs than the other team to win a game. A pitcher who is going to give up less runs, i.e. has a low ERA, is going to put his team in a better situation to win. A guy with a higher ERA means his team has to score more runs to win the games he pitches.

Stats in baseball are only indicators of expected outcomes. Too many other variables go into wins and losses.

[packs]

Originally Posted by Gnep31

Stats in baseball are only indicators of expected outcomes. Too many other variables go into wins and losses.

ERA is independent of a win or a loss. It looks like Baseball Reference has a stat called Win / Loss percentage with an Average Team too. Jack Morris' percentage for his career was 517, which meant he had just over a 50/50 chance of winning any game for any team over his entire career. That doesn't seem great. For comparison, Mike Mussina has a 590. Dave Stieb's percentage is 570.