but if maddux isn't as effective in his 33+ starts as pedro is in his fewer than 33 then where's the value there??

martinez behind maddux?? :lol:

Who's saying you look at only the wins? I'm saying that it's entirely reasonable to keep the prime separate for purposes of comparison when you have careers of varying lengths, but you can also evaluate the additional years. If players A plays five more years than player B but performs horribly in those years, then obviously that's not helping player A's case even if those years did increase his counting stats.

Maddux was obviously more of a workhorse, and there's definitely value to that. Red Sox managers were always conservative with Pedro, giving him extra days off, skipping starts, etc.

It's pretty simple to me, overall. Maddux has far superior longevity and durability, and accomplished more in his career.

In their primes, Pedro was far better. And that's not taking any arbitrary number of "prime" years, in any reasonable breakdown, Pedro comes out ahead. The difference is especially evident when considering Pedro did it against the AL.

There is a lot of value in knowing your guy is ready to go every fifth day instead of having to replace him with what would be your sixth best starter. Theoretically 240 innings with a 140 ERA+ are arguably as valuable as 190 innings with a 150 ERA+ because those missing innings probably won't be filled in by a Hall of Famer.

Similar peaks (Even over best couple of years, Pedro shades it if you pick their best four to seven years, back to even again for best 10 years) and Maddux crushes him in the counting stats, has more Cy Youngs, 12 years in the top ten in ERA+ compared to 8, ahead of Pedro in all four HOF chance stats on baseball-reference.com, it's far from a :lol:-worthy thing to say.

And I'm not trying to diss Pedro, obviously he was a brilliant player and I think he was the second best starting pitcher of this generation ahead of Johnson and Clemens. Braves fans and Red Sox fans are probably not going to convince the other side they are right on this one.


The most favorable comparison I could find for Pedro was over their best seven seasons.

Martinez 97-03: 118-36, 2.20 ERA, 34 CG, 11 SHO, 1408 IP, 1761 K, 315 BB, 212 ERA+
Maddux 92-98: 127-53, 2.15 ERA, 56 CG, 19 SHO, 1675.1 IP, 1286 K, 269 BB, 191 ERA+

Both were amazing over that span, Pedro was slightly better over each's best seven years, to say far better is a big exaggeration imo.

Ugh, I hate my Fox affiliate, the baseball telecasts are always choppy, it's like a PC game with the graphics settings turned up too high for my PC or something. Does this happen to anyone else?

Marlins celebrate park's groundbreaking | MLB.com: News

So now that we have had a Martinez-Maddux discussion and then some, let's switch gears:

Dwight Evans or Dale Murphy?

That was fun to follow the Maddux / Martinez discussion. They were both great and I wouldn't sneeze at having either one on my team, and they both belong in the Hall of Fame.

Maddux had a better career, Pedro was a better pitcher.

I didn't chime in to any of the Martinez-Maddux debate because I honestly don't care what the stats say. Maddux was my all time favorite pitcher to watch pitch ever. Just watching him pitch was like watching an artist work. He wasn't blowing stuff by with an unreal arm. He just looked like he understood the game better then anyone else. Maddux worked extremely hard to modify his pitching motion to put himself into a position to field as well as he could. (I don't think he was really the best fielding pitcher all 18 of those years he won a gold glove, that is crazy, but just listening to his thoughts on how he modified his delivery to put himself into a fielding position was really great). He worked hard on hitting practice because he didn't want to be too much of a liability in the lineup in order to try everything he could to win, and he studied every hitter constantly, trying to find each hitter's weakness in a way that I have only seen one other pitcher ever do (Schilling).

Maddux was just amazing, and I don't care if he didn't have as many wins as Cy Young, or as low a single season ERA as Bob Gibson, or as many strikeouts as Nolan Ryan.. if I had one pitcher to get at the start of his career, I would pick Maddux and not think twice about it. The value he added in working with Smoltz, Glavine, Avery, Pete Smith, etc when they were young has been well discussed many times by those pitchers, and while Avery and Pete Smith (or Mercker) wern't anything great, Maddux seemed to help lift up the entire pitching staff, not just himself.


As for Murphy vs Evans.. Well Murphy is my favorite player of all time, I grew up as a kid watching him.. so I am biased there too. In the mid 80s, there wasn't a hitter better than Murphy.. until opposing pitchers figured out that Murphy had a huge mental block where he just absolutely could not lay off a low-outside ball.

Arguing Pedro Martinez versus Greg Maddux is like arguing whether you'd bang (insert hot chick #1) versus (insert hot chick #2).

+1

And he did it all while being the guy who would do this
Another Maddux story, this from Pete Van Wieren: “In Montreal they used to have a big bowl of jellybeans in the clubhouse, and Gerald Williams would come in every day and pick out the red ones. One day got to the ballpark two hours early and dumped the whole bowl and took out all the red ones. Took him a couple of hours, but he just wanted to sit in the corner and snicker when Gerald came in and started looking for the red jellybeans.”

And this
Lemke: “When we trained in West Palm, I’d take a look in Maddux’s car the last week and the thing would be a disaster. He’d hit Burger King every morning and he’d just turn around and — whoosh — toss [the cups and wrappers] into the back seat.”

And this
Bobby Cox tells this Doggie tale:

Andy Benes was pitching for Arizona and plunked a Braves’ hitter. Cox told his men after the game, “Next time we play them, Benes better go down!” Well, the Braves didn’t play Arizona again that season or in the first weeks of the next. And one day Maddux walks into Cox’s office and said, “Still stand?”

Said Cox: “What are you talking about?”

Said Maddux: “That thing with Benes. Still stand?”

Said Cox, who’d forgotten such a edict was ever levied: “Damn right!”

First at-bat that night, Andy Benes ate dirt.

Down 2-1, bases f'n loaded in the 8th, Braves load the bases and what do we get for a pinch hitter? Greg F'n Norton, Mister Hitting .116 for the year.
The outcome? Naturally, a strikeout after getting ahead 3-1 in the count.

The fucked up part about that, Norton still being on the roster notwithstanding, is that the nose picking senile SOB that sent him up there also inserted backup catcher David Ross as a pinch runner for a hobbled Kotcher in the same sequence (McCann had been pinch-run for earlier in the inning so Ross had to come in one way or another). The problem is that Ross has the second best OPS on the team.

I didn't know K-Rod was such a one-inning only guy before the announcer read off that stat, beforehand I was surprised the Mets didn't bring him in with the bases loaded there.

And yeah Norton sucks.

That's so inadequate.

He may actually be the least valuable player on a major league roster today, with Jody Gerut maybe giving him a run for the title.

Norton is one of those players that you can't really describe as "least valuable" Saying those words indicate that he has any value whatsoever. Norton actually probably is worth less than an empty spot on the roster and does nothing but detract from the team.

Instead of calling him least valuable, he should be called most detrimental instead.

Hi, let me introduce you to Rich Aurillia and/or Bengie Molina.

I don't think I'd trade the Pirates offense for the Giants one, straight up.

The Giants have the arms to win this thing, but they need to get a bat or three, like yesterday.

Can I throw Eric Bruntlett into the "most detrimental" conversation? And if not, can I just throw him from a moving train?

Adam LaRoche-Trade killer-

It's been obvious that he'd be gone by the trade deadline for quite some time now. Doesn't really fit into the future of the team, and I think they have players that will come close to his production for almost no money.

This month-

4-43, 1 HR, 2 R, 2bb

Unfortunately a .093/.133/.163 line is not going to get you out of town. If this team had any kind of fanbase, he should have been murdered by now.

My favorite game I've ever been to is still the Maddux/Wells matchup after Maddux's first trade to LA. I've been to a number of games where I could look you in the eye and say that if I had it to do over again, damn straight I'd go, but that's the only one I can think of where the word "privilege" would come into play.

But the original post you made only cited OPS+, so I'd say you were the one cherry picking, ignoring stats that make Maddux look better.

And I picked a stopping point at 2002, where Maddux still has alot of wins (273) and one of the highest ERA+'s in history (146). So we don't need to use those other wins. Let's just use those 273. Are you saying under that criteria you wouldn't consider Maddux one of the top 5 in history?


Except going by years isn't really fair to Maddux. I mean, Pedro started 300 less games than Maddux did, so they're hardly comparable. Pedro lost 7 points of ERA+ by pitching last year alone. Let's imagine he somehow gets to pitch 300 more games. What do you think his ERA+ will be?

Cy Young is the only guy that has a higher ERA+ and started more games than Maddux. As for the rest, only Clemens and Walter Johnson are even close to Maddux.

So let's pretend there are two pitchers named Pedro Martinez.

Pedro 1 has Pedro's stats through 2007 and has an ERA+ of 161
Pedro 2 has Pedro's stats through 2008 and has an ERA+ of 154

Who's better? Pedro 1 or Pedro 2?


Or let's pretend there are two pitchers named Greg Maddux

Maddux 1 has Maddux's stats through 2002 and has an ERA+ of 146
Maddux 2 has Maddux's stats through 2008 and has an ERA+ of 132

Who's better? Maddux 1 or Maddux 2?

eh - i recognized the cherry-picking aspect of my original post and corrected it in subsequent posts, including the longest and most in-depth one on the subject so far, so how bout you look at that one instead of picking out the first one? :p

I did address it by explaining how the way you used years instead of games made it misleading. But I'd sure like to get a response on the other points I made that you decided to ignore.

I'm not going to get in the middle of the "where does Maddux rank all-time" debate right now, but I do think it should be pointed out that Maddux had better stuff than a lot of people give him credit for. No, his fastball probably never cracked 95MPH, and for much of his career sat at 88-92. But what many forget is that Maddux got a tremendous amount of movement on that pitch, bending towards RHB and with good sink.

It's really a shame that the PitchF/X system wasn't in place during Maddux's prime - I'd wager Maddux's fastball had as much movement as any pitcher out there, and when you combined that with his tremendous control, well, it's no surprise the results he got.

Brew Crew pick up Felipe Lopez from the D-Backs

Nice pickup for the Crew, picking up a second baseman and leadoff hitter to set the table for Braun and Fielder. Also puts Counsell back into a utility role where he's better suited.

Now, time go to balls to the wall for Roy Halladay.

Marlins get the broom, dropping them seven back of the Fightins.

Yes, but PitchF/X would also confirm for us something else about Maddux's tenure that might downgrade him as well...

Or it might dispel that theory.

Eh, maybe. It would be indeed be interesting to see a study on whether certain pitchers get more outside strikes called than others (and if this work has already been done, please forward a link). And if this is the case, is it the pitcher or the pitch? In other words, do certain pitch types with certain movements lend themselves to a greater degree of strike zone generosity?

Dola - if Maddux (and Glavine too) were indeed beneficiaries of generously wide strike zones, wouldn't that suggest that they would have higher than expected called strike percentages? I think this data exists - might make for a fun project for someone sabermetrically inclined and time to kill to pursue.

My guess is the theory comes from the same flawed thinking as those who always claimed Pokerstars was rigged because they see so many crazy suckouts. But it only seemed that way because os many hands were dealt as compared to a B&M casino.

Similarly, Maddux made his living off the corner of the strike zone. Therefore, he probably got more borderline calls go his way, but that doesn't mean the % of borderline calls that went his way was higher than for any other pitcher.

Alternatively, we could just believe that Maddux was just this ordinary pitcher and one day all the umpires decided to start calling a wider strike zone for him. They all randomly got together one day and decided this, and didn't offer it to any other pitcher, except maybe his buddy Glavine.

Boy, brutal weekend for the Royals. They take leads over the Rays into the late innings in all three games, only to have the bullpen fail all three nights, wasting good starts by Greinke and Hochevar.

larry, no one thinks Maddux was an ordinary pitcher. But to claim that he (and Glavine FWIW) didn't get an expanded strike zone is telling me that my eyes lied to me for years and years, and I'm not going to buy that.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I've noticed with Greinke that he's starting to get some awfully generous strike zones at this point. Noticed the same thing with Holliday. It's something that just happens.

Damn, I missed the Martinez/Maddux debate (don't we have one like once a year here). I think people know my opinion, as a few years back I said Pedro is arguably the greatest pitcher of all time. I still think that's the case, btw. An argument can be made based on his prime. Pedro is the pitcher that people think Koufax was (and I've heard plenty of people call Koufax the greatest, etc).

Also, went to two Braves/Mets games this weekend. Saw them get murdered and then saw them pull out a nice win. Santana is just amazing, and you wish he had a far better bullpen behind him.

You're excited about a guy the Nationals didn't want? :)

Seeing as how the Reds didn't want him either I was surprised that he's been a slightly above average 2b this year. He's not great, but it should be an improvement over Counsell, who at this point is bad.

To be honest, Counsell has actually been an average hitter this year. Unless you were talking about his defense, which I'm not aware about (though Counsell's range factor seems to be pretty good).

Counsell's numbers are .280/.350/.407 and has an OPS+ of 99. Lopez's OPS+ this year is 101. Basically even.

what dumber?

Jack Wilson turning down a 2 year 8m dollar extension, or Jack Wilson being offered it in the first place?

The rejection of it. At least Pittsburgh can try to spin it as, "see, we are trying to keep players" ;)

Counsell plays good defense at 3B/SS/2B. The problem is putting him at 2B everyday limits his value as a utility man. Plus he and Casey McGehee both have questionable knees. Considering not much was given up, it's a decent deal.

I think they tried to do Freddy wrong, the offered him 2/10, and wanted him to refuse his vesting option for next year(8m). I think Freddy was actually worth about 2/14, considering he has 8m guaranteed for next year.

Jack, on the other hand, only has a 600k buyout for next year. There's no way they're taking his 8.4m option. On the open market, I have to think Jack Wilson is a 2m/year player, or even less. If you go comparables with Kennedy/Eckstein, it's even less.

In this economy, nobody is going to be paying glove guys 6-8m/year right now.

Great column by the blog Royals Review about the seeming contradiction between "old-school" baseball types that downplay modern statistical analysis, yet adhere to dogmatic baseball decisions based purely on certain numbers (i.e. the idiocy of the Save statistic and how it causes managers to do stupid things):

http://www.royalsreview.com/2009/7/1...n-emblem-for-a

Royals fans, as a Mariners fan and a survivor of the Bill Bavasi years, you have my sympathies...

Tommy Hanson 9K through 4.

If guys like Kyle Boddy and Chris O'Leary are correct with their theories on pitching mechanics, Hanson is going to have some major shoulder troubles down the road.

LOL @ McLouth. Haven't seen an outfielder look that bad in quite a while.

It'll be a shame if that cost Hanson the win.

Or not. ;)

The Braves offense shows up for Tommy.

Giants bullpen starts its regression to the mean....

Good thing Diaz screwed up the two bunt attempts

Stay classy Brewers

Prince Fielder better go down tomorrow

I guess Karstens did deserve it.

Finally a win against the Brewers.

Garrett Jones hit his 8th solo homer in 15 games.

Phils win 9 in a row, NL East race might be over in August.

Unfortunately, I think this also means the Holladay race is over as well.

Jose Guillen going off again, but it's a bit different than previous episodes.......

Guillen: `I suck’ and am `embarrassed by the money I’m making’ - Kansas City Star

How do all of these sentences make sense together?

Know what though? Kudos to him (and David Ortiz earlier this year) for both being like "yeah I suck right now."

Love this quote: “Sometimes, I feel I should take money out of my own pocket and buy tickets for every fan. Because you know what? For a $12 million man, these are not the numbers you should be expecting. I admit it. I’m not playing to my potential.”

Ugh.

I know it's been discussed here already but Kung Fu Panda really is the best baseball nickname in quite a while.

Walk off Winner for Werth! Phils win 10 in a row. What makes it even better is that he hit it off of Notre Dame grad Jeff Samardzija. Stupid Domer!

+1,000,000!

:D

+10,000,000

Time to bookmark the wild card standings I'm afraid.

Bora$ has got to be one of the most evil men in sports...no?

Rumour has it Strasburg will be not be signing with the Nationals before the deadline next month. What a joke.

hxxp://masnsports.com/2009/07/nats-wont-sign-strasburg.html

Great game tonight. Park has impressed the hell out of me recently. After he looked like he was cooked early in the season he has been doing GREAT out of the pen recently.

that's so frigging obnoxious

dola - doesn't sound like the Nats are actually negotiating in good faith though.



Gomez, citing a source close to the negotiations, said the Nationals have had ongoing dialog with Strasburg's advisor Scott Boras, but they have made no offer other than the mandatory minor league tender that all clubs must make to their picks within 10 days of the draft. That is a standard minor league deal that pays the player $1,000 per month but does not include any bonus money.

IIRC, he was effective in the same role with the Dodgers last year. Putting him as a starter is just not his thing, though.

Another series win for the Astros. They've won 11 out of the last 14 series they've played (not counting the split against the Dodgers)...

Hopefully Roy can complete the sweep tomorrow against Carpenter. We've only swept one series all season and that was back in early May...

This roadtrip needs to end NOW

If the Nats really won't pay Strasburg and he goes unsigned, wow. What is the record # of years for a franchise moving/being contracted after moving once already?

And I'm not saying that he's necessarily worth the money or the hype. But once you take him at #1 with the Boras factor, you have to be willing to get it done.

Let's hope this is a brilliant ploy, but I really don't think you can pull this on Boras. He doesn't care what people think about him or his clients.

That's what pisses me off more than anything...the last place team should get the best player at the draft...not the most signable. And having to worry about the player's agent is ridiculous. There is enough risk in the draft why does an agent have come into play?

Argh.

I agree 100%.

I mean at this point why bother with the draft anyway. If people slip due to signability concerns you might as well do away with the draft completely and just make everyone a UFA and let the big-money teams skip the farce of having a draft (says a fan of a big-money team)

Rumor is the Chisox made an offer for Halladay as well and got shot down.

By whom? Toronto, or Halladay? :D

lol, well played :D

Yeah. This has been absolutely ugly so far. If they can't win with Lincecum going tomorrow, then I'll start to get rather worried.

In his short career, he has more wins against the braves then any other team so he's either gonna get a win, or hes due for a loss :D

I don't think it's a surprise that 4 of the losses during the Royals current 8 game losing streak belong to Chen and Ponson. Our rotation falls off significantly on the bottom end. Need a couple more prospects to hurry up. Greinke, Bannister, and Hochevar all look solid at this point.

Again with this? He's had some good starts, but solid?

Now THAT'S the team I want the Nationals to be. Perhaps when there is more than one pitcher with a full MLB year under his belt they can get a win more than every fifth game.

Well, here's the numbers since his return from the minors. Note that the Royals have gone 19-45 during the stretch where he put up these numbers, including 5 wins from him..........

8 starts
5-1 record
52.0 innings pitched
3.81 ERA
1.13 WHIP
2.46/1 K/BB ratio

His ERA has dropped from nearly 11 to 5.09 over the course of two months. It's only two months, but that's more like what was expected from this guy as a 1st round pick. The Royals will take these kinds of numbers anyday from one of their starters.

I suppose we'll see. I wouldn't be surprised to see the guy go 4IP 6ER next time out, so it's hard for me to see that as "solid".

Brad Penny had this stretch this season..................

11 starts
63.2 innings pitched
3.68 ERA
1.35 WHIP
3.25 K/BB ratio.

And I would never use "solid" to describe my feelings for Penny. Holding my breath would be more accurate.

It remains to be seen is Hochevar is having a good stretch, or if he's turned the corner.

Royals fans along with many other teams would be happy to 'hold their breath' for Brad Penny. That's not holding your breath. When you have Sir Sidney Ponson and Bruce Chen in your rotation, you're doing more than holding your breath. You're turning blue in the face at that point.

Ok, I'll buy that Hochevar is "relatively solid".

Looks like Adam LaDouche got traded to the Red Sox for two scrubby prospects.

If Adam's hot, he can carry a team for a week or two per season. Otherwise he's so damned inconsistent.

dola-
Garrett Jones with his 9th solo homer of the year in like 18 games.

Well, LaRoche has an OPS+ of 108 this year, so it's more than just a week or two it seems.

I'm hoping that LaRoche's second half splits continue this year, otherwise he's just a marginal improvement over Kotsay.

I'm talking like he would be our only offense for a week or two at a time. Then he'll go into these very nice slumps.

He'll bat 7th or so on the Sox, he was our cleanup hitter.

Basically LaDouche is a crazy chick.....when it's good it's really good. If it's bad, run for your life.

:lol:

re: scrubby prospects

Argenis Diaz is a wizard with the glove, but has no bat. Don't know anything about the other guy.

You know the Mets are in bad shape when, as a fan, you see an ESPN headline of "Report: Mets exec dares prospects to fight him" and not only are you not surprised that it took place, but you don't even need a half of a second of thinking to know that it's Tony Bernazard and that this is the guy who Minaya relies on more than any other.

Pfft...and he's got a grand total of 11 RBI...WTF? Is he anti-clutch or what??

;)

Argenis Diaz is a guy I've always liked, but he's become expendable with the SS depth behind him in the system now that Iglesias is signed. Basically Jack Wilson, except he'll be making league minimum instead of $6 million a year. Great range as a fielder, has struggled with consistency on the easy plays but that may have been complacency, not much of a bat, some decent speed. Hunter Strickland isn't a name, but he was regarded as a sleeper by some front office people, partially because of his great makeup. Would have been relegated to a bullpen role in Boston, but maybe Pittsburgh will try to keep him as a starter now.He also has pretty big L/R splits and could slide into a platoon with Lowell.

I know you were kidding but that stat line did make me curious.

Coming into today, he's 0-14 with RISP, but he's walked four times and scored all four. He's hitting .400 with nobody on base (16-40) and .087 (2-23) with anybody on base. That is pretty much anti-clutch.

I guess the way to pitch to him is to intentionally walk the guy in front of him.

Feels so fuckin good to take 2 of 3 from the Brewers.