what has surprised you in the first month of the baseball season

gregkitefan wrote:

15 wins is average.
Once again there are 150 atarting pitchers in MLB.
The average starting pitcher in MLB had 9 or 10 wins last year.

My point is he was very very far from average.

I agree. Winning 15 games is far from average.

Brett Myers has been the Opening Day pitcher for the Phillies for the last 2 seasons and is considered a very solid #2 behind Hamels. The most wins he has ever had in a season is 14 and that was in 2003.

myhook wrote:

True, but I meant combined. Together they are 11 games. I didn't think either of them would be under .500 after the first month. Actully I love Cleveland's team. Seizmore and Maritinez are STUDS and if the CC and Carmona can get quality starts they will be fine. I know it is early, hell I am Yankees fan. I have t tell myself that every day.

yeah the Indians are a weird team. They have probably some the best starting pitching in the AL and some of the most godawful hitting ever. Who knows

Solat13 wrote:

Very true, but if you take out September when both he and Oki had dead arms, he would have had an era of 3.88 which would have been a really good year for a rookie. Or if the Sox wouldn't have blown two games for him in September, he would have been 17-12. (One was the infamous Gagne game when Dice-K left up 5-1 after 7 and Gagne came in and gave up 4 runs in the 8th. The other was the game against the Yanks when he left up 5-2 in the 6th and Oki and Papelbon gave up 6 runs in the 8th.)

I think he an above average season personally, but unless he won 20 there was no way he was going to match the hype he had going into the year.

If 'ifs' and 'buts' were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas....

Good point about not living up to the hype though. That may be why I consider him to have had an average year. When I see 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA I think he's a solid 3rd man in a rotation that will eat some innings to possibly save the bullpen, not one of the best pitchers in the league.

Using the qualified stats (meaning those pitchers who qualified for the best ERA award), there were 79 pitchers and the average record was 13-10. So, for last year, his record wasn't too far off from average. Seeing that his ERA was 52nd out of those 79 is a good bit below average.

For me, it's that I have yet to watch a full game, but I've seen about 20 hockey games.

I guess I will have to wait until after the Stanley Cup finals before baseball gets some love.

markymark550 wrote:

With the 150 starting pitcher thing, it's not as cut and dry like that. You have some pitchers get injured, then some teams will try out their top AA and AAA pitchers, then some others that will make spot starts within the year. Sure Matsuzaka is going to look like the best pitcher ever when compared with Joe Doe who got called up from AA to see how he would perform for a couple of starts, but when compared to established starters nothing says he had a great year. The last two months of the 2007 regular season, he was 3-3 with something like a 5.92 ERA. I'd hardly put him in the top 25 based on that.

And of course it's your opinion...don't even get started on that.

Why do you think teams bring up pitchers from the minors???
You think if a team had (5) established starting pitchers that were all pitching well, they would spend the money to bring up a new pitcher.
They bring up people because the established pitcher that was in that spot before either was no good or got hurt.

The last I remembered it was a 6 month season and not a 2 month season.

Sorry I will take 15 wins, 200K's and 200 innings anytime.
By the way only (6) pitchers did that last year.
CC, Peavy, Harang, Vazquez, Santana and Dice.

Yea your right he was real average.

gregkitefan wrote:

Why do you think teams bring up pitchers from the minors???
You think if a team had (5) established starting pitchers that were all pitching well, they would spend the money to bring up a new pitcher.
They bring up people because the established pitcher that was in that spot before either was no good or got hurt.

That's exactly my point, and why you can only compare him to the other established starters in the league. Compared to the other established starters, he was slightly above average, but not to the "very very far" from average spot like you have been saying.

gregkitefan wrote:

The last I remembered it was a 6 month season and not a 2 month season.

This is true, but didn't you say that at the end of last year he was one of the 25 best pitchers in the game? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last 2 months of the season would be at the end of last year.

gregkitefan wrote:

Sorry I will take 15 wins, 200K's and 200 innings anytime.
By the way only (6) pitchers did that last year.
CC, Peavy, Harang, Vazquez, Santana and Dice.

Yea your right he was real average.

Sure, I'll take 15 wins and be very happy with that, but I sure as hell don't want his 12 losses that came with pitching for one of the top offenses. Wouldn't want that 4.40 ERA either. Strikeouts and all the rest of that crap are nice, but the only stats that really mean anything are their record and ERA.

Anyway, the whole point I was making with my original post was that this year is looking like he could have a record like 20-4 with an ERA under 3.00, which undoubtedly would be a vast improvement from last year and make him probably one of the top 3 or 4 pitchers in all of baseball.

Solat13 wrote:

Won-loss record and era have nothing to do with one another. Won-loss record is by far the most overrated category to judge a pitcher. I remember in 1987 when Nolan Ryan came in 5th in the CY Young voting when he led the league in era 2.76 and strikeouts 270 but was 8-16. Won loss record especially nowadays is too subjective to whether a bullpen can hold a lead, how a team is hitting when you pitch a good game, and luck.

Look at steroid man Clemens in 2005 with Hou. He went 13-8 in 32 games with a 1.87 era, 188 K's in 211 innings. He got NO RUN SUPPORT that season and finished 3rd in the Cy Young.

Solat13 wrote:

Won-loss record and era have nothing to do with one another. Won-loss record is by far the most overrated category to judge a pitcher. I remember in 1987 when Nolan Ryan came in 5th in the CY Young voting when he led the league in era 2.76 and strikeouts 270 but was 8-16. Won loss record especially nowadays is too subjective to whether a bullpen can hold a lead, how a team is hitting when you pitch a good game, and luck.

I didn't say that those stats were related, just that they are the only stats that really mean anything. The combination of record and ERA can tell you a lot about the pitcher and/or team he plays for.

gregkitefan wrote:

Dice was far from average last year.
He had 15 wins, 200K's and over 200 IP's.

Only (17) people had more wins and only (7) people had more K's.
Only (28) people pitched over 200 innings.

There are (150) starting pitchers in the majors.

Far from average.

8 walks last night. That's not average. The average pitcher walks 2-3 per game. 8 is way, way, way above average

Fighting Hellfish wrote:

8 walks last night. That's not average. The average pitcher walks 2-3 per game. 8 is way, way, way above average

He won the game and gave up 1 earned run on 2 hits. He's been struggling with his locations but still winning.

He's only had one really awesome start which was against the Tigers awhile back but the rest have been a bit above average.