skyking162

In response to someone asking how important defense is to winning baseball games…

The art of winning the game is about 40%. The other 60% is the run scoring.

That’s right, the art of winning the game is nearly half the recipe for — yes, you’ve got it — winning the game.

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Sal Baxamusa recently wrote a great article on the hierarchy of baseball knowledge and regression (there can never be enough written about regression). It’s worth reading — and even has nice pictures — but the reason I mention it is because of a question left in the comments. I can’t figure out if the poster is being sarcastic or not, but either way, it’s hilarious. What do you think?

I have heard it said that all teams win sixty and lose sixty [and] it’s the remaining 42 that determine who goes to the playoffs. So all this number crunching over pitching, batting, defense etc is the tail wagging the dog. Figure out which games are the most important. Is a win or loss in April more or less important than one in September? Why risk injuring your best players on a meaningless loss or meaningless win [and] save them for the important 42?

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I’m mostly thinking about NCAA football here, but this could apply to anything. Let’s say you have two teams with the same record, 10-1 for example. The typical tie-breaker goes to the team that beat the other one, right? But why?

The usual response is that if Team A beats Team B, they’re better. But that’s not really true — any team has a chance of beating any other team, even if the other team is better. Think about who beat Team A — some other Team Q that was worse than both Team A and Team B, at least according to records. Do we think Team Q is better than Team A? No way. We just assume Team A had an off day or Team Q got lucky. So then why don’t we chalk up Team B’s loss to Team A to an off day or a bit of luck?

Personally, I’d rather reward the team whose single loss came against a stronger opponent — Team B. What’s more impressive, losing one game to a really good team or losing one game to a mediocre team? I think you know where I stand.

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Jose Rijo’s name is on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year, for the second time. What, that doesn’t make sense? Sure it does…

Rijo retired in 1995 because of arm troubles and appeared on the 2001 Hall of Fame ballot. But at age 36, he made a two-season comeback with the Reds and retired after the 2002 season. He’s now been retired from baseball for five years (again), and counts as a first ballot candidate.

MLB.com story

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Do you remember your first time on the internet (Prodigy, anyone?) Do you remember your first instant messenger handle? Do you remember the first Baseball Writers Association of America website? If not, that’s ok — it’s still up and running.

Seriously, is the BBWAA actively trying to appear technologically ignorant? Is their obnoxious website a big “screw you” to anyone not reading information printed on paper?

Ok, that’s enough belittling of writers who will never know that I’m belittling them. I’m off to play King’s Quest over my 8K modem.

Popularity: 10% [?]