Krukie called out...

[javy knows my name]

On SportsCenter today. He, Steve Phillips and Ravech's BBTN successor (can't remember the name) are discussing NL Cy Young candidates. The conversation spirals into Kruk arguing that if Webb wins his next four starts, he should get the nod with what would be 23 wins. I'll paraphrase from here:

Ravech jr: But John, you can't give it to him solely based on wins; it's a team stat

John Kruk: Yeah but ALL stats are team stats! MVP is a team stat! RBIs are a team stat-

RJ (interrupting Kruk): But what about on base percentage and slugging-

Kruk (shouting): THEY ALL DEPEND ON THE TEAM AROUND THEM! RBI IS A TEAM STAT BECAUSE NO ONE CAN CONTROL WHO GETS ON BASE IN FRONT OF THEM!

 

They shout at each other for a little while and it became unintelligible. Kruk gets in the last word by rolling his eyes and calling RJ "Mr. Sabermetrician."

I had always suspected that Ravech knew a ton more about baseball than either of those knuckleheads and it seems the new guy is no different.

The moral of this story is that John Kruk is stupid.

[David]

I think it was Brian Kenny

[SouthSideRyan]

I was gonna say if he called him Mr. Sabermetrician, I'm sure it was Kenny.

[sneakypower]

strange, because if i had a career .397 OBP i'd want everybody to be aware of the stat

 

subtly drop it into the conversation where it doesn't really apply

[ISUCubsFan]

I distinctly remember Kruk having a similar conversation with Brian Kenny a few weeks ago about the MVP. Can't remember the players involved, but Kenny mentioned OBP and/or SLG and how RBI were a partially function of batting order. Kruk pretty much ignored him and went along making his argument. It's ironic that guys like Morgan and Kruk, who were valuable because they were great OBP guys, downplay its importance in their arguments.

[Post Count Padder]

Not surprised.

[shnsajax]

I would still like to drink beer with Kruk.

[woodprior04]

I saw this, it was great. Kruk couldn't believe that someone thought wins were a meaningless stats for pitchers.

[17 Seconds]

I didn't recognize the name Brian Kenny, but I knew right away who you were talking about. I didn't see it today, but twice in the past few months I've seen that guy put a Sabr beatdown on guys like Kruk on SC. Both times it has been awesome as the other guy (can't remember who it was...possibly Kruk) stumbles to find a way to defend his statements that have just been destroyed by Kenny.

[17 Seconds]

Oh and by the way...I don't have proof, but I'm pretty sure the reason Ravech doesn't do BBTN very often anymore is because he was sick of working with these ex-players who should not be on TV. As Ravech's time on BBTN slowly got less and less frequent, I noticed more and more that he'd often roll his eyes or just flat out trash one of the people on the show. I always thought it was hilarious.

[SouthSideRyan]

And you can be damn sure that it's things like this that lead to that hack Berthuiame hosting most of the time. Lord knows he doesn't know Howry about Howry.

[BCVM22]

And you can be damn sure that it's things like this that lead to that hack Berthuiame hosting most of the time. Lord knows he doesn't know Howry about Howry.

 

Fill thine horn with oil, and go.

[TruffleShuffle]

yeah it couldn't have been ravech. actually on FJM they frequently make reference to ravech being incredulous at the moronic arguments being made around him.

[chuckywang]

And to think: there are baseball writers with a vote for these awards dumber than Kruk.

[badnews]

John Kruk said he thought Schilling should've won the Cy Young Award in 2004.

 

It's kind of funny that Berthuiame plugs Willie Bloomquist every chance he gets because apparently Bloomquist is related to his brother in law or something. But at least he mostly dropped that "Say hello to my little friend" crap.

[flyseye]

I saw this, it was great. Kruk couldn't believe that someone thought wins were a meaningless stats for pitchers.

 

Nobody said that. What was said is that you cannot give the award based SOLELY on wins, which I agree 100% with.

 

I get really tired of reading that wins are a meaningless stat for pitchers. Bull. The true statement that " wins are not the best way to judge a pitcher, particularly short term " does NOT translate to " wins are a meaningless stat". Short term they are sometimes a poor way to judge a pitcher, long term, not so much really.

 

I am sure most will agree that there has never been a bad pitcher win 300 games. I am fairly sure that there have been few, if any, bad pitchers to win 200 games. Sure, there have been 200 game winners that were not quite as good as another who may have only won 175 games, but this still does not translate into " wins are a meaningless stat for pitchers". Good pitchers are going to win more games than bad pitchers over the course of a career. Wins are not a meaningless stat.

[javy knows my name]

bert blyleven wanted me to tell you that wins are meaningless

[flyseye]

bert blyleven wanted me to tell you that wins are meaningless

 

Lame argument. Would you like me to waste both our time listing the vast majority of the pitchers on the other side of that coin, or shall I not bother ?

[David]

bert blyleven wanted me to tell you that wins are meaningless

 

Lame argument. Would you like me to waste both our time listing the vast majority of the pitchers on the other side of that coin, or shall I not bother ?

 

Why use a stat that looks at something that is influenced by more than good pitching when you can just look at numbers that tell you how well they actually pitch?

 

Why use inferior tools when superior tools are readily available for everyone?

 

It's archaic, and the fact that wins come partially as a byproduct of good pitching doesn't justify using it to evaluate anything when you can see much more by looking elsewhere.

Edited September 11, 2008 by David

[SouthSideRyan]

Wins are about as good as PAs are for batters over a career.

[flyseye]

bert blyleven wanted me to tell you that wins are meaningless

 

Lame argument. Would you like me to waste both our time listing the vast majority of the pitchers on the other side of that coin, or shall I not bother ?

 

Why use a stat that looks at something that is influenced by more than good pitching when you can just look at numbers that tell you how good they actually pitch?

 

Why use inferior tools when superior tools are readily available for everyone.

 

It's archaic, and the fact that wins come partially as a byproduct of good pitching doesn't justify using it to evaluate anything when you can see much more by looking elsewhere.

 

Please point out where I said that one should not look at the other stats. I made the very simple to understand statement that wins are not meaningless. Please don't try and spin this into something other than what I said.

[CarolinaCubFan]

Kruk was trying to make the arguement that OBP can also be determined as a team stat. If Pujols is batting in back of you, you're likely to have a better OBP than if you have no protection. I see his point.

[David]

Please point out where I said that one should not look at the other stats. I made the very simple to understand statement that wins are not meaningless. Please don't try and spin this into something other than what I said.

 

 

I'm not saying you're saying anything other than what you said. They're meaningless because there are better ways to judge pitchers and there's nothing stopping anybody from using other metrics. It's not like these other numbers are hard to find or are only available to certain people. If you can find W-L, you can find the other stuff. No reason to even look at their record.

 

If, for some reason, W-L record is the only tool at your disposal to figure out who the good pitchers are, go nuts. But that's not reality, so why even bother with such a flawed stat?

[Electron Blue]

I think in all of these Wins arguments, there's a subtle grammatical issue behind most of the disagreement.

 

Wins are not a meaningless statistic -- a good pitcher is more likely to get Ws than a worse pitcher. Wins are the point of baseball, like every sport. Thus, a good pitcher will often get a fair amount of wins.

 

Wins are a virtually meaningless tool of stat analysis. As David said, "Why use inferior tools when superior tools are readily available for everyone." Wins add virtually no meaning to the statistical value of a pitcher (due to all of the non-pitcher factors; and look at all the comparative and qualifying words in my description above...), whereas other stats can give a more varied, accurate picture of that player's performance.

[NewUserName]

Kruk was trying to make the arguement that OBP can also be determined as a team stat. If Pujols is batting in back of you, you're likely to have a better OBP than if you have no protection. I see his point.

 

This is a myth. It is very subjective to each INDIVIDUAL situation. Which would make it more of an individual stat than a team stat.