Pitching=90% of baseball.

[stitchface]

no, the cardinals hitters just aren't good enough to hit oswalt. they still control half the battle. those pitches aren't unhittable.

[UK1679666180]

I don't think any offense could hit Oswalt tonight. He's tearing them up with one pitch.

[stitchface]

walker can hit him apparently. truth is, the cardinals are slumping. perhaps because only pujols is an elite hitter on that team.

[stitchface]

103 pitches for oswalt . . . is that part of beating a pitcher?

[stitchface]

you might want to add 10 percent for the umpire since no one can hit the shoulder high 95 mph fastball.

[UK1679666180]

That's the first solid contact out of 103 pitches, fair or foul. Pujols hasn't done anything vs. Oswalt tonight.

 

Is increasing the PC part of beating a pitcher?

 

Sure, but dominating a team for 7IP or 9IP is still domination.

 

Just depends on how they hit Lidge.

 

But, a secondary goal of a hitter should be to work to the hitter, behind hitting the ball hard and getting on base, which they haven't done at all.

[stitchface]

no matter how you slice it, the batter is half the equation.

[UK1679666180]

He's more dependent on how well the pitcher is pitching, rather than the other way around.

[stitchface]

not necessarily. a great hitter slumping will miss the mistake pitch that he might normally hit for a homerun. the difference being that you have nine batters and only one pitcher. nevertheless, every at-bat is half pitcher and half batter until the ball is put in play.

 

I guess your statement to me is meaningless. Baseball is by definition not 90 percent pitching.

[Cubway]

When the playoffs started, based on the fact that good pitching always beats good hitting, you would pick Chicago and Houston to be in the WS. If you thought good hitting beats good pitching, then you would probably pick the Yankees, Red Sox, or Cardinals. As it turns out, who is in the WS? The teams that no one wanted to face were Houston and Chicago because of their good pitching. Based on this, it looks like to me that good pitching stops good hitting and the managers know this.

[UK1679666180]

Look at last years WS, the only game that was determined by offense was Game 1. After that, the Red Sox pitching was the main reason they swept.

[stitchface]

failure to score runs is still hitting.

[UK1679666180]

failure to score runs is still hitting.

 

 

How so, you willing to say that Oswalt's performance had nothing to do with his ability to pitch rather the Cards' inability to hit?

 

Failure to score runs is a credit to the pitcher.

[Tim]

failure to score runs is still hitting.

 

 

How so, you willing to say that Oswalt's performance had nothing to do with his ability to pitch rather the Cards' inability to hit?

 

Failure to score runs is a credit to the pitcher.

Cubs must have faced an awful lot of good pitchers this year.

[UK1679666180]

Depends on the situation, I just witnessed Oswalt dominating a team that is among the most productive offensively in MLB.

 

As far as the Cubs, they need improvements on offense as much as pitching or some magic health water. Well, about the same, but they're more centralized for rapid improvement from one offensive player (Giles, who isn't likely to be pursued).

 

The Cubs got beat by enough avg. pitchers who did nothing beyond normal to determine that they need to improve the offense.

 

Still doesn't deviate from original thought process though.

[stitchface]

failure to score runs is still hitting.

 

 

How so, you willing to say that Oswalt's performance had nothing to do with his ability to pitch rather the Cards' inability to hit?

 

Failure to score runs is a credit to the pitcher.

 

I'm saying its both. no matter how good the pitcher, the game still consists of a pitched ball and the batters ability to hit it. I don't disagree that the pitcher is by far the most important player on the field, he just isn't 90 percent of the game all by himself. that would imply that a game could as readily be decided to establishing a system of charting pitches and awarding runs based on the performance of those pitches. When you get to the playoffs, the ability of a team to score runs off a good pitcher is just as important as the ability of the pitcher to prevent the runs.

[stitchface]

Depends on the situation, I just witnessed Oswalt dominating a team that is among the most productive offensively in MLB.

 

As far as the Cubs, they need improvements on offense as much as pitching or some magic health water. Well, about the same, but they're more centralized for rapid improvement from one offensive player (Giles, who isn't likely to be pursued).

 

The Cubs got beat by enough avg. pitchers who did nothing beyond normal to determine that they need to improve the offense.

 

Still doesn't deviate from original thought process though.

 

a team that also didn't score any runs off most of the other houston pitchers - would you say lidge is not a good pitcher?

[UK1679666180]

Houston pitched well the entire series.

 

What you witnessed in the Pujols/Lidge AB is what I'm talking about. The first pitch was unhittable, the second was a flat slider that went 450 ft.

 

You seen the value of a quality of a great pitch and a terrible pitch, Pujols didn't adjust his swing from the 1st pitch to the 2nd. The only thing that changed was a sharp slider going to a hanging slider.

 

Lidge is a great pitcher who threw a poor pitch, it happens. If Pujols hit the 1st slider for a HR, that would impress me.

[stitchface]

if pujols was a better hitter, he wouldn't have swung. You are talking in cicrles. by your logic anytime a team doesn't hit its good pitching meaning all hitters are the same.

[UK1679666180]

If Pujols was a better hitter? He's the best hitter in the game.

 

That pitch by Lidge fell off the table.

 

It all depends on the circumstance, but more times than not a team at this level that gets shut down a pitcher will do so b/c that pitcher had a good game, it's not absolute, but if a pitcher pitched a CG SO, I'm much more inclined to believe that pitcher had a very good game rather than the hitters being "off".

 

In the Houston/STL and & CWS/Ana series, I watched two teams have outstanding pitching performances moreso than two teams who went cold offensively not b/c of the performances of the picthers.

 

The Angels are not a good team offensively even before Vlad was injured, but the CWS still pitched very well.

[Holy Cow]

It all depends on the circumstance, but more times than not a team at this level that gets shut down a pitcher will do so b/c that pitcher had a good game, it's not absolute, but if a pitcher pitched a CG SO, I'm much more inclined to believe that pitcher had a very good game rather than the hitters being "off".

 

That's because the pitcher is only one person, and can easily be off or on on a particular night. Meanwhile, it is very unlikely that an entire lineup is having a good or bad night, simply because there are 9 of them and the odds even out. This is why the pitcher is 45% of the game while each hitter is 55/9 = 6.11%. This is asuming that they split the 10% that is fielding equally, which of course isn't true. However, overall pitching and hitting are equal, I believe, and in an individual AB, both the hitter and pitcher have equal control over the outcome.

[cubweiser03]

Ill take a great pitcher over a great hitter anyday, especially the playoffs. What would be a great game by a pitcher and what would constitute a great game by a batter?

 

Pitcher CG shutout. What are the team records of a pitcher throwing a CG shutout...probably pretty damn good. Id say over 90% (im not saying pitching is 90% of the game, just saying that # for effect).

Batter. This is harder. Find something that happens as often as a CG shutout and see what the teams record are in those games. 2 homerun games, 4-5 RBI's.

 

Im going to guess a 'great' game by a pitcher has more a winning effect on the outcome of the game than a 'great' game by a batter.

[UK1679666180]

It all depends on the circumstance, but more times than not a team at this level that gets shut down a pitcher will do so b/c that pitcher had a good game, it's not absolute, but if a pitcher pitched a CG SO, I'm much more inclined to believe that pitcher had a very good game rather than the hitters being "off".

 

That's because the pitcher is only one person, and can easily be off or on on a particular night. Meanwhile, it is very unlikely that an entire lineup is having a good or bad night, simply because there are 9 of them and the odds even out. This is why the pitcher is 45% of the game while each hitter is 55/9 = 6.11%. This is asuming that they split the 10% that is fielding equally, which of course isn't true. However, overall pitching and hitting are equal, I believe, and in an individual AB, both the hitter and pitcher have equal control over the outcome.

 

You know the 90% is just an expression that's been used throughout MLB history ? I never broke it down literally b/c there's no way to prove or disprove it, I don't think it's near 90% though.

 

If I say "I'm so hungry, I can eat a cow", is someone going to debate the merits of me being able to eat an entire cow?

 

Pitching is more important than hitting b/c pitching b/c being on offense is a defensive position from the get go.

[Fred Hornkohl]

Without regard to runs allowed, here's a table that gives the performance based on innings pitched by the CUBS' starter.....

 

Team record by starters' IP

                   W    L     pct
zero                0    0   0.000
1/3                 0    0   0.000
2/3                 0    0   0.000
1 inning            0    0   0.000
1-1/3               0    1   0.000
1-2/3               0    2   0.000
2 innings           0    1   0.000
2-1/3               0    0   0.000
2-2/3               0    0   0.000
3 innings           0    5   0.000
3-1/3               1    2   0.333
3-2/3               0    2   0.000
4 innings           0    2   0.000
4-1/3               0    2   0.000
4-2/3               1    6   0.143
5 innings           8   10   0.444
5-1/3               3    3   0.500
5-2/3               1    3   0.250
6 innings          20   17   0.541
6-1/3               0    3   0.000
6-2/3               6    3   0.667
7 innings          14   12   0.538
7-1/3               4    0   1.000
7-2/3               4    1   0.800
8 innings           9    5   0.643
8-1/3               1    0   1.000
8-2/3               1    0   1.000
9 innings           6    3   0.667


Totals             79   83   0.488

[Guest]

I'll have to agree with Tim here... the hitter holds the most responsibility for the outcome of any single play. I can't back this up with numbers (yet), but I'm pretty sure that if you looked at things statistically, you'd find that there's more persistence in hitting than in pitching. In other words, the outcome of plate appearances is more consistent among hitters than it is among pitchers. This has been rather conclusively proven for balls in play, but I think it probably holds true for almost any aspect of the pitcher/hitter dynamic.

 

It's also interesting to note that there's a definite theoretical ceiling to the value a single pitcher can provide to his team. A starting pitcher who throws 30 perfect games in a season is "only" saving his team about 135 runs beyond an average player. That works out to be 0.167 runs per plate appearance of added value, roughly equivalent to a hitter with an OPS of around 1.400. An astoundingly great hitter, obviously, but far from perfect.

 

In the modern game, a "perfect" hitter would be far, far more valuable than a "perfect" pitcher. (Though that's mostly due to the run environment of the times. If the typical team scored 15-20 runs a game instead of 4-5 the story would be quite different.) Pretty much a moot conversation, however, as there's no such thing as a perfect player.