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Biggie Fries · 06-18-2002, 04:49 PM

I'm not denying that there are pitchers who perform well without striking out terribly many hitters (although fewer than you might think, at least based on what I have been reading at www.baseballprospectus.com and elsewhere [e.g. , some of Rob Neyer's stuff]); and, similarly, there are guys who strike out a lot of people and don't perform especially well on other dimensions (Nolan Ryan!) But the issue--at least as I see it, and the way I understood the original post--has to do with "performing well." I presume the be all and end all of pitching is avoiding runs. So I'm not sure that there are a lot of advantages to getting a good strikeout pitcher, for any fixed value on Avoiding Runs. (There are some: Man on third with less than two outs.) This differs from the batter situation, since, for example, whether you walk or not is a potential add-on (or drawback) relative to hitting for average; and for a fixed ability to hit for average, you always want someone with more pop in their bat. It just seems to me that when you have an omnibus category like Avoiding Runs, all the things that go into avoiding runs must somehow come out in balance. In which case, to get back to my parallel to the original post, they may be less relevant than they seem at first glance.

06-18-2002, 04:49 PM	#7
Biggie Fries Minors (Double A) Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Bryn Mawr, PA USA Posts: 115	I'm not denying that there are pitchers who perform well without striking out terribly many hitters (although fewer than you might think, at least based on what I have been reading at www.baseballprospectus.com and elsewhere [e.g. , some of Rob Neyer's stuff]); and, similarly, there are guys who strike out a lot of people and don't perform especially well on other dimensions (Nolan Ryan!) But the issue--at least as I see it, and the way I understood the original post--has to do with "performing well." I presume the be all and end all of pitching is avoiding runs. So I'm not sure that there are a lot of advantages to getting a good strikeout pitcher, for any fixed value on Avoiding Runs. (There are some: Man on third with less than two outs.) This differs from the batter situation, since, for example, whether you walk or not is a potential add-on (or drawback) relative to hitting for average; and for a fixed ability to hit for average, you always want someone with more pop in their bat. It just seems to me that when you have an omnibus category like Avoiding Runs, all the things that go into avoiding runs must somehow come out in balance. In which case, to get back to my parallel to the original post, they may be less relevant than they seem at first glance.