OT: So... Shohei Ohtani is good at baseball after all
Hit his 3rd homer in his 3rd straight game tonight.
Pitches Sunday against the As.
If this kid wins 15 games with an ERA around 3 and bats .280 hitting 20 HRs, is that MVP worthy?
Kid is making those spring training haters eat their words and well, is really exciting to watch!
yes. when was the last time that happened? 19th century?
There's that, of course, but in the generations that the majority of this blog covers, I can't think of too many pitchers that were tough outs at least on occasion, and even then, their stats are easilt dwarfed by their position-playing contemporaries for the most part. Carlos Zambrano comes to mind, as does Fernando Valenzuela, Adam Wainwright, Bob Forsch, Mike Hampton and some others, but definitely no Ruthian numbers in that group. Just a few pitchers that did OK at the plate as pitchers go.
2014 - 66 AB: 4 HR and .258 average
2015 - 77 AB: 5 HR and .247 average
2016 - 86 AB: 3 HR and .186 average
2017 - 34 AB: 3 HR and .208 average
That's 15 home runs in 263 at bats; about half as many at bats as a full time position player.
He gets up there and swings hard on every pitch; just like Bryce Harper. I think he could hang around as a DH, but I'm not sure if could play a position occasionally.
Instead of fixing someone else's post, maybe adjust your expectations of a message board. Every statement anyone can make on this matter is a prognostication of the future. "Might be" should always be assumed and is completely unnecessary in this context.
Having said that, I can see what they are saying. Stating that anyone (Pujols, Morales, Ramirez) is a good DH is not an unreasonable statement and they are all players whose half-year stats would be pretty close to .250+ and 15-20 HRs. Not elite, but good.
as a DH since he makes too much money as a pitcher!
I say "he could..." in part because of the poor DH numbers I've seen on some teams over the years.
Ruth's home run numbers moved up as soon as he started weaning off pitching, which happened when he went to New York. By the time he was putting up actually big hitting numbers, he'd moved to the field full time.
Though this also coincided with the end of the dead ball era.
Per Wikipedia, by 1921, offenses were scoring 40% more runs and hitting four times as many home runs as they had in 1918.
Well, that's one part of it. The other part of it is as he pitched less, Ruth's games-played went up, his ABs went up, etc. He didn't play even close to every day until his last year in Boston.
Long story short, what we're talking about here is nothing akin to Ruth in the lineup on non-pitching days and hitting home runs at a steady clip. Because he never really did that, whether or not it was the dead-ball era.
Doubt he'll get to 15 wins because he's only going to pitch once a week but I could see him getting 10 (maybe 12) wins.
It's not like he's pitching any less than any other member of a 5-man rotation. He'll get roughly 30 starts. If he pitches well but doesn't get 15 wins it won't be due to his frequency of starts, it'll be because the Angels have a shitty bullpen.
I did not realize that, thank you for the correction. Then yes, 15 wins would seem difficult to reach if he's only going to get 25 or so starts.
- Garrett Richards
- Tyler Skaggs
- Parker Bridwell (Matt Shoemaker on DL)
- Shohei Ohtani
- JC Ramirez
Perhaps they will go to a six-man rotation when Andrew Heaney comes off the DL next week.
I wouldn't be surprised if he got an occasional start in the outfield.
you rather have a pitcher who wins 20 games with 5+ ERA over a pitcher who wins 8 games with 1.5 ERA?
Pitchers wins is am imperfect stat and certainly involves more than just the pitcher. However, you still rarely see a bad pitcher rack up a ton of wins.
ERA is far from a perfect stat either if you want to start nitpicking pitcher stats
Bobo Newsom: 20 with 5.07 ERA
Ray Kremer: 20 with 5.02 ERA
Pitchers with 20+ wins and over 4 ERA
Vern Kennedy: 21 with 4.63
George Earnshaw: 22 4.44
Rick Helling 20 4.41
Lefty Gomez: 24 4.21
Wes Ferrell 20 4.19
Tim Hudson 20 4.14
David Wells: 20 4.11
Jim Merritt 20 4.08
Montie Weaver 22 4.08
George Uhle 22 4.08
Lew Burdette 21 4.07
Billy Hoeft 20 4.06
Jaack Morris 21 4.04
Andy Pettitte 21 4.02
Murray Dickson 20 4.02
Win is a bad and overrated stats
This is an accurate list but it's a little misleading. The two guys over 5.00 both played 80 years ago with four man (or fewer) rotations. I think the takeaway is that in the modern game it's effectively impossible to win 20 games with even a 4.00 ERA...it looks like the last season was Pettitte in 2003.
I agree that wins are a bad stat on their own, but at some point they become directionally accurate and as a time series are relatively indicative of talent.
has never happened and two, what I put out has happened in the past in the MLB.
QB who completed 52% of his passes all had losing record. Not the same comparison
Pitcher B had 16 wins. He also had a 2.51 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, and 268 Ks in 200.2 innings.
Pitcher A is Jason Vargas. Pitcher B is Max Scherzer. Is there any argument, besides wins, that Vargas can touch Max Scherzer?
Yes I realize that’s a cherry-picked example but my point is we have much better ways to quantify a pitcher’s value than wins.
Yeah, because wins are depedent on factors a pitcher can't control. There's run support--can the hitters on his own team score runs or does the pitcher take losses or no-decisions because they stink? Is the pitcher surrounded by crappy fielders who cause unearned runs that lead to losses, no-decisions, or effective pitchers being removed from the game anyway? That's why ERA and K/BB are far better measures of pitcher effectiveness than wins. After all, would you rather have Eli Manning or Dan Marino as your qb (and I ask this as a life-long Giant fan)?
Managers rarely let pitchers go deep because of specialization and the batters are too good the 3rd time around. I wouldn't use it against Kershaw.
WAR is essentially a counting stat, so yes that absolutely takes into account durability.