Another comment that is very not you. Is thethe getting to you. Seriously. If you were in a game 7 and had to pick one pitcher in all of baseball you would NOT pick Kershaw? Really? Now I agree that a hitter impacts the regular season more than pitchers. Just more games. However, in a playoff series a pitcher will have more impact if we are talking equal talent.
Having Kershaw going 3 games in a 7 game series is more valuabl than trouts 30 PA in a 7 game series. I mean the other team could effectively elimInate his impact.
Is it though? Maybe Kershaw can't handle the playoffs? If I want a pitcher in the playoffs right now it's Madison Bumgardener. Nothing is a guarantee in the playoffs due to the small sample size of it. If I'm starting a team it's always going to be the best position player.
When have I never not admitted to that? Also the goal is to build teams to reach the playoffs not necessarily win in them. Every time a team wins that's considered the way to win in the playoffs. There is no magic formula. Dodgers have arguably who could be the best pitcher ever and haven't made it to the WS yet. Doesn't mean he wouldn't be my #1 pitcher in a draft.
Good call on Madison. Yeah I agree Kershaw hasn't been great in the playoffs although he was better this last time around but still not perfect. I also agree that I would choose a heater as well because like you said they are safer and have more impact in the regular season. What about 2 elite pitchers versus two elite hitters or three elite pitchers versus 3 Elite hitters
A hitter will have more impact on the regular season there's no way you can argue otherwise. They just get the impact more games. But in the playoffs yes a picture can have a lot more impact because his percentage of games impacted is gonna be much higher than in the regular season.
Kershaw's WAR range since he hit his stride: 5.5-7.8
Trout's oWAR range: 8.6-10.0
The top pitchers can't quite get to where the top hitters can in value. Why? I haven't read into why that is from a statistical perspective. Perhaps it's simply because there's a bigger gap between a replacement-level hitter and the elite than there is between a replacement-level pitcher and the elite?
To use extremely crude calculations, let's say replacement-level ERA is 5. Let's say Kershaw throws 230 IP and allows an ERA of 1.6. Even with those sick numbers, he's saving his team about 87 runs over a replacement-level pitcher. Trout's runs created has been in the 135-155 range basically. How many runs does a replacement-level hitter create? I don't know, but if the gap between Trout's runs created and replacement-level is bigger than the gap between Kershaw's runs saved and replacement-level, then that's probably your answer.
Last edited by smootness; 02-08-2017 at 09:28 AM.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
Look, it's not the hardest thing in the world to trade off assets for prospects so I'm not really touting the organization as geniuses for having a top 3 farm system, but they do have a top 3 farm system and its based on a lot more than deals done with Dave Stewart.
I feel like their strategy has been relatively consistent. I think maybe the degree to which they were serious about being respectable may have changed last year. They were not particularly serious about it the first two seasons as they sold off a respectable team and the pieces of a terrible team in the first two seasons. Acquiring Kemp to me was the biggest departure from not really caring about being respectable. That was a big investment in a .500 player. Still not really sure why they did that management got nervous.