Am I the only one that took a month to figure out how to create my profile? Ross I am with you on white chocolate and Andrew S - Fidrych for me. Anyway, I hope someone is still reading this thread because this is pretty cool (Velander's (maybe anybody's) greatest Inning:
I think the people who self select as Joe fans enough to respond to his Twitter poll, all people who embrace advanced stats and have been saying Schilling is underrated and an easy Hall choice, for years, are exactly the kinds of people not judging Schilling’s twitter feed.
Especially since Schilling’s big moments suffer from postseason bias.
Remembering big moments or overweighting the small sample size of the postseason. Schilling had great moments in the postseason and he should be proud of them but those are a few games and are nothing compared to his overall body of work.
This is why Bill Mazeroski and Jack Morris are in the Hall.
Performance in the postseason is also massively more important than performance in the regular season. How much more important can be calculated, but I don't know the answer. But it's surely logical to give a great weight to postseason performance when assessing the greatness of a player.
I don't buy the tired old line about Maz being in the Hall due to one home run. He was the best 2B of the 1960's by quite a large margin, and many people would think that alone is enough qualification for the Hall.
Joe, WAR is wrong. Mike Minor (MIKE MINOR!!!!) has a better WAR than Verlander this year. Nothing against Minor, but that's completely, utterly, totally ridiculous, and only a fool would argue otherwise. If a "stat" is even close to suggesting that Mike Minor is having a better year than Justin Verlander, it's simply not defensible. It's wrong and, worse, useless, flat out.
I spent WAY too much of my day trying to figure out why this is the case. Best I can figure, it's a combination of Minor's opponents' offense being considerably better (more than a run per 9IP, according to baseball reference) and the Rangers' defense being about half a run per 9IP better than that of the Astros. Not sure I believe either or both of those, but that's how their calculations arrive there.
It would be that the Rangers defense is worse, because the idea is that Mike Minor has to be worth more if he was able to keep his ERA that low given how terrible folks like Rougned Odor or Danny Santana or Nomar Mazara are with the glove.
Yes, the Rangers giving up about a quarter of a run more than average on defense and the Astros saving more than a quarter of a run per 9IP on defense accounts for almost half a run per 9IP, which works out to about 9 or ten runs difference total between them. The biggest difference is that Minor's home ballpark adjustment takes more than 10% off his numbers, while Verlander is helped by a couple of percent, so that's another 10 or more runs. As with the Porcello/Verlander debate in 2016, though, it's a question of whether those adjustments are really appropriate. They're applied across the board, as though they affected each pitcher on the team proportionately to how much they pitched there, I assume. Minor does indeed have a severe Home/Road split, with a 2.66 ERA away from Texas but a 3.70 ERA at home. (He does however have 21 fewer IP at ome, as he has made two more starts, and pitched better, on the road.) Verlander had 3 more starts, and 18 more innings away, but an ERA about 0.4 higher on the road. So the numbers seem to bear out what b-ref suggests.
I have a feeling Justin Verlander will have a few more Nicklaus moments ahead in his career, including his certain pursuit of a particular "unreachable" milestone. I'm getting increasingly optimistic that he will get there.
Part of the discrepancy in WAR I think is simply because Schilling pitched more innings, over 300 more, than Verlander has in his career. I'm sure Verlander's consistency and Schilling's personality and many of the other things you mention all play into it. But the sheer volume has an effect on the numbers, even if we don't *perceive* a 300-IP difference in their bodies of work.
At the same time, I think you're discounting the effects of recency bias and of people's inability to separate the man's accomplishments from his personality. And that your twitter following is presumably going to be, to a large degree, people who think as you do.
As a side note, I think you're discounting Schilling's fame. He was most definitely a star when he played. I have lived near Philly for more than 25 years, from his heyday during both the Phillies' brief success in the 90's to their return to the basement, and he was a star all that time, one of the city's most beloved sports icons at the time. Trading Schilling away really crushed people here.
And as a Yankee fan, I rooted against Schilling both in Arizona and Boston. They shot a commercial with him when he went to the Red Sox, in which he was learning to speak "BahStan", saying things like "Wikkid Haad" and what not. You don't shoot commercials with non-stars, usually. He was a big deal.
it was, truly, a great, iconic performance on many many levels. right after surgery, in pain, in one of the highest-pressure situations imaginable...i hate "gritty" but boy, if there's an example of a "gritty" performance, that one was it.
but blood gets darker over time, does it not? that sock is still as bright red as it was the day he wore it.
Verlander is my favorite pitcher (arguably PLAYER) of all time. He's the first one that I've been able to watch (in full baseball-fan-consciousness) from beginning to (near) end. He rose, then stumbled, then rose again greater than before. Plus he's just an ostensibly famous person. He's arguably the most famous baseball player to the common public (including Trout), and if not #1 he's in the top 3.
Schilling is a postseason legend. If nothing else I think he's a hall of fame player, but if the so-called character clause keeps Bonds and Clemens out then he should be out all the same. The Hall celebrates these men for their careers, but you can't separate those careers from personalities, and his should not be celebrated or honored.
I think it's the Black Ink Joe. I just checked at BR and Verlander has 72 Black Ink vs Schilling's 42! That's a huge disparity and is consistent with perception of dominance. Plus JV is ahead on Grey Ink and HoF Standards as well. In fact JV has one of the largest gaps between Black Ink rank (13) and Jaws (36) of a top pitcher. Of those ahead of him in Black Ink Nolan Ryan is similar (11/31) and Bob Feller has the amazing split of 8/44. So the real issue is, I think, that WAR seems to be underrating JV vs reputation. One other interesting point is that in JAWS (my favorite HOF indicator) Greinke, JV, and Kershaw are consecutive 35, 36, 37. Greinke leading in JAWS, but his Black Ink is only 14, a Rank of #169! Crazy different than the rank of JV's 13 and CK's 17.
That's a good take, I think. Schilling put up 4.94 bWAR per 200 IP vs 4.73 for JV, so its not just that JV has fewer innings. They currently have identical 1.137 WHIP, although they get there differently; CS walked fewer while JV allows fewer hits. How much of the WAR difference is due to similar baseline stats in very different run scoring environments? They both have seasons of 140 ERA+: Schilling with a 3.23 ERA in 2002 and Verlander with 3.04 in 2016.
Would Verlander have been this good if the Padres had drafted him?
Am I the only one that took a month to figure out how to create my profile? Ross I am with you on white chocolate and Andrew S - Fidrych for me. Anyway, I hope someone is still reading this thread because this is pretty cool (Velander's (maybe anybody's) greatest Inning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpIs__45t5I
Test
I'm sure a lot of people would've thought Schilling was better than Verlander if Schilling never went on Twitter.
I think the people who self select as Joe fans enough to respond to his Twitter poll, all people who embrace advanced stats and have been saying Schilling is underrated and an easy Hall choice, for years, are exactly the kinds of people not judging Schilling’s twitter feed.
Especially since Schilling’s big moments suffer from postseason bias.
What is postseason bias?
Remembering big moments or overweighting the small sample size of the postseason. Schilling had great moments in the postseason and he should be proud of them but those are a few games and are nothing compared to his overall body of work.
This is why Bill Mazeroski and Jack Morris are in the Hall.
Performance in the postseason is also massively more important than performance in the regular season. How much more important can be calculated, but I don't know the answer. But it's surely logical to give a great weight to postseason performance when assessing the greatness of a player.
I don't buy the tired old line about Maz being in the Hall due to one home run. He was the best 2B of the 1960's by quite a large margin, and many people would think that alone is enough qualification for the Hall.
Joe, WAR is wrong. Mike Minor (MIKE MINOR!!!!) has a better WAR than Verlander this year. Nothing against Minor, but that's completely, utterly, totally ridiculous, and only a fool would argue otherwise. If a "stat" is even close to suggesting that Mike Minor is having a better year than Justin Verlander, it's simply not defensible. It's wrong and, worse, useless, flat out.
I spent WAY too much of my day trying to figure out why this is the case. Best I can figure, it's a combination of Minor's opponents' offense being considerably better (more than a run per 9IP, according to baseball reference) and the Rangers' defense being about half a run per 9IP better than that of the Astros. Not sure I believe either or both of those, but that's how their calculations arrive there.
Here’s a pretty good explanation on how those bWAR calculations come out the way they do https://twitter.com/JamesSmyth621/status/1168569209523265536?s=20
It would be that the Rangers defense is worse, because the idea is that Mike Minor has to be worth more if he was able to keep his ERA that low given how terrible folks like Rougned Odor or Danny Santana or Nomar Mazara are with the glove.
Lance Lynn shows up at the top for the same reasons as Minor. Both have been talked about a lot all season.
Yes, the Rangers giving up about a quarter of a run more than average on defense and the Astros saving more than a quarter of a run per 9IP on defense accounts for almost half a run per 9IP, which works out to about 9 or ten runs difference total between them. The biggest difference is that Minor's home ballpark adjustment takes more than 10% off his numbers, while Verlander is helped by a couple of percent, so that's another 10 or more runs. As with the Porcello/Verlander debate in 2016, though, it's a question of whether those adjustments are really appropriate. They're applied across the board, as though they affected each pitcher on the team proportionately to how much they pitched there, I assume. Minor does indeed have a severe Home/Road split, with a 2.66 ERA away from Texas but a 3.70 ERA at home. (He does however have 21 fewer IP at ome, as he has made two more starts, and pitched better, on the road.) Verlander had 3 more starts, and 18 more innings away, but an ERA about 0.4 higher on the road. So the numbers seem to bear out what b-ref suggests.
I have a feeling Justin Verlander will have a few more Nicklaus moments ahead in his career, including his certain pursuit of a particular "unreachable" milestone. I'm getting increasingly optimistic that he will get there.
I'm just here for the support of white chocolate. I didn't realize how alone I was on my preference there.
Part of the discrepancy in WAR I think is simply because Schilling pitched more innings, over 300 more, than Verlander has in his career. I'm sure Verlander's consistency and Schilling's personality and many of the other things you mention all play into it. But the sheer volume has an effect on the numbers, even if we don't *perceive* a 300-IP difference in their bodies of work.
At the same time, I think you're discounting the effects of recency bias and of people's inability to separate the man's accomplishments from his personality. And that your twitter following is presumably going to be, to a large degree, people who think as you do.
As a side note, I think you're discounting Schilling's fame. He was most definitely a star when he played. I have lived near Philly for more than 25 years, from his heyday during both the Phillies' brief success in the 90's to their return to the basement, and he was a star all that time, one of the city's most beloved sports icons at the time. Trading Schilling away really crushed people here.
And as a Yankee fan, I rooted against Schilling both in Arizona and Boston. They shot a commercial with him when he went to the Red Sox, in which he was learning to speak "BahStan", saying things like "Wikkid Haad" and what not. You don't shoot commercials with non-stars, usually. He was a big deal.
We're still pretending the bloody sock was real?
right?
it was, truly, a great, iconic performance on many many levels. right after surgery, in pain, in one of the highest-pressure situations imaginable...i hate "gritty" but boy, if there's an example of a "gritty" performance, that one was it.
but blood gets darker over time, does it not? that sock is still as bright red as it was the day he wore it.
I've never heard that blood gets darker over time. Anyway, here's a webpage with a photo of Schilling's stitched-up ankle, for the conspiracy theorists (who probably think the CIA killed Kennedy and Bush exploded the World Trade Center): https://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/11/curt-schilling-bloody-sock-ketchup-truthers-boston-red-sox-mlb
Everyone knows LBJ had Kennedy killed.
Verlander is my favorite pitcher (arguably PLAYER) of all time. He's the first one that I've been able to watch (in full baseball-fan-consciousness) from beginning to (near) end. He rose, then stumbled, then rose again greater than before. Plus he's just an ostensibly famous person. He's arguably the most famous baseball player to the common public (including Trout), and if not #1 he's in the top 3.
Schilling is a postseason legend. If nothing else I think he's a hall of fame player, but if the so-called character clause keeps Bonds and Clemens out then he should be out all the same. The Hall celebrates these men for their careers, but you can't separate those careers from personalities, and his should not be celebrated or honored.
I think it's the Black Ink Joe. I just checked at BR and Verlander has 72 Black Ink vs Schilling's 42! That's a huge disparity and is consistent with perception of dominance. Plus JV is ahead on Grey Ink and HoF Standards as well. In fact JV has one of the largest gaps between Black Ink rank (13) and Jaws (36) of a top pitcher. Of those ahead of him in Black Ink Nolan Ryan is similar (11/31) and Bob Feller has the amazing split of 8/44. So the real issue is, I think, that WAR seems to be underrating JV vs reputation. One other interesting point is that in JAWS (my favorite HOF indicator) Greinke, JV, and Kershaw are consecutive 35, 36, 37. Greinke leading in JAWS, but his Black Ink is only 14, a Rank of #169! Crazy different than the rank of JV's 13 and CK's 17.
And Schilling is #27 in JAWS (#19 if 19th-century pitchers are excluded, as they probably should be).
That's a good take, I think. Schilling put up 4.94 bWAR per 200 IP vs 4.73 for JV, so its not just that JV has fewer innings. They currently have identical 1.137 WHIP, although they get there differently; CS walked fewer while JV allows fewer hits. How much of the WAR difference is due to similar baseline stats in very different run scoring environments? They both have seasons of 140 ERA+: Schilling with a 3.23 ERA in 2002 and Verlander with 3.04 in 2016.
That's wild about Greinke, Verlander, and Kershaw's JAWS vs Black Ink rankings. That's amazing! Thanks for bringing that here.