Blasphemers of Jake

[Frayed Knot]

And, btw, if you're going to get all huffy over CY votes (or MVP or whatever) no response you're going to have is going to be as good as the one Kate Upton had over the 2016 AL CY vote when Justin Verlander
finished 2nd due to several writers leaving him out of their top 5 entirely which cost him enough points to drop him off the lead despite his getting almost as many 1st place votes as all the others combined.

"Hey BBWAA", the then-girlfriend/now wife tweeted afterward, "I thought I was the only one who got to fuck Justin Verlander"



Now THAT'S how you protest a vote!

[Benjamin Grimm]

[dinosaur jesus]

Centerfield wrote: Does anyone have the run support numbers? I'm sure there was some difference between Jake and the other pitchers, but it's not like the team hit like the Red Sox in the other games. 23rd ranked offense isn't going to provide much run support all the way around.

3.5 runs a game. That's bad, and it's well below what the Mets scored overall, but it's not historically bad. Nola got 3.8, didn't pitch nearly as well, and had a much better W-L. I think Jake had bad luck on when the runs were scored. Scherzer got 5.4.

[Centerfield]

Is that true? 3.5 sounds much too high.

I thought I read something like if the Mets had just scored 3 runs each start, he would have won 48 games or something.

[G-Fafif]

The Last Blasphemer lays it on Randy Jones.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/mlb/sd-sp-degrom-scherzer-cy-young-vote-writer-20181115-story.html

Twenty-nine other writers didn't have an automatic column this morning.

[bmfc1]

Michael Wilbon is a blasphemer (on PTI): "I don't value what they value. I value winning the damn game."

[Edgy MD]

Michael Wilbon is an idiot. Has been for a long time. Either that or he writes and says idiotic things to get attention.

This, by the way, is pretty cool.

Benjamin Grimm wrote:

Wait a minute ... where are the other two Seavers? For that matter, what happened to Dickey's arm?

[dinosaur jesus]

Centerfield wrote: Is that true? 3.5 sounds much too high. I thought I read something like if the Mets had just scored 3 runs each start, he would have won 48 games or something.

The 3.49 is according to BaseballReference. If the Mets had scored exactly 3 runs each time he pitched, he would have gone 22-1 with 9 no-decisions. But it never actually works that way. And that also assumes that the bullpen didn't give up any runs at all.

[G-Fafif]

Nick Piecoro of Arizona Republic dissents from Yelich unanimity, gives 1st place MVP vote to Jake, who finished fifth overall.

The antimaffei.

[Frayed Knot]

Centerfield wrote: Is that true? 3.5 sounds much too high.

As an average that's real low. And then you have to remember that 'Average' can be a misleading term.
In his first four starts of the season, for instance, the Mets score 6, 8, 8, 6. And then they also later won a JdG start 12-2

Put another way, in his 32 starts they scored 3 or fewer 21 times.
0 runs scored = 3 times
1 = 6
2 = 3
3 = 9

In the other 11 games he twice got 4 runs of support. He also got 5 runs & 6 runs twice each. And then 8 runs four times and then the 12 run game already mentioned.

So while the mean might be 3.49, the mode and the median is 3.0 in a year where the average runs scored per/game-per/team was 4.45

[seawolf17]

Edgy MD wrote: Wait a minute ... where are the other two Seavers? For that matter, what happened to Dickey's arm?

[Benjamin Grimm]

On last night's Mets Hot Stove, they presented a graphic that said that Jacob deGrom is one of seven pitchers to win both the Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young. Pretty cool that three of the seven were Mets, and that they were Mets for both the ROY and the CY. I don't know who the other four were, but I bet Jon Matlack feels like a stooge for not having won a Cy Young Award. Darryl Strawberry too, for that matter.

[Edgy MD]

Fernando Valenzuela won them both in the same season, although Tom Seaver and Jim Palmer and Tim Raines might have felt that Fernandomania overinfluenced the voters.

[Centerfield]

G-Fafif wrote: The Last Blasphemer lays it on Randy Jones. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/mlb/sd-sp-degrom-scherzer-cy-young-vote-writer-20181115-story.html Twenty-nine other writers didn't have an automatic column this morning.

Yes, the Mets were a bad club, offensively and defensively. He didn't get run support. One emailer pointed out that if the Mets had scored two runs in DeGrom's starts, he would have been 20-6; three runs would have been 25-1; four runs 30-0. But you know what they say about ifs and buts. The numbers are what they are and — after hours of consideration — I was swayed by Scherzer’s 18-7 mark in 220 2/3 innings on an under-achieving Nationals club. I spoke with Randy Jones, a man I greatly respect. He was 22-14 with a bad Padres team in 1976 and won the Cy Young Award. In that conversation, Randy said, "Wins are the most important thing in the game. You need to pitch to the run support you get, whether that's one, two, three or 12.”

I wonder exactly what Randy meant.

If he meant "winning the game" is the most important thing. And that a pitcher's job is to pitch to the run support you get, then this is true. The objective of the game is to win. You win and lose as a team. If your teammates suck, it's on you to to be better.

But if Randy Jones mean "Wins are the most important stat", then he's wrong. And just because some pitcher says it, it's no excuse for a sportswriter to blindly follow.

Individual awards are just that. Individual awards. Judging the performance of an player independent of the performance of the other players. If that wasn't the case, the Cy Young should go to the best pitcher on the World Champions. No other pitcher accomplished "the most important thing". But that's silly.

Logic like this makes me irrationally upset. "In judging an individual's performance, I will use the statistic most poorly correlated with that individual's performance."

Anyone paying attention today knows that Randy Jones's 22 wins has nothing to do with deGrom's 10 wins today. In 1976 Randy had 25 complete games. That number led MLB. 11 people tied for the lead this year. That number is 2.

So yes, it's true that a pitcher's job is to pitch to the run support you get. I guess in today's game, a pitcher's job is to pitch to the run support you get, while taking into account the anticipated number of runs your bullpen will give up behind you.

Had we had Randy Jones, he would have known to give up -3 runs in each start.