Last year he had the largest margin between his ERA > and that of the second place pitcher in history - and he had it by a lot. > He also had the largest margin between his ERA and that of the league > average. Again, by a lot.
But aside from the impossibility of comparing athletes in different eras what does this mean. Think about it.The ERA for the league is higher. There is in fact almost no upper limit to the ERA a pitcher or the league can have. But there is a lower limit. No one can have an ERA of less than 0. So Gibson and Kofax may not have been seperated from the other pitchers statistically by that much but they could have been as dominant or more dominant. Bluntly, Gautam I think this is hogwash. The people who can judge. Players and managers and commentators who have seen all pitchers over the past 40 years do not make the same claim. They acknowledge Pedro's greatness but they talk about Kofax and Gibson with awe. The only people who could know are those who have watched all of these guys pitch with an expertise that us fans cannot understand. Me: But it's not impossible. It's just difficult. But to say that it's impossible is to ignore the efforts of the sabermetric community over the past decade, which have made it entirely doable. We _can_ compare players from different eras. We do it by normalizing for league and park context. Players and managers and commentators are, to be blunt, full of shit. The numbers don't lie - memory, as any psychologist can tell you - is immensely fallible. Those commentators remember Gibson and Koufax pitching off 18 inch mounds. This "us fans cannot understand" stuff is ridiculous. There are lots of things about baseball that I don't understand as well as people who play the game. But there are some things that I understand _better_ than most people who play the game, because I have access to modes of analysis that are vastly superior to those that they are willing to accept. Most players and commentators and so on still think that batting average is a meaningful statistic. But it's not, and we've known that for a long time. > Pedro's last two seasons are the two best by any > >. > I am willing to > say with a fair degree of certainty - without looking it up - that the > Mariners have a winning record against the Yankees this season. The season is irrelevant. It is what you have done in th post season. The Yankees have been special in the post season. This Mariner team has yet to show that they can be. Me: But everyone has to win for the first time. By that argument the Yankees should have been toast in 1996. But, oddly enough, they weren't. The season counts for a lot, in terms of an indicator of quality. In fact, given the element of luck involved in the postseason, I think it's far more reliable than who wins the World Series in terms of judging team quality. Finally, > note the influence of the unbalanced schedule. Gautam - The regular season has only one purpose. Get to the playoffs as healthy as possible. As I have said before it is all in the end game. The only thing that is important is how far you will go in the playoffs. Stats are useful for trying to figure out how to put together a team that can win but they are not how we judge team sport success. To be the best you must win it all. Me: Yes and no. You also have to acknowledge - in baseball in particular - that sometimes you just won't. Sometimes the ball just bounces against you. It's not skill, it's not a lack of character, it's not anything. Bad things happen to good people, in baseball as in life. The failure to acknowledge the role of luck is an attempt to impose a rational framework on an inherently irrational factor. > Note that I'm not saying the Yankees won't win. A 5 or 7 game series is > just a flip of the coin. The worst team in baseball could take a 7 game > series from the best. Are you serious? When has this happened? You love your stats so much - how often have wild cards won the series in or any other major championship. Surely you cannot believe that what the Yanks have done to the rest of baseball over the past five years is luck. If that is the way you look at the world remind me not to let you do anything meaningful for me. Me: 1997. Who won the world series? That would be the Marlins, the wild card team. 1998 - who won the Superbowl? That would be the Broncos. The wild card team. This is just the first two teams I think of off the top of my head. Wild cards do, in fact, win the series. Not as often as the main draw. This is obvious. They aren't as good as teams in the main draw. So they shouldn't. But they do. The Marlins weren't the best team in the postseason. Not even close. But they did get Eric Gregg's strike zone and a whole lot of luck, and they won. I'm just saying that the A's and Mariners are better > teams, and will _probably_ win. You have it backwards. If they win they will provide evidence that they are better teams. If they do it twice or three times or 4 times in the next 5 years they will prove they are better teams. Me: Why? This is a different Yankees team than the one that won it in 1998. Make no mistake, this is one of the great teams in baseball history - I would never deny it. Certainly one of the top four teams ever - with the late 1920s Yankees, the early 1970s Orioles, and the 1950s Yankees, probably in that order. I haven't done the rigorous analysis that would let me parse it anymore than that - although I recommend _Baseball Dynasties_ by Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein for anyone who is interested in the topic. But if Cleveland wins this year, or Atlanta, it won't be because they're the best team in the majors - and if I were saying this about Cleveland or Atlanta, you wouldn't be arguing. It would be luck. > > Gautam
