--- "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > So, you are arguing that "the greatest pitcher of > all-time" *must* have had longevity? I am > surprised that you claim so confidently that it is > "foolish" to disagree with this principle. > > In my mind, if one considers injuries to essentially > be a random and rare function, I think that it would > be very sensible to make discounts for careers > cut-short by injury - even if one still wanted to > devalue a pitcher (or player) whose career seemed to > end early because of prematurely declining skills. > > JDG
Of course I am arguing that the greatest pitcher of all time has to have longevity. You're a football fan. If a running back ran for 2500 yards his rookie season and never played another game, would you say he was the greatest running back of all time, or one who had a really great season? He might have had the _talent_ to have become the greatest running back of all time, but he didn't actually do it, did he? Who would you rather have on your team for his entire career, that hypothetical back or Walter Payton? Plus, declining skills are often a product of injury as much as they are of age. Tommy John went from a hard tosser to a soft one after he had his eponymous surgery, probably hurting his value as a pitcher and quite possibly keeping him out of the Hall of Fame. By your standard if he had stopped playing after he was injured we should consider him to be a better pitcher than because he was able to figure out a way to keep contributing to his teams. That doesn't make sense to me. Furthermore, injuries aren't a random or infrequent factor for pitchers. They are a non-random, frequent factor. Power pitchers are less likely to get injured that soft-tossers (Koufax, of course, was the quintessential power pitcher). Furthermore, pitchers get injured all the time (unless they play for the Oakland A's right now). The odds of a pitcher having a major injury in a season are (IIRC) over 10%. Being able to avoid getting injured is a talent just as surely as striking someone out - because if you're on the bench, you can't contribute to your team. Surely one part of Greg Maddux's remarkable ability is the fact that he is never, ever injured. That's not random - it's because he has flawless mechanics and is the most efficient pitcher in the history of the modern game. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
