Tom Glavine IS a Hall of Famer

Earlier I questioned if Tom Glavine deserves to make it into the hall of fame.

Based upon his win total alone, he WILL make it into the hall of fame. There is no question about that. But as we know, wins are a meaningless number when determining if a pitcher is good or not.

In the end of my first post, I said that it is certainly debatable while remaining slightly in the undeserving side of the fence even after baseball writer Dave Cameron responded to my tweet question, "an easy yes."

I decided to tweet this question to another one of my favorite baseball writer's Jonah Keri after he was discussing Andy Pettitte:

"I can understand the reasons to not vote Pettitte. But what about Glavine? Not great so/bb rate, less FG WAR than K. Brown."

Keri replied:

"Sean Smith has Glavine with slightly higher WAR. I'd vote both Glavine and Brown in anyway."

Me:

"I just checked out B-R's WAR, and Glavine is ahead of Brown (and Pettitte). I guess the so/bb rate left me underwhelmed."

Keri:

"Lots of great old-time pitchers had crappy K/BB rates too. Think of Glavine as a throwback. Pitched to his strengths."

There are two WARs: baseball reference and fangraphs. Both are great metrics. Glavine ranks 29th in bWAR. He is ahead of Juan Marichal, Bob Feller and Jim Palmer.

As for that underwhelming 1.74 so/bb rate, Keri was right. Some of the great pitchers of the past had poor so/bb rate. Palmer posted a 1.60 so/bb rate for his career, and Feller ended his career with a 1.46 so/bb rate. In addition, Glavine threw 4413.1 innings in his career and had 14 seasons pitching 200 or more innings. Glavine's hall of fame worth is in his innings pitched, longevity and pitching effectively in all of those innings (career 118 ERA+ and 3.95 FIP).

Tom Glavine--a throw back pitcher--and a hall of famer.

Tim Lincecum and his gem

One day after Roy Halladay threw a no hitter, San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum throws a better game in a tighter spot. In the Giants 1-0 win over the Atlanta Braves, Lincecum was one bad pitch away of losing the lead.

I couldn't hear the TBS announcers. I can imagine that they discussed pitch counts and "the next game." Am I wrong? Well, as we know from former Chicago Cubs manager Lou Pinella pulling game one starter Carlos Zambrano early to save him for the non existent game four? Lincecum gave the Giants the best chance to win this close game. Given that the Giants employ three other studs in Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez and Madison Bumgarner (meaning Lincecum won't be needed until the possible non existent game five), the decision was easy. In the end, he struck out 14, walked one.

D-back Dan Haren vs. Angel Dan Haren

Was Dan Haren better as an Angel or as a Diamondback this year?

I raised this question after reading the comments from a Rob Neyer story about Roy Halladay's gem.

ressehilsborne said:

"I'm so tired of hearing about how pitching to the NL is so much easier. It's total ####, first of all your pitching to major league hitters in either sense it's not going to be easy in either league. But time and time again i hear the same story.

So you think the DH adds a lot more depth and strength to the AL? Then do me a favor and explain to me what went wrong with Dan Haren this year? Why is it he was able to dominate as an Angel and do awful as a Diamondback. Better yet, lets look at the entire career of Barry Zito. Dominated the AL, yet he cant even put up a winning season as a Giant.

Put the AL, NL #### to rest already and find some new material. Halladay pitching the way he did tonight would have cut any team in half, including his own."

I won't dabble in the AL vs. NL debate, but it was interesting to see how Haren fared as an Angel as opposed to his time this year with the Diamondbacks. If you recall, Haren had a "rough" going as a Diamondback. I put rough in quotes because his traditional numbers were pedestrian, but his rate stats were exceptional.

In 141 innings with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Haren had a 7-8 record and a 4.60 ERA. In 94 innings with the Los Angeles, California Angels of Anaheim, Haren had a 5-4 record and a 2.87 ERA. That being said, Haren in two of three categories had better rate stats. He posted 1.9 bb/9 and a 9.0 so/9 with the Diamondbacks, and 2.4 bb/9 and 7.4 so/9 with the Angels. The difference is that he gave up 1.5 hr/9 with the Diamondbacks as opposed to 0.8 hr/9 with the Angels. If we take a deeper look, we will see that he had a 3.88 FIP with the Diamondbacks and a 3.45 FIP with the Angels. His WAR with the Diamondbacks was 2.5 and his WAR with the Angels was 2.0. Now WAR is a counting stat, but it is safe to say that Haren was only a little bit better as an Angel than as a Diamondback this season. This is due to the fact that he had a higher home run rate with the Diamondbacks. The one thing we need to keep in mind in this analysis is the 47 inning difference. There's your answer, ressehilsborne.

Welcome to Doctober

Roy Halladay pitches a no hitter in his playoff debut. In beating the Cincinnati Reds, Halladay becomes the second pitcher to throw a no hitter in playoff history. This happens to be the second no hitter he has thrown this season--the first being a perfect game.

Great players do great things whether it be in the regular season or the playoffs. The thing about the playoffs is that it magnifies hot streaks or slumps. It is still shocking that Halladay pitched a no hitter, but it is not shocking that he struck out eight, walked one and gave up no home runs. His so/bb ratio for the season is 7.3, and his hr/9 is at .9. He threw nine complete games and four shut outs.

Halladay's gem was just as good as his last start of the season in which the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Washington Nationals 8-0. In that game, he threw a complete game shut out, giving up two hits, striking out six, walking none and of course giving up no home runs. The only difference is two balls fell for hits. In his brilliant playoff debut, he pitched ridiculously well and got a little lucky that not one ball dropped in for a hit. Striking out batters, not giving up free passes and limiting the long ball...well...that's what makes him amazing.

Baseball Playoff Predictions

Since the baseball playoffs are so random, I decided to draw names from a hat to make my predictions. If I were to do some real analysis, I'd say Rays over Phillies and write 1,000 words. But even with analysis, anything can happen. Yeah yeah. Cliche. But it rings true with baseball. That's how we end up with the St. Louis Cardinals winning the World Series with David Eckstein as the World Series MVP and Jeff Suppan as the NLCS MVP a few years ago.

Rangers vs. Rays

Rangers

Yankees vs. Twins

Yankees

Phillies vs. Reds

Phillies

Braves vs. Giants

Braves

Yankees vs. Rangers

Rangers

Braves vs. Phillies

Braves

Rangers vs. Braves

Braves

Your 2010 World Series champion, Atlanta Braves. Bobby Cox retires a winner. I picked the Yankees to beat the Braves early in the season. Random drawing picks the Braves over the Rangers. My logic picks the Rays over Phillies. So you know it's going to be Twins over the Reds.

The Brennan Boesch All-Stars Revisited

A few weeks before the All-Star break, I wrote about major league baseball players having unlikely breakout first halves. You can read it here. The purpose of this post was to see some of these guys come back to earth after an awesome first few months of the season. I will first restate the stats as of June 27, 2010 and then will compile their end of the season stats.

Brennan Boesch

.337/.389/.611 162 OPS+

.256/.320/.416 99 OPS+

Boesch essentially went from Albert Pujols numbers to a tick below average hitter.

Paul Konerko

.302/.396/.583 157 OPS+

.312/.393/.583 158 OPS+

Konerko had a very consistent season, and there's even talks about him for MVP. Those talks have softened a bit as the Chicago White Sox fell out of contention. Really, he's not even the best offensive first baseman in the American League. Still. There's nothing bad about those numbers.

Vernon Wells

.281/.336/.562 141 OPS+

.273/.331/.515 127 OPS+

Wells got off to a great start. He showed the skills that awarded him an insanely high contract. I called shenanigans. While he cooled off a bit, he had a fine season. His on base skills are average, but when he connects on a ball, he certainly drives it.

Alex Rios

.311/.369/.541 139 OPS+

.284/.334/.457 109 OPS+

The paragraph that describes Wells can be copy/pasted here. Minus the part where I wrote, "but when he connects on a ball, he certainly drives it."

Corey Hart

.272/.339/.576 144 OPS+

.283/.340/.525 132 OPS+

Hart made the All-Star team and was rewarded with a contract extension. He had a nice year, but I would be shocked if his production continues on to next season and beyond.

Josh Willingham

.277/.408/.498 144 OPS+

.268/.389/.459 129 OPS+

Did you know that Willingham's career OPS+ is 121? Did you also know that he is 31 years old? Nevertheless, he had a very good offensive season. The .408 on base percentage stuck out for me when I made this initial list, but a .389 on base percentage is very good.

Aubrey Huff

.298/.389/.520 138 OPS+

.290/.385/.506 138 OPS+

Huff remained consistent throughout the season, however, if you look at his career, there is nothing consistent about him. I wouldn't be shocked to see an OPS+ under 100 next season. That is, after San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean rewards him with a 3 year $40 million contract this off season.

Kelly Johnson

.264/.366/.494 121 OPS+

.284/.370/.496 128 OPS+

Johnson improved as the season went on. A second baseman with a good on base percentage and some power is a great commodity. He is truly an underrated player this season. It is hard to judge if he will continue this good performance or drop in production since there isn't a ton of games under his belt.

Max Scherzer is a Solid Two

In that big three way trade last off season, the Detroit Tigers came away with the best player--so far. Curtis Granderson made the most headlines, Edwin Jackson pitched an eight walk no hitter, but Max Scherzer is a true top of the rotation pitcher.

After heading to the minors, it didn't look like Scherzer was going to be better than another pitcher involved in the deal, Ian Kennedy. The two pitchers faced off, and I wrote about it. In the game recap, I wrote this:

"Going into this game, it looks like Kennedy has had a better year than Scherzer--especially if you use ERA as the basis of your argument. Scherzer has a 6.14 ERA and Kennedy has a 3.57 ERA."

And after doing some deeper analysis, I concluded with this:

"Both pitchers have very similar rate stats. If Scherzer can lower his home run rate to somewhere closer to his career of 1.1/9, his ERA will drop and if Kennedy can do the same, he will be able to sustain his ERA."

Now the season is over and here is how they ended up.

Kennedy:

191 innings, 111 ERA+, 1.2 hr/9, 3.2 bb/9, 7.8 so/9, 2.40 so/bb, 2.5 fangraph's war

Scherzer:

195.2 innings, 120 ERA+, .9 hr/9, 3.2 bb/9, 8.5 so/9, 2.63 so/bb, 3.7 fangraph's war

Both pitchers had nice seasons. Early on, it looked like Scherzer was going to flame out, but it is clear that Scherzer is turning into a stud.