One additional thing I noticed is that Hunter had a better 2nd half than Blue in 1971.
You say (correctly) that Hunter had a better ERA at home, but you fail to mention that in his epic season Vida's ERA was twice as high on the road as it was at home.
My main objection to the "new" stats is that they can be very misleading if used by themselves. In this case Blue had a phenomenal 4 months of pitching that inflates (in my opinion) his career value. I am also wondering how his 6 game performance in 1970 with a ERA+ of 171 affects his final number. Giving him a 171 for pitching well for 38 innings doesn't seem right to me.
I also seem to remember that Vida had some drug problems, that could keep some people from voting for him.
I went through you list of pitchers you said were as good as Hunter and only one, Sam McDowell looks better to me.Sam was only a good starter for 10 years though, but he was dominant.
Milt Pappas is an example of how ERA+ is misleading, he had about three very good seasons spread out over his career.
Saying repeatedly that some people thought he was good, kind of proves that they were right.
In doing a little research, I also read that some of your new numbers are also said NOT to be good when comparing one player to another.
Happy New Year!
How is ERA+ misleading for Pappas? His is 110 which says he was 10% better than average. Sounds pretty accurate to me.
"Greenies" could also hurt your performance. In Bouton's book "Ball Four" he discusses them at length. So, no, they were NOT performance enhancing "period".
Comparing amphetamines to steroids is like comparing a firecracker to the atomic bomb. They both make a noise, but the results are quite different.
Pud Galvin might have been fooling around, but he didn't gain 20-30 lbs of muscle.
Happy New Year!
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
One additional thing I noticed is that Hunter had a better 2nd half than Blue in 1971.
You say (correctly) that Hunter had a better ERA at home, but you fail to mention that in his epic season Vida's ERA was twice as high on the road as it was at home.
My main objection to the "new" stats is that they can be very misleading if used by themselves. In this case Blue had a phenomenal 4 months of pitching that inflates (in my opinion) his career value. I am also wondering how his 6 game performance in 1970 with a ERA+ of 171 affects his final number. Giving him a 171 for pitching well for 38 innings doesn't seem right to me.
I also seem to remember that Vida had some drug problems, that could keep some people from voting for him.
I went through you list of pitchers you said were as good as Hunter and only one, Sam McDowell looks better to me.Sam was only a good starter for 10 years though, but he was dominant.
Milt Pappas is an example of how ERA+ is misleading, he had about three very good seasons spread out over his career.
Saying repeatedly that some people thought he was good, kind of proves that they were right.
In doing a little research, I also read that some of your new numbers are also said NOT to be good when comparing one player to another.
Happy New Year!
How is ERA+ misleading for Pappas? His is 110 which says he was 10% better than average. Sounds pretty accurate to me.
So does that mean you think Pappas was a better pitcher than Hunter?
Look at all of his stats. You get rewarded in ERA+ for doing less. To put it more accurately; if you pitch fewer innings and pitch well, you do better than if you pitch more innings and don't pitch quite as well. In comparing Pappas to Hunter, Hunter had 35-40 starts a year and Pappas was usually 30-35. Probably why Hunter was able to get those couple of extra wins that made him a 20 game winner.
In 1970 Pappas had 23 starts and his + was 133, in 1974 Hunter had a + of 134 and started 41 games (with a much lower era, more wins and a better so/bb ratio). If you are a starting pitcher and only start about 1/2 the games most starting pitchers do, you should get penalized somehow. I keep telling you guys the "+" numbers are bad, but few listen.
A perfect example is Vida Blue's 1970 ERA+ of 171 for 38.2 innings pitched. Was he the best pitcher that year?
Good night.
Happy New Year!
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
One additional thing I noticed is that Hunter had a better 2nd half than Blue in 1971.
You say (correctly) that Hunter had a better ERA at home, but you fail to mention that in his epic season Vida's ERA was twice as high on the road as it was at home.
My main objection to the "new" stats is that they can be very misleading if used by themselves. In this case Blue had a phenomenal 4 months of pitching that inflates (in my opinion) his career value. I am also wondering how his 6 game performance in 1970 with a ERA+ of 171 affects his final number. Giving him a 171 for pitching well for 38 innings doesn't seem right to me.
I also seem to remember that Vida had some drug problems, that could keep some people from voting for him.
I went through you list of pitchers you said were as good as Hunter and only one, Sam McDowell looks better to me.Sam was only a good starter for 10 years though, but he was dominant.
Milt Pappas is an example of how ERA+ is misleading, he had about three very good seasons spread out over his career.
Saying repeatedly that some people thought he was good, kind of proves that they were right.
In doing a little research, I also read that some of your new numbers are also said NOT to be good when comparing one player to another.
Happy New Year!
And Happy New Year to you, too.
I'll try to address each of your points as briefly as I can.
All A's pitchers had low ERA's at home - it was a tremendously hard park to hit in. Because of the mistaken emphasis on BA and ERA, the A's pitchers are all considered much better than they actually were, and all their hitters are considered worse than they actually were. My statement that Blue was better than Hunter was based on their bodies of work over their entire careers, home and away, which I spelled out in painful detail in the rundown of their ERA+, WAR and WPA. Rest assured that Blue gets the same adjustment for pitching in Oakland that Hunter does in all of those stats. Also, Blue pitched 3,300 innings, so that 38 inning "season" has about a 1% impact in his career total. And he pitched great for that 1% of his career, so it would hardly be fair to pretend it didn't happen.
I don't know what you're looking at when you say that only McDowell "looks" better to you. The point that I've been trying to make is that if you look at the unadjusted stats and wins and losses then you're looking at the wrong stuff and you'll reach the wrong conclusions.
Whether Papas was better or worse than Hunter is subjective, and they're close. Pappas made a greater contribution to winning games over the course of his career than Hunter, but he did it slowly and steadily while Hunter did it with one big burst offset by years of mediocrity and a few years of putridness. I'm about to post another of my famous long lists that two or three of you will read that shows Hunter well above Pappas because it places value only on the good seasons and ignores the bad seasons. That - ignoring the bad seasons - is what Hunter's fans have to do to see a great pitcher.
I know lots of stats, including several that I use often, are fair to poor at comparing players from different eras, but as far as I know all of them do a very good job of comparing players who played at about the same time. Which stats are you referring to that can't be used to compare players in the same era?
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@JoeBanzai said:
"Greenies" could also hurt your performance. In Bouton's book "Ball Four" he discusses them at length. So, no, they were NOT performance enhancing "period".
Comparing amphetamines to steroids is like comparing a firecracker to the atomic bomb. They both make a noise, but the results are quite different.
Pud Galvin might have been fooling around, but he didn't gain 20-30 lbs of muscle.
Happy New Year!
What was the players intent when they used amphetamines?
@JoeBanzai said:
"Greenies" could also hurt your performance. In Bouton's book "Ball Four" he discusses them at length. So, no, they were NOT performance enhancing "period".
Comparing amphetamines to steroids is like comparing a firecracker to the atomic bomb. They both make a noise, but the results are quite different.
Pud Galvin might have been fooling around, but he didn't gain 20-30 lbs of muscle.
@JoeBanzai said:
"Greenies" could also hurt your performance. In Bouton's book "Ball Four" he discusses them at length. So, no, they were NOT performance enhancing "period".
Comparing amphetamines to steroids is like comparing a firecracker to the atomic bomb. They both make a noise, but the results are quite different.
Pud Galvin might have been fooling around, but he didn't gain 20-30 lbs of muscle.
Happy New Year!
Head in the sand
I really don't understand the "Head in the sand" comment unless you are just trying to be insulting.
Jim Bouton was a MLB player. He says in his book that lots of players took "greenies". He also said they could hurt your performance as well as help it.
Amphetamines are an attempt at cheating that doesn't necessarily improve your performance, so at best the improvement is minimal and could be negative, so you don't really gain an advantage by using them. As a young man I used a variety of "uppers" and sometimes they "worked" other times they just made me nervous and jittery, sometimes I still fell asleep.
The same is true for any early use of steroids, there was no advantage brought to the players until (in the NFL) trainers began figuring out how to make the players bigger and stronger. In MLB players were cautioned for years not to lift weights so they wouldn't get "muscle bound".
I realize and agree that players have always cheated, but with the steroid use of the 1990's and forward it is a big difference in the results SOME players were able to achieve.
It's really simple, if you try to cheat and it doesn't really help you, or only a little bit, a clean player still has a good chance at beating you. If you figure out how to cheat and become 10-30-? bigger/better, then the clean guy has no chance.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
One additional thing I noticed is that Hunter had a better 2nd half than Blue in 1971.
You say (correctly) that Hunter had a better ERA at home, but you fail to mention that in his epic season Vida's ERA was twice as high on the road as it was at home.
My main objection to the "new" stats is that they can be very misleading if used by themselves. In this case Blue had a phenomenal 4 months of pitching that inflates (in my opinion) his career value. I am also wondering how his 6 game performance in 1970 with a ERA+ of 171 affects his final number. Giving him a 171 for pitching well for 38 innings doesn't seem right to me.
I also seem to remember that Vida had some drug problems, that could keep some people from voting for him.
I went through you list of pitchers you said were as good as Hunter and only one, Sam McDowell looks better to me.Sam was only a good starter for 10 years though, but he was dominant.
Milt Pappas is an example of how ERA+ is misleading, he had about three very good seasons spread out over his career.
Saying repeatedly that some people thought he was good, kind of proves that they were right.
In doing a little research, I also read that some of your new numbers are also said NOT to be good when comparing one player to another.
Happy New Year!
And Happy New Year to you, too.
I'll try to address each of your points as briefly as I can.
All A's pitchers had low ERA's at home - it was a tremendously hard park to hit in. Because of the mistaken emphasis on BA and ERA, the A's pitchers are all considered much better than they actually were, and all their hitters are considered worse than they actually were. My statement that Blue was better than Hunter was based on their bodies of work over their entire careers, home and away, which I spelled out in painful detail in the rundown of their ERA+, WAR and WPA. Rest assured that Blue gets the same adjustment for pitching in Oakland that Hunter does in all of those stats. Also, Blue pitched 3,300 innings, so that 38 inning "season" has about a 1% impact in his career total. And he pitched great for that 1% of his career, so it would hardly be fair to pretend it didn't happen.
I don't know what you're looking at when you say that only McDowell "looks" better to you. The point that I've been trying to make is that if you look at the unadjusted stats and wins and losses then you're looking at the wrong stuff and you'll reach the wrong conclusions.
Whether Papas was better or worse than Hunter is subjective, and they're close. Pappas made a greater contribution to winning games over the course of his career than Hunter, but he did it slowly and steadily while Hunter did it with one big burst offset by years of mediocrity and a few years of putridness. I'm about to post another of my famous long lists that two or three of you will read that shows Hunter well above Pappas because it places value only on the good seasons and ignores the bad seasons. That - ignoring the bad seasons - is what Hunter's fans have to do to see a great pitcher.
I know lots of stats, including several that I use often, are fair to poor at comparing players from different eras, but as far as I know all of them do a very good job of comparing players who played at about the same time. Which stats are you referring to that can't be used to compare players in the same era?
I simply don't agree that adjusted stats are always better.
As I have said repeatedly, wins and losses are not the best way to rate individuals in any team sport, but they do mean a little.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@JoeBanzai said:
As I have said repeatedly, wins and losses are not the best way to rate individuals in any team sport, but they do mean a little.
An important semantic distinction: wins and losses mean everything in baseball, and in every other sport. It is the random and misleading practice of assigning wins and losses to pitchers that is the problem. Bill James performed the Herculean task of assigning wins to every player on every roster, from the pitcher down to the utility infielder, and while there are many ways reasonable people can quibble with how he did it, there is simply no question that he has painted a much clearer picture of which players were actually responsible for winning games.
Imagine that the decision to assign wins and losses to pitchers had never been made, and those stats never showed up on baseball cards or anywhere else. How would you go about determining how good a pitcher was then? I'd still argue that you'd need to look at adjusted stats to make a meaningful comparison between pitchers in Oakland and Boston, but by throwing away the W/L numbers, you'd be a step ahead at least.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@JoeBanzai said:
As I have said repeatedly, wins and losses are not the best way to rate individuals in any team sport, but they do mean a little.
An important semantic distinction: wins and losses mean everything in baseball, and in every other sport. It is the random and misleading practice of assigning wins and losses to pitchers that is the problem. Bill James performed the Herculean task of assigning wins to every player on every roster, from the pitcher down to the utility infielder, and while there are many ways reasonable people can quibble with how he did it, there is simply no question that he has painted a much clearer picture of which players were actually responsible for winning games.
Imagine that the decision to assign wins and losses to pitchers had never been made, and those stats never showed up on baseball cards or anywhere else. How would you go about determining how good a pitcher was then? I'd still argue that you'd need to look at adjusted stats to make a meaningful comparison between pitchers in Oakland and Boston, but by throwing away the W/L numbers, you'd be a step ahead at least.
It is not completely random and not completely misleading. Here’s a list of the current Active Career Win Leaders. (I think it could almost double as the list of the best pitchers of the era.)
If it were truly random, the list of the best pitchers would not resemble this list in any way. If it were misleading, there would be glaring omissions. (Obviously having very few seasons hurts). Again, there are some explainable outliers on every list but it’s there for consumption.
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
@1951WheatiesPremium said:
It is not completely random and not completely misleading. Here’s a list of the current Active Career Win Leaders. (I think it could almost double as the list of the best pitchers of the era.)
Well, yeah, but you're looking at a career list. Pretty much by definition the pitchers who keep pitching a lot of games for a long time are going to be the better pitchers and they're going to have more of everything than other pitchers. Had you shown instead the current Active Career Innings Pitched Leaders, you would have shown essentially the same list (24 of 27 names are common to both) in only a slightly different order. Ranking pitching greatness by innings pitched would, I think, seem silly to most people while ranking them by wins would not. But they're essentially the same list. Or how about ranking pitchers by their games lost? 14 of the top 15 in losses are also on the wins leaders list you posted, so it wouldn't make that much difference.
Whether you start with the Innings list or the Losses list, three things will affect any change to the ordering as you move to the Wins list: pitching greatness, team greatness, and randomness (run support, mostly). There is absolutely no way to tell which of those factors or combination of factors is operating on any given pitcher by looking only at "baseball card stats". No possible way. There are ways to tell, and my crusade here is to get people to look at those things. But, once you are looking at those things you will never need to look at Wins and Losses again; they add nothing at all to what you'll already know once you've looked at the things that matter.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@1951WheatiesPremium said:
It is not completely random and not completely misleading. Here’s a list of the current Active Career Win Leaders. (I think it could almost double as the list of the best pitchers of the era.)
Well, yeah, but you're looking at a career list. Pretty much by definition the pitchers who keep pitching a lot of games for a long time are going to be the better pitchers and they're going to have more of everything than other pitchers. Had you shown instead the current Active Career Innings Pitched Leaders, you would have shown essentially the same list (24 of 27 names are common to both) in only a slightly different order. Ranking pitching greatness by innings pitched would, I think, seem silly to most people while ranking them by wins would not. But they're essentially the same list. Or how about ranking pitchers by their games lost? 14 of the top 15 in losses are also on the wins leaders list you posted, so it wouldn't make that much difference.
Whether you start with the Innings list or the Losses list, three things will affect any change to the ordering as you move to the Wins list: pitching greatness, team greatness, and randomness (run support, mostly). There is absolutely no way to tell which of those factors or combination of factors is operating on any given pitcher by looking only at "baseball card stats". No possible way. There are ways to tell, and my crusade here is to get people to look at those things. But, once you are looking at those things you will never need to look at Wins and Losses again; they add nothing at all to what you'll already know once you've looked at the things that matter.
Huh?
Look at W-L, IP, K, BB, ERA, WHIP. (All are on baseball cards. Most since they started putting stats on cards.)
Or
Take those very same stats above, throw out wins and losses and the rest toss them in the statusical blender and get them to be one number.
Produce basically the same list.
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
@JoeBanzai said:
"Greenies" could also hurt your performance. In Bouton's book "Ball Four" he discusses them at length. So, no, they were NOT performance enhancing "period".
Comparing amphetamines to steroids is like comparing a firecracker to the atomic bomb. They both make a noise, but the results are quite different.
Pud Galvin might have been fooling around, but he didn't gain 20-30 lbs of muscle.
Happy New Year!
Head in the sand
I really don't understand the "Head in the sand" comment unless you are just trying to be insulting.
Jim Bouton was a MLB player. He says in his book that lots of players took "greenies". He also said they could hurt your performance as well as help it.
Amphetamines are an attempt at cheating that doesn't necessarily improve your performance, so at best the improvement is minimal and could be negative, so you don't really gain an advantage by using them. As a young man I used a variety of "uppers" and sometimes they "worked" other times they just made me nervous and jittery, sometimes I still fell asleep.
The same is true for any early use of steroids, there was no advantage brought to the players until (in the NFL) trainers began figuring out how to make the players bigger and stronger. In MLB players were cautioned for years not to lift weights so they wouldn't get "muscle bound".
I realize and agree that players have always cheated, but with the steroid use of the 1990's and forward it is a big difference in the results SOME players were able to achieve.
It's really simple, if you try to cheat and it doesn't really help you, or only a little bit, a clean player still has a good chance at beating you. If you figure out how to cheat and become 10-30-? bigger/better, then the clean guy has no chance.
Both amphetamines and steroids are performance enhancing. To what degree, no one really knows. How many extra stolen bases, home runs, 100 mph fastballs are due the to the use of steroids, amphetamines or other PEDs? No one knows. Not me, not you, not physicians, not baseball GMs and not even jim bouton. Do amphetamines work for every player? Nope. Do steroids work for every player, nope. But for many players they do. Wouldn't you think that if a player were experiencing negative effects they would discontinue use? I would. I am sure you have heard of the amount of amphetamines Willie Mays injested. Should he get off Scott free while more modern players get crucified?
The head in the sand comment is because you seem so personally invested into golden age players that you cannot imagine them being looked at in the same lense modern players are. You seem to not want to see or acknowledge that those old timers cheated too. They did. I am sorry it seems to hurt your feelings, but you do have your head in the sand on this one.
Look at W-L, IP, K, BB, ERA, WHIP. (All are on baseball cards. Most since they started putting stats on cards.)
Or
Take those very same stats above, throw out wins and losses and the rest toss them in the statusical blender and get them to be one number.
Produce basically the same list.
I have no idea what this means.
“There is absolutely no way to tell which of those factors or combination of factors is operating on any given pitcher by looking only at "baseball card stats". No possible way.”
I’m saying that whether you use back of the baseball card OR a derivative formula, it’s not that hard to figure out whom is better than who.
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
@JoeBanzai said:
"Greenies" could also hurt your performance. In Bouton's book "Ball Four" he discusses them at length. So, no, they were NOT performance enhancing "period".
Comparing amphetamines to steroids is like comparing a firecracker to the atomic bomb. They both make a noise, but the results are quite different.
Pud Galvin might have been fooling around, but he didn't gain 20-30 lbs of muscle.
Happy New Year!
Head in the sand
I really don't understand the "Head in the sand" comment unless you are just trying to be insulting.
Jim Bouton was a MLB player. He says in his book that lots of players took "greenies". He also said they could hurt your performance as well as help it.
Amphetamines are an attempt at cheating that doesn't necessarily improve your performance, so at best the improvement is minimal and could be negative, so you don't really gain an advantage by using them. As a young man I used a variety of "uppers" and sometimes they "worked" other times they just made me nervous and jittery, sometimes I still fell asleep.
The same is true for any early use of steroids, there was no advantage brought to the players until (in the NFL) trainers began figuring out how to make the players bigger and stronger. In MLB players were cautioned for years not to lift weights so they wouldn't get "muscle bound".
I realize and agree that players have always cheated, but with the steroid use of the 1990's and forward it is a big difference in the results SOME players were able to achieve.
It's really simple, if you try to cheat and it doesn't really help you, or only a little bit, a clean player still has a good chance at beating you. If you figure out how to cheat and become 10-30-? bigger/better, then the clean guy has no chance.
Both amphetamines and steroids are performance enhancing. To what degree, no one really knows. How many extra stolen bases, home runs, 100 mph fastballs are due the to the use of steroids, amphetamines or other PEDs? No one knows. Not me, not you, not physicians, not baseball GMs and not even jim bouton. Do amphetamines work for every player? Nope. Do steroids work for every player, nope. But for many players they do. Wouldn't you think that if a player were experiencing negative effects they would discontinue use? I would. I am sure you have heard of the amount of amphetamines Willie Mays injested. Should he get off Scott free while more modern players get crucified?
The head in the sand comment is because you seem so personally invested into golden age players that you cannot imagine them being looked at in the same lense modern players are. You seem to not want to see or acknowledge that those old timers cheated too. They did. I am sorry it seems to hurt your feelings, but you do have your head in the sand on this one.
Doesn't hurt my feelings at all. As I have said, the old timers cheated too, but the juicers got a lot more bang for their buck.
You did get one thing right. You have no idea of how these drugs affect athletes.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@JoeBanzai said:
"Greenies" could also hurt your performance. In Bouton's book "Ball Four" he discusses them at length. So, no, they were NOT performance enhancing "period".
Comparing amphetamines to steroids is like comparing a firecracker to the atomic bomb. They both make a noise, but the results are quite different.
Pud Galvin might have been fooling around, but he didn't gain 20-30 lbs of muscle.
Happy New Year!
Head in the sand
I really don't understand the "Head in the sand" comment unless you are just trying to be insulting.
Jim Bouton was a MLB player. He says in his book that lots of players took "greenies". He also said they could hurt your performance as well as help it.
Amphetamines are an attempt at cheating that doesn't necessarily improve your performance, so at best the improvement is minimal and could be negative, so you don't really gain an advantage by using them. As a young man I used a variety of "uppers" and sometimes they "worked" other times they just made me nervous and jittery, sometimes I still fell asleep.
The same is true for any early use of steroids, there was no advantage brought to the players until (in the NFL) trainers began figuring out how to make the players bigger and stronger. In MLB players were cautioned for years not to lift weights so they wouldn't get "muscle bound".
I realize and agree that players have always cheated, but with the steroid use of the 1990's and forward it is a big difference in the results SOME players were able to achieve.
It's really simple, if you try to cheat and it doesn't really help you, or only a little bit, a clean player still has a good chance at beating you. If you figure out how to cheat and become 10-30-? bigger/better, then the clean guy has no chance.
Both amphetamines and steroids are performance enhancing. To what degree, no one really knows. How many extra stolen bases, home runs, 100 mph fastballs are due the to the use of steroids, amphetamines or other PEDs? No one knows. Not me, not you, not physicians, not baseball GMs and not even jim bouton. Do amphetamines work for every player? Nope. Do steroids work for every player, nope. But for many players they do. Wouldn't you think that if a player were experiencing negative effects they would discontinue use? I would. I am sure you have heard of the amount of amphetamines Willie Mays injested. Should he get off Scott free while more modern players get crucified?
The head in the sand comment is because you seem so personally invested into golden age players that you cannot imagine them being looked at in the same lense modern players are. You seem to not want to see or acknowledge that those old timers cheated too. They did. I am sorry it seems to hurt your feelings, but you do have your head in the sand on this one.
Doesn't hurt my feelings at all. As I have said, the old timers cheated too, but the juicers got a lot more bang for their buck.
You did get one thing right. You have no idea of how these drugs affect athletes
Not what I said. I said no one knows the degree any of these drugs helps players perform.
@1951WheatiesPremium said:
I’m saying that whether you use back of the baseball card OR a derivative formula, it’s not that hard to figure out whom is better than who.
Gotcha. In that case, if the "derivative formula" you use is based only on "baseball card stats" then what I'm saying is that it's still impossible to tell who is better than who. You can do a fine job separating "good" from "bad" pitchers with innings pitched or any stat at all since only "good" pitchers last a long time. But if you're trying to tell who among, for example, Jim Hunter or Luis Tiant is better than the other then you can mix, match, combine and derive baseball card stats until the cows come home and you'll just have wasted your time.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@1951WheatiesPremium said:
I’m saying that whether you use back of the baseball card OR a derivative formula, it’s not that hard to figure out whom is better than who.
Gotcha. In that case, if the "derivative formula" you use is based only on "baseball card stats" then what I'm saying is that it's still impossible to tell who is better than who. You can do a fine job separating "good" from "bad" pitchers with innings pitched or any stat at all since only "good" pitchers last a long time. But if you're trying to tell who among, for example, Jim Hunter or Luis Tiant is better than the other then you can mix, match, combine and derive baseball card stats until the cows come home and you'll just have wasted your time.
Ok - produce YOUR rating but you can’t use any STATS (or derived formulas) that appear on the vback of a baseball card.
Go!
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
@1951WheatiesPremium said:
Ok - produce YOUR rating but you can’t use any STATS (or derived formulas) that appear on the vback of a baseball card.
Go!
I see what you did there. Took something I never said, pretended that I said it, and then called me on it.
I never said you couldn't use "any" baseball card stats, I said you couldn't use "only" baseball card stats. I stand by that, and I assume you know why or you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of misstating what I said.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@1951WheatiesPremium said:
Ok - produce YOUR rating but you can’t use any STATS (or derived formulas) that appear on the vback of a baseball card.
Go!
I see what you did there. Took something I never said, pretended that I said it, and then called me on it.
I never said you couldn't use "any" baseball card stats, I said you couldn't use "only" baseball card stats. I stand by that, and I assume you know why or you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of misstating what I said.
You’re right. I have had a few cocktails and I got nothing for you tonight.
I’ll check it out in the AM
Curious about the rare, mysterious and beautiful 1951 Wheaties Premium Photos?
One additional thing I noticed is that Hunter had a better 2nd half than Blue in 1971.
You say (correctly) that Hunter had a better ERA at home, but you fail to mention that in his epic season Vida's ERA was twice as high on the road as it was at home.
My main objection to the "new" stats is that they can be very misleading if used by themselves. In this case Blue had a phenomenal 4 months of pitching that inflates (in my opinion) his career value. I am also wondering how his 6 game performance in 1970 with a ERA+ of 171 affects his final number. Giving him a 171 for pitching well for 38 innings doesn't seem right to me.
I also seem to remember that Vida had some drug problems, that could keep some people from voting for him.
I went through you list of pitchers you said were as good as Hunter and only one, Sam McDowell looks better to me.Sam was only a good starter for 10 years though, but he was dominant.
Milt Pappas is an example of how ERA+ is misleading, he had about three very good seasons spread out over his career.
Saying repeatedly that some people thought he was good, kind of proves that they were right.
In doing a little research, I also read that some of your new numbers are also said NOT to be good when comparing one player to another.
Happy New Year!
How is ERA+ misleading for Pappas? His is 110 which says he was 10% better than average. Sounds pretty accurate to me.
So does that mean you think Pappas was a better pitcher than Hunter?
Look at all of his stats. You get rewarded in ERA+ for doing less. To put it more accurately; if you pitch fewer innings and pitch well, you do better than if you pitch more innings and don't pitch quite as well. In comparing Pappas to Hunter, Hunter had 35-40 starts a year and Pappas was usually 30-35. Probably why Hunter was able to get those couple of extra wins that made him a 20 game winner.
In 1970 Pappas had 23 starts and his + was 133, in 1974 Hunter had a + of 134 and started 41 games (with a much lower era, more wins and a better so/bb ratio). If you are a starting pitcher and only start about 1/2 the games most starting pitchers do, you should get penalized somehow. I keep telling you guys the "+" numbers are bad, but few listen.
A perfect example is Vida Blue's 1970 ERA+ of 171 for 38.2 innings pitched. Was he the best pitcher that year?
One additional thing I noticed is that Hunter had a better 2nd half than Blue in 1971.
You say (correctly) that Hunter had a better ERA at home, but you fail to mention that in his epic season Vida's ERA was twice as high on the road as it was at home.
My main objection to the "new" stats is that they can be very misleading if used by themselves. In this case Blue had a phenomenal 4 months of pitching that inflates (in my opinion) his career value. I am also wondering how his 6 game performance in 1970 with a ERA+ of 171 affects his final number. Giving him a 171 for pitching well for 38 innings doesn't seem right to me.
I also seem to remember that Vida had some drug problems, that could keep some people from voting for him.
I went through you list of pitchers you said were as good as Hunter and only one, Sam McDowell looks better to me.Sam was only a good starter for 10 years though, but he was dominant.
Milt Pappas is an example of how ERA+ is misleading, he had about three very good seasons spread out over his career.
Saying repeatedly that some people thought he was good, kind of proves that they were right.
In doing a little research, I also read that some of your new numbers are also said NOT to be good when comparing one player to another.
Happy New Year!
How is ERA+ misleading for Pappas? His is 110 which says he was 10% better than average. Sounds pretty accurate to me.
So does that mean you think Pappas was a better pitcher than Hunter?
Look at all of his stats. You get rewarded in ERA+ for doing less. To put it more accurately; if you pitch fewer innings and pitch well, you do better than if you pitch more innings and don't pitch quite as well. In comparing Pappas to Hunter, Hunter had 35-40 starts a year and Pappas was usually 30-35. Probably why Hunter was able to get those couple of extra wins that made him a 20 game winner.
In 1970 Pappas had 23 starts and his + was 133, in 1974 Hunter had a + of 134 and started 41 games (with a much lower era, more wins and a better so/bb ratio). If you are a starting pitcher and only start about 1/2 the games most starting pitchers do, you should get penalized somehow. I keep telling you guys the "+" numbers are bad, but few listen.
A perfect example is Vida Blue's 1970 ERA+ of 171 for 38.2 innings pitched. Was he the best pitcher that year?
Good night.
Happy New Year!
No. Hunter had a higher peak. But, if you all people, "a little above average" would be an accurate description of Pappas and that's what his ERA+ says.
AS far as Baines being in the Hall, it really is ridiculous when someone like Dave Parker
or Will Clark is not in.
I remember Parker's early years with the Pirates and it is not a stretch to say he was the most
feared hitter in baseball for a while. Maybe Reggie Jackson and of course Brett were also
right there with him. And after Parker declined he had a nice comeback with the Reds and
put up some good numbers there. Certainly had a better career than Baines.
Will Clark was excellent throughout his career, and retired while he was still very productive.
I always loved watching him hit, because he always looked so confident at the plate, like
he was going to scorch the ball every time. A lot of people have said when they watched
Baines they never saw a hall of famer, I believe when I watched Clark hitting I was watching a HOF'er.
Not what I said. I said no one knows the degree any of these drugs helps players perform.
I am assuming you are a "numbers" guy, the numbers clearly show the cheaters of the 40's-70's were not accomplishing much compared to the new breed of cheaters.
I compare it to two guys showing up at the dragstrip, both guys have great cars. Guy #1 puts in illegal spark plugs that boost his Horsepower a bit but are prone to fouling. He usually gets a little better performance but sometimes it's worse. This is the 1060's amphetamines guy.
Guy #2 bolts on a 6-71 Supercharger (think of Barry Bonds' head here) clearly illegal, but boy oh boy, isn't this exciting! Look at him GO! After many dominating runs, guy #2's car explodes (think of Barry Bond's career at the end) and instead of wiping his winning times off the books, he is listed as having the better record when compared to guy #1.
You can certainly say that both guys were cheaters, but i see a BIG (think Bonds' head one more time) difference.
From 1927 until 1997 there were only one 60 HR season and one 61 HR season. In 1998 two juicers surpassed that, again in 1999 same two guys, 2001 Bonds replaces McGwire who has flamed out, (Sosa still going strong). Six times by three different players in four years.
I think we DO know the degree these drugs helped them.
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No. Hunter had a higher peak. But, if you all people, "a little above average" would be an accurate description of Pappas and that's what his ERA+ says.
ERA+ says Pappas was a better pitcher than Hunter (that's NOT really what it says but stat guys like to use the number that way) 110 -104. Regular ERA gets it right here, 3.26-3.40.
Pappas had more years of being a slightly above average pitcher, but Hunter actually pitched more innings total. ERA+ unfairly (to me) gives Milt more for doing less. In his best 3 years Milt averaged about 200 innings in his best 5 Hunter averaged about 300 IP.
Hunter has also been described as being "putrid". I don't really see putrid. Obviously he pitched one too many years. You could call his last year putrid I guess. I wouldn't.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
Not what I said. I said no one knows the degree any of these drugs helps players perform.
I am assuming you are a "numbers" guy, the numbers clearly show the cheaters of the 40's-70's were not accomplishing much compared to the new breed of cheaters.
I compare it to two guys showing up at the dragstrip, both guys have great cars. Guy #1 puts in illegal spark plugs that boost his Horsepower a bit but are prone to fouling. He usually gets a little better performance but sometimes it's worse. This is the 1060's amphetamines guy.
Guy #2 bolts on a 6-71 Supercharger (think of Barry Bonds' head here) clearly illegal, but boy oh boy, isn't this exciting! Look at him GO! After many dominating runs, guy #2's car explodes (think of Barry Bond's career at the end) and instead of wiping his winning times off the books, he is listed as having the better record when compared to guy #1.
You can certainly say that both guys were cheaters, but i see a BIG (think Bonds' head one more time) difference.
From 1927 until 1997 there were only one 60 HR season and one 61 HR season. In 1998 two juicers surpassed that, again in 1999 same two guys, 2001 Bonds replaces McGwire who has flamed out, (Sosa still going strong). Six times by three different players in four years.
I think we DO know the degree these drugs helped them.
I would disagree that players/cheaters of the 40's-70's were not accomplishing much compared to modern times: a new home run record, new stolen base record, Gibsons 68 season, Mays lead league in WAR 10 times, Williams hits .388 at age 38, Mantle had some big seasons, Aaron broke all time home run record, pitchers were racking up huge innings totals like during the dead ball era, the list could go on and on. Lots was accomplished during that time period.
now we know players are still using PED, they are just newer, better, harder to test for. There have been more home runs hit from 2016-2018 than ANY other three year period in the history of baseball. players have always cheated. it really doesnt matter how, it is still cheating.
now you say you definitively KNOW the degree PEDS helped. care to explain how you arrived at that conclusion?
How do you know who used?
Do I multiply Bonds career home run total by .74 to arrive at the "clean" total? Do I multiply Aarons by .91 to get his? How about Mays, .83?
see, you dont know to what degree drugs helped any player. you have no idea. no one does.
a lot of peoples beef with PED is that the player is no longer using their own "natural" abilities. take this example: Sandy Koufax had to retire at age 30 because of elbow damage. his natural elbow deteriorated at a much younger age than average. Its not his fault, it just happened. since Tommy John had surgery to repair his elbow, thousands of pitchers in all levels have had the repair. Is Tommy John surgery a form of PED? of late, some pitchers are returning with better velocity post surgery. That is not natural. in the sports arena, an elbow with a torn ucl would "naturally" heal, but the pitcher would never have the stamina/power to pitch again, just like Koufax.
Look at Walker Beuhler, he has increased velo post surgery. Both Kerry Wood and Billy Koch experienced increased velo and stamina post surgery, as have many others. Koch went so far as to recommend the surgery for pitchers with healthy UCL ligaments. Explain how an operative procedure that increases performance is not a form of PED? how about cortizone shots? those certainly increase "natural" performance.
I started giving these things thought, and I had to change my mind set about PED. I used to be a hard liner, now, not so much. players have always and will always try to cheat
That's because you as (I assume) are a "numbers" guy. Perfect example is you want to multiply someones number by another number to get your answer. Getting to an answer is seldom that easy.
If you look at players careers you can clearly see evidence of the benefits of steroids. Bonds, Sosa and McGwire being the most obvious. This has been discussed MANY times before. Bonds was a great player before juicing (by the way, he did admit to "accidentally " using and McGwire admitted to using, Palmeiro was caught, A-Rod was caught........that's how I know) but he was a 30-35 hr guy. He then hits 73. Ted Williams on the other hand had many seasons as good or nearly as good as when he hit .388.
You keep asking the same thing over and over again. Yes, the players cheated during the 1950's-60's etc, but it was still a level playing field, because if you LOOK AT IT you will see they all did about as well as each other. Even the guys like Williams who were better hitters than everyone else didn't have wild unexplained performance swings.
I am not advocating cheating, players will always try to get some kind of advantage. Anabolic Steroids are like the supercharger the guy puts on his car. MLB should have (with the co operation of the union) gotten serious about it right away instead of allowing it to go on because they were benefiting from it financially. They chose not to and the players took full advantage of it.
Now you are going far afield and I am not going to get into your attempts to take the shuttle to Pluto, but I will say if you think cortisone is the same as anabolic steroids that explains your confusion. There is a reason cortisone is legal and the other is not. You are either not reading the material or not understanding it. Cortisone is also administered by a medical person and is provided to all players who need it. Cortisone also does not work long term for most people or Koufax might have had a few more years. You need to do you're research, I don't have the time to explain all this to you. Read more, it's out there.
Spark plugs vs. supercharger.
Next question I am expecting from you is "is an alarm clock a PED? It gets you out of bed before a game, and if you don't get to the game you wont perform well." There, you don't have to ask. And no we don't know how many players would be affected if alarm clocks would be outlawed.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@JoeBanzai said:
That's because you as (I assume) are a "numbers" guy. Perfect example is you want to multiply someones number by another number to get your answer. Getting to an answer is seldom that easy.
If you look at players careers you can clearly see evidence of the benefits of steroids. Bonds, Sosa and McGwire being the most obvious. This has been discussed MANY times before. Bonds was a great player before juicing (by the way, he did admit to "accidentally " using and McGwire admitted to using, Palmeiro was caught, A-Rod was caught........that's how I know) but he was a 30-35 hr guy. He then hits 73. Ted Williams on the other hand had many seasons as good or nearly as good as when he hit .388.
You keep asking the same thing over and over again. Yes, the players cheated during the 1950's-60's etc, but it was still a level playing field, because if you LOOK AT IT you will see they all did about as well as each other. Even the guys like Williams who were better hitters than everyone else didn't have wild unexplained performance swings.
I am not advocating cheating, players will always try to get some kind of advantage. Anabolic Steroids are like the supercharger the guy puts on his car. MLB should have (with the co operation of the union) gotten serious about it right away instead of allowing it to go on because they were benefiting from it financially. They chose not to and the players took full advantage of it.
Now you are going far afield and I am not going to get into your attempts to take the shuttle to Pluto, but I will say if you think cortisone is the same as anabolic steroids that explains your confusion. There is a reason cortisone is legal and the other is not. You are either not reading the material or not understanding it. Cortisone is also administered by a medical person and is provided to all players who need it. Cortisone also does not work long term for most people or Koufax might have had a few more years. You need to do you're research, I don't have the time to explain all this to you. Read more, it's out there.
Spark plugs vs. supercharger.
Next question I am expecting from you is "is an alarm clock a PED? It gets you out of bed before a game, and if you don't get to the game you wont perform well." There, you don't have to ask. And no we don't know how many players would be affected if alarm clocks would be outlawed.
I never said cortisone shots were the same as an anabolic steroid. I am not sure where you read that. It is however performance enhancing, is it not? Could a pitcher perform as well with severe shoulder inflamation without a cortisone injection? sometimes a player would not be able to perform at all without cortisone. so yes, I would say cortisone is performance enhancing.
You didnt address the surgery component. Do you consider surgeries which may enhance performance to be a form of PED? If not, why?
I have, by the way, read at length about PED's over the last 20 or so years since McGwire was caught with a bottle of Andro sitting in his locker in 1998.
"Yes, the players cheated during the 1950's-60's etc, but it was still a level playing field, because if you LOOK AT IT you will see they all did about as well as each other. "
This is one of the craziest things I have read on this subject. I have looked at it many many times, the players most certainly did not all do about as well as each other. Look at Mantles seasons mid 50's-early 60's. Look at any number of May's seasons. Look at Koufax and Gibson. There were TONS of outliers.
@JoeBanzai said:
That's because you as (I assume) are a "numbers" guy. Perfect example is you want to multiply someones number by another number to get your answer. Getting to an answer is seldom that easy.
If you look at players careers you can clearly see evidence of the benefits of steroids. Bonds, Sosa and McGwire being the most obvious. This has been discussed MANY times before. Bonds was a great player before juicing (by the way, he did admit to "accidentally " using and McGwire admitted to using, Palmeiro was caught, A-Rod was caught........that's how I know) but he was a 30-35 hr guy. He then hits 73. Ted Williams on the other hand had many seasons as good or nearly as good as when he hit .388.
If you look at statistics, I can reel off a whole bunch of players who everyone assumes are clean, but their statistical record sure says otherwise. Look at Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan, Rickey Henderson, Kirby Puckett and Tony Gwynn. Puckett experienced a huge power surge in his third season and died young from symptoms that can be common with steroid use.
Gwynn had a very unnatural late career resurgence that belies his tubby appearance. His numbers are particularly damning if you dig into them.
Randy Johnson gets a free ride, but I dont believe there has ever been a more effective late career pitcher than him. He went from having back problems in his last years with seattle to being a world beater from age 35 and older.
I never said cortisone shots were the same as an anabolic steroid. I am not sure where you read that. It is however performance enhancing, is it not? Could a pitcher perform as well with severe shoulder inflamation without a cortisone injection? sometimes a player would not be able to perform at all without cortisone. so yes, I would say cortisone is performance enhancing.
Don't forget about coffee and cigarettes.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
I never said cortisone shots were the same as an anabolic steroid. I am not sure where you read that. It is however performance enhancing, is it not? Could a pitcher perform as well with severe shoulder inflamation without a cortisone injection? sometimes a player would not be able to perform at all without cortisone. so yes, I would say cortisone is performance enhancing.
I never said cortisone shots were the same as an anabolic steroid. I am not sure where you read that. It is however performance enhancing, is it not? Could a pitcher perform as well with severe shoulder inflamation without a cortisone injection? sometimes a player would not be able to perform at all without cortisone. so yes, I would say cortisone is performance enhancing.
Don't forget about coffee and cigarettes.
you are deflecting...
But I think the point he’s making ( @JoeBanzai ) is that intent matters, sure, but so does the results.
I never met a competitive athlete (or person) who wasn’t looking for an ‘edge’ of some kind. Each person draws their own lines in the sand of what is and isn’t acceptable for themselves and for others; they’re often different, sometimes dramatically so.
So when we go from monkey testosterone to amphetamines to cortisone shots to anabolic steroids to HGH, yes they’re all PEDs when looked at thru a certain lens. At the same time, the effects of each seem to be dramatically different and the current generation seems to derive significant benefit not just into stats but games played and career length.
@craig44 I fall into the same camp as you in that I believe it goes back further than people think. Rumors of steroids in the Olympic Games go at least as far back as far as the 1936 games. Pumping iron cane out in 1972 and it wasn’t like ‘roids had just showed up then, either, and this is a motion picture!
That said, it’s hard to deny that the stuff is better today and the benefits are too - much more money and for a longer period of time. Who wouldn’t want that?
I also think there have been actual improvements to the understanding of baseball that have taken place, too. But again, often much too overdone and usually not new.
The latest is ‘launch angle’ (I guess ‘swinging for the fences’ doesn’t sound good enough any more) which was basically invented by Babe Ruth - innately - when he began to realize that pop flies that leave the park are significantly better than hard hit line drives as many of his peers seemed to think.
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I use steroids, greenies, etc, to continue posting here. But please cut me a break. It's been a grueling 20,604 posts, and I've had to fight thru numerous finger sprains and thumb injuries to be able to type words on the keyboard at a high level.
i certainly hope this revelation doesn't prevent me from future consideration into the CU Hall of Fame, if there is such a thing.
@stevek said:
I use steroids, greenies, etc, to continue posting here. But please cut me a break. It's been a grueling 20,604 posts, and I've had to fight thru numerous finger sprains and thumb injuries to be able to type words on the keyboard at a high level.
i certainly hope this revelation doesn't prevent me from future consideration into the CU Hall of Fame, if there is such a thing.
I think the best you can hope for, due to your recent admission, is the veterans committee
Lets examine what LaRussa said for Baines defense:
"In the '80s and '90s, almost all of the stats that people trust, he was in the top five -- for 20 years. He drove in 100 runs late in his career and he drove them in early. Game-winning RBIs, he's up there with the best of them. He had a very distinguished career." -Tony LaRuss from the article
Tony, I'll give you credit for using the method of the number of times he finished in the top five in a category. I will have to ask what you mean by the 'stats that people trust'. I don't really have to ask, because people use those same stats all the time.
Lets just cut to the chase. Here are Baines's top five finishes in his stats:
SLG% - one top five finish.....finished 1st.
Hits- one top five finish....finished 5th
Triples -one top five finish...finished 2nd.....edited to add he has two top five finishes in triples
RBI- ONE top five finish.....finished 4th
THATS IT! Those are all of his top five finishes in the stats that people trust. Not one one top five in batting average or home runs(the two stats people 'trust' the most),or runs scored.
Five. Five top five finishes in the raw stats. Five.... edited from four as I missed a second finish in triples.
So where the heck is Tony LaRussa getting his information from. He is simply flat out wrong in his factual statements.
He finished 5th in OPS+ one year, and that represents his lone top five finish in an advanced measurement.
Zero top five MVP finishes. His highest being 9th in 1985.
Tony said he was in the top five in those stats for 20 years....how could he be finishing in the top five for 20 years?
All five of Baines's top five finishes all occurred between 1981-1985. So where is this 20 years being in the top five coming from?? LaRussa is a liar.
FIVE. Tony LaRussa, he only finished in the top five FIVE times in his career in ANY offensive stat. FIVE...LOL.
LaRussa also brought up Al Oliver and said that Oliver was not better than Baines.
Lets use LaRussa's own method of top five finishes and apply it to Al Oliver:
Oliver has 24 top five finishes in the 'stats that people trust'. I'm not going to bother listing them all....but here are some highlights:
Hmmm....seems Oliver is the guy with the top five finishes in the 'stats that people trust' LMAO. Idiots.
I put doubles in there for Joebanzi since you quoted doubles, and to show you that LaRussa actually doesn't know what he is talking about as LaRussa is extremely biased. LaRussa is also the same guy that denied McGwire using PED's...even though he knew...just so you know the guy we are dealing with here.
Baines doesn't belong. LaRussa is factually wrong, and LaRussa's own measuring method for Baines makes Al Oliver far superior.
LaRussa is biased. LaRussa is wrong. LaRussa is a known liar. He is actually quite a tool.
@Skin2 said:
Lets examine what LaRussa said for Baines defense:
"In the '80s and '90s, almost all of the stats that people trust, he was in the top five -- for 20 years. He drove in 100 runs late in his career and he drove them in early. Game-winning RBIs, he's up there with the best of them. He had a very distinguished career." -Tony LaRuss from the article
Tony, I'll give you credit for using the method of the number of times he finished in the top five in a category. I will have to ask what you mean by the 'stats that people trust'. I don't really have to ask, because people use those same stats all the time.
Lets just cut to the chase. Here are Baines's top five finishes in his stats:
SLG% - one top five finish.....finished 1st.
Hits- one top five finish....finished 5th
Triples -one top five finish...finished 2nd
RBI- ONE top five finish.....finished 4th
THATS IT! Those are all of his top five finishes in the stats that people trust. Not one one top five in batting average or home runs(the two stats people 'trust' the most),or runs scored.
Four. Four top five finishes in the raw stats. Four.
So where the heck is Tony LaRussa getting his information from. He is simply flat out wrong in his factual statements.
He finished 5th in OPS+ one year, and that represents his lone top five finish in an advanced measurement.
Zero top five MVP finishes. His highest being 9th in 1985.
Tony said he was in the top five in those stats for 20 years....how could he be finishing in the top five for 20 years?
All four of Baines's top five finishes all occurred between 1981-1985. So where is this 20 years being in the top five coming from?? LaRussa is a liar.
FOUR. Tony LaRussa, he only finished in the top five FOUR times in his career in ANY offensive stat. FOUR.
LaRussa also brought up Al Oliver and said that Oliver was not better than Baines.
Lets use LaRussa's own method of top five finishes and apply it to Al Oliver:
Oliver has 24 top five finishes in the 'stats that people trust'. I'm not going to bother listing them all....but here are some highlights:
Hmmm....seems Oliver is the guy with the top five finishes in the 'stats that people trust' LMAO. Idiots.
I put doubles in there for Joebanzi since you quoted doubles, and to show you that LaRussa actually doesn't know what he is talking about as LaRussa is extremely biased. LaRussa is also the same guy that denied McGwire using PED's...even though he knew...just so you know the guy we are dealing with here.
Baines doesn't belong. LaRussa is factually wrong, and LaRussa's own measuring method for Baines makes Al Oliver far superior.
LaRussa is biased. LaRussa is wrong. LaRussa is a known liar. He is actually quite a tool.
Case closed.
I lost a lot of respect for Tony during this whole Baines fiasco. I respected him as a baseball manager, but whether his bias for Baines caused this diarrhea of the mouth or if he really is truly this clueless I just cant take him seriously anymore. did anyone see him in the Mad Dog interview on MLB network?
I just scanned a few of the posts and I'll say this. The "tallest midget in the circus" argument isn't good enough in my opinion for a player to be in the Hall of Fame.
Let's say a certain position in a given era was basically filled with mediocrity or simply very good players. But one player rose above that a bit to be the best at that position in that era. That doesn't mean that particular player is a Hall of Fame caliber player, in my viewpoint.
@stevek said:
I just scanned a few of the posts and I'll say this. The "tallest midget in the circus" argument isn't good enough in my opinion for a player to be in the Hall of Fame.
Let's say a certain position in a given era was basically filled with mediocrity or simply very good players. But one player rose above that a bit to be the best at that position in that era. That doesn't mean that particular player is a Hall of Fame caliber player, in my viewpoint.
Agree. Especially since Baines isn't even remotely close to being the best DH.
I never said cortisone shots were the same as an anabolic steroid. I am not sure where you read that. It is however performance enhancing, is it not? Could a pitcher perform as well with severe shoulder inflamation without a cortisone injection? sometimes a player would not be able to perform at all without cortisone. so yes, I would say cortisone is performance enhancing.
Don't forget about coffee and cigarettes.
you are deflecting...
Learned from you my man.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
I never said cortisone shots were the same as an anabolic steroid. I am not sure where you read that. It is however performance enhancing, is it not? Could a pitcher perform as well with severe shoulder inflamation without a cortisone injection? sometimes a player would not be able to perform at all without cortisone. so yes, I would say cortisone is performance enhancing.
Comments
How is ERA+ misleading for Pappas? His is 110 which says he was 10% better than average. Sounds pretty accurate to me.
"Greenies" could also hurt your performance. In Bouton's book "Ball Four" he discusses them at length. So, no, they were NOT performance enhancing "period".
Comparing amphetamines to steroids is like comparing a firecracker to the atomic bomb. They both make a noise, but the results are quite different.
Pud Galvin might have been fooling around, but he didn't gain 20-30 lbs of muscle.
Happy New Year!
Look at Mantle's body during his 500 HR. There is no way this looks like a steroid user.
Did Mantle and others use greenies? A number of players from that time have admitted to that.
So does that mean you think Pappas was a better pitcher than Hunter?
Look at all of his stats. You get rewarded in ERA+ for doing less. To put it more accurately; if you pitch fewer innings and pitch well, you do better than if you pitch more innings and don't pitch quite as well. In comparing Pappas to Hunter, Hunter had 35-40 starts a year and Pappas was usually 30-35. Probably why Hunter was able to get those couple of extra wins that made him a 20 game winner.
In 1970 Pappas had 23 starts and his + was 133, in 1974 Hunter had a + of 134 and started 41 games (with a much lower era, more wins and a better so/bb ratio). If you are a starting pitcher and only start about 1/2 the games most starting pitchers do, you should get penalized somehow. I keep telling you guys the "+" numbers are bad, but few listen.
A perfect example is Vida Blue's 1970 ERA+ of 171 for 38.2 innings pitched. Was he the best pitcher that year?
Good night.
Happy New Year!
And Happy New Year to you, too.
I'll try to address each of your points as briefly as I can.
All A's pitchers had low ERA's at home - it was a tremendously hard park to hit in. Because of the mistaken emphasis on BA and ERA, the A's pitchers are all considered much better than they actually were, and all their hitters are considered worse than they actually were. My statement that Blue was better than Hunter was based on their bodies of work over their entire careers, home and away, which I spelled out in painful detail in the rundown of their ERA+, WAR and WPA. Rest assured that Blue gets the same adjustment for pitching in Oakland that Hunter does in all of those stats. Also, Blue pitched 3,300 innings, so that 38 inning "season" has about a 1% impact in his career total. And he pitched great for that 1% of his career, so it would hardly be fair to pretend it didn't happen.
I don't know what you're looking at when you say that only McDowell "looks" better to you. The point that I've been trying to make is that if you look at the unadjusted stats and wins and losses then you're looking at the wrong stuff and you'll reach the wrong conclusions.
Whether Papas was better or worse than Hunter is subjective, and they're close. Pappas made a greater contribution to winning games over the course of his career than Hunter, but he did it slowly and steadily while Hunter did it with one big burst offset by years of mediocrity and a few years of putridness. I'm about to post another of my famous long lists that two or three of you will read that shows Hunter well above Pappas because it places value only on the good seasons and ignores the bad seasons. That - ignoring the bad seasons - is what Hunter's fans have to do to see a great pitcher.
I know lots of stats, including several that I use often, are fair to poor at comparing players from different eras, but as far as I know all of them do a very good job of comparing players who played at about the same time. Which stats are you referring to that can't be used to compare players in the same era?
What was the players intent when they used amphetamines?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Head in the sand
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I really don't understand the "Head in the sand" comment unless you are just trying to be insulting.
Jim Bouton was a MLB player. He says in his book that lots of players took "greenies". He also said they could hurt your performance as well as help it.
Amphetamines are an attempt at cheating that doesn't necessarily improve your performance, so at best the improvement is minimal and could be negative, so you don't really gain an advantage by using them. As a young man I used a variety of "uppers" and sometimes they "worked" other times they just made me nervous and jittery, sometimes I still fell asleep.
The same is true for any early use of steroids, there was no advantage brought to the players until (in the NFL) trainers began figuring out how to make the players bigger and stronger. In MLB players were cautioned for years not to lift weights so they wouldn't get "muscle bound".
I realize and agree that players have always cheated, but with the steroid use of the 1990's and forward it is a big difference in the results SOME players were able to achieve.
It's really simple, if you try to cheat and it doesn't really help you, or only a little bit, a clean player still has a good chance at beating you. If you figure out how to cheat and become 10-30-? bigger/better, then the clean guy has no chance.
I simply don't agree that adjusted stats are always better.
As I have said repeatedly, wins and losses are not the best way to rate individuals in any team sport, but they do mean a little.
Poor Lee Smith and Harold Baines, this thread started out about them, now they're totally ignored.
An important semantic distinction: wins and losses mean everything in baseball, and in every other sport. It is the random and misleading practice of assigning wins and losses to pitchers that is the problem. Bill James performed the Herculean task of assigning wins to every player on every roster, from the pitcher down to the utility infielder, and while there are many ways reasonable people can quibble with how he did it, there is simply no question that he has painted a much clearer picture of which players were actually responsible for winning games.
Imagine that the decision to assign wins and losses to pitchers had never been made, and those stats never showed up on baseball cards or anywhere else. How would you go about determining how good a pitcher was then? I'd still argue that you'd need to look at adjusted stats to make a meaningful comparison between pitchers in Oakland and Boston, but by throwing away the W/L numbers, you'd be a step ahead at least.
It is not completely random and not completely misleading. Here’s a list of the current Active Career Win Leaders. (I think it could almost double as the list of the best pitchers of the era.)
If it were truly random, the list of the best pitchers would not resemble this list in any way. If it were misleading, there would be glaring omissions. (Obviously having very few seasons hurts). Again, there are some explainable outliers on every list but it’s there for consumption.
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Well, yeah, but you're looking at a career list. Pretty much by definition the pitchers who keep pitching a lot of games for a long time are going to be the better pitchers and they're going to have more of everything than other pitchers. Had you shown instead the current Active Career Innings Pitched Leaders, you would have shown essentially the same list (24 of 27 names are common to both) in only a slightly different order. Ranking pitching greatness by innings pitched would, I think, seem silly to most people while ranking them by wins would not. But they're essentially the same list. Or how about ranking pitchers by their games lost? 14 of the top 15 in losses are also on the wins leaders list you posted, so it wouldn't make that much difference.
Whether you start with the Innings list or the Losses list, three things will affect any change to the ordering as you move to the Wins list: pitching greatness, team greatness, and randomness (run support, mostly). There is absolutely no way to tell which of those factors or combination of factors is operating on any given pitcher by looking only at "baseball card stats". No possible way. There are ways to tell, and my crusade here is to get people to look at those things. But, once you are looking at those things you will never need to look at Wins and Losses again; they add nothing at all to what you'll already know once you've looked at the things that matter.
Huh?
Look at W-L, IP, K, BB, ERA, WHIP. (All are on baseball cards. Most since they started putting stats on cards.)
Or
Take those very same stats above, throw out wins and losses and the rest toss them in the statusical blender and get them to be one number.
Produce basically the same list.
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I have no idea what this means.
Both amphetamines and steroids are performance enhancing. To what degree, no one really knows. How many extra stolen bases, home runs, 100 mph fastballs are due the to the use of steroids, amphetamines or other PEDs? No one knows. Not me, not you, not physicians, not baseball GMs and not even jim bouton. Do amphetamines work for every player? Nope. Do steroids work for every player, nope. But for many players they do. Wouldn't you think that if a player were experiencing negative effects they would discontinue use? I would. I am sure you have heard of the amount of amphetamines Willie Mays injested. Should he get off Scott free while more modern players get crucified?
The head in the sand comment is because you seem so personally invested into golden age players that you cannot imagine them being looked at in the same lense modern players are. You seem to not want to see or acknowledge that those old timers cheated too. They did. I am sorry it seems to hurt your feelings, but you do have your head in the sand on this one.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
“There is absolutely no way to tell which of those factors or combination of factors is operating on any given pitcher by looking only at "baseball card stats". No possible way.”
I’m saying that whether you use back of the baseball card OR a derivative formula, it’s not that hard to figure out whom is better than who.
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Doesn't hurt my feelings at all. As I have said, the old timers cheated too, but the juicers got a lot more bang for their buck.
You did get one thing right. You have no idea of how these drugs affect athletes.
Not what I said. I said no one knows the degree any of these drugs helps players perform.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Gotcha. In that case, if the "derivative formula" you use is based only on "baseball card stats" then what I'm saying is that it's still impossible to tell who is better than who. You can do a fine job separating "good" from "bad" pitchers with innings pitched or any stat at all since only "good" pitchers last a long time. But if you're trying to tell who among, for example, Jim Hunter or Luis Tiant is better than the other then you can mix, match, combine and derive baseball card stats until the cows come home and you'll just have wasted your time.
Ok - produce YOUR rating but you can’t use any STATS (or derived formulas) that appear on the vback of a baseball card.
Go!
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I see what you did there. Took something I never said, pretended that I said it, and then called me on it.
I never said you couldn't use "any" baseball card stats, I said you couldn't use "only" baseball card stats. I stand by that, and I assume you know why or you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of misstating what I said.
You’re right. I have had a few cocktails and I got nothing for you tonight.
I’ll check it out in the AM
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No. Hunter had a higher peak. But, if you all people, "a little above average" would be an accurate description of Pappas and that's what his ERA+ says.
As they should have been when it comes to the Hall.
AS far as Baines being in the Hall, it really is ridiculous when someone like Dave Parker
or Will Clark is not in.
I remember Parker's early years with the Pirates and it is not a stretch to say he was the most
feared hitter in baseball for a while. Maybe Reggie Jackson and of course Brett were also
right there with him. And after Parker declined he had a nice comeback with the Reds and
put up some good numbers there. Certainly had a better career than Baines.
Will Clark was excellent throughout his career, and retired while he was still very productive.
I always loved watching him hit, because he always looked so confident at the plate, like
he was going to scorch the ball every time. A lot of people have said when they watched
Baines they never saw a hall of famer, I believe when I watched Clark hitting I was watching a HOF'er.
I am assuming you are a "numbers" guy, the numbers clearly show the cheaters of the 40's-70's were not accomplishing much compared to the new breed of cheaters.
I compare it to two guys showing up at the dragstrip, both guys have great cars. Guy #1 puts in illegal spark plugs that boost his Horsepower a bit but are prone to fouling. He usually gets a little better performance but sometimes it's worse. This is the 1060's amphetamines guy.
Guy #2 bolts on a 6-71 Supercharger (think of Barry Bonds' head here) clearly illegal, but boy oh boy, isn't this exciting! Look at him GO! After many dominating runs, guy #2's car explodes (think of Barry Bond's career at the end) and instead of wiping his winning times off the books, he is listed as having the better record when compared to guy #1.
You can certainly say that both guys were cheaters, but i see a BIG (think Bonds' head one more time) difference.
From 1927 until 1997 there were only one 60 HR season and one 61 HR season. In 1998 two juicers surpassed that, again in 1999 same two guys, 2001 Bonds replaces McGwire who has flamed out, (Sosa still going strong). Six times by three different players in four years.
I think we DO know the degree these drugs helped them.
ERA+ says Pappas was a better pitcher than Hunter (that's NOT really what it says but stat guys like to use the number that way) 110 -104. Regular ERA gets it right here, 3.26-3.40.
Pappas had more years of being a slightly above average pitcher, but Hunter actually pitched more innings total. ERA+ unfairly (to me) gives Milt more for doing less. In his best 3 years Milt averaged about 200 innings in his best 5 Hunter averaged about 300 IP.
Hunter has also been described as being "putrid". I don't really see putrid. Obviously he pitched one too many years. You could call his last year putrid I guess. I wouldn't.
I would disagree that players/cheaters of the 40's-70's were not accomplishing much compared to modern times: a new home run record, new stolen base record, Gibsons 68 season, Mays lead league in WAR 10 times, Williams hits .388 at age 38, Mantle had some big seasons, Aaron broke all time home run record, pitchers were racking up huge innings totals like during the dead ball era, the list could go on and on. Lots was accomplished during that time period.
now we know players are still using PED, they are just newer, better, harder to test for. There have been more home runs hit from 2016-2018 than ANY other three year period in the history of baseball. players have always cheated. it really doesnt matter how, it is still cheating.
now you say you definitively KNOW the degree PEDS helped. care to explain how you arrived at that conclusion?
How do you know who used?
Do I multiply Bonds career home run total by .74 to arrive at the "clean" total? Do I multiply Aarons by .91 to get his? How about Mays, .83?
see, you dont know to what degree drugs helped any player. you have no idea. no one does.
a lot of peoples beef with PED is that the player is no longer using their own "natural" abilities. take this example: Sandy Koufax had to retire at age 30 because of elbow damage. his natural elbow deteriorated at a much younger age than average. Its not his fault, it just happened. since Tommy John had surgery to repair his elbow, thousands of pitchers in all levels have had the repair. Is Tommy John surgery a form of PED? of late, some pitchers are returning with better velocity post surgery. That is not natural. in the sports arena, an elbow with a torn ucl would "naturally" heal, but the pitcher would never have the stamina/power to pitch again, just like Koufax.
Look at Walker Beuhler, he has increased velo post surgery. Both Kerry Wood and Billy Koch experienced increased velo and stamina post surgery, as have many others. Koch went so far as to recommend the surgery for pitchers with healthy UCL ligaments. Explain how an operative procedure that increases performance is not a form of PED? how about cortizone shots? those certainly increase "natural" performance.
I started giving these things thought, and I had to change my mind set about PED. I used to be a hard liner, now, not so much. players have always and will always try to cheat
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
That's because you as (I assume) are a "numbers" guy. Perfect example is you want to multiply someones number by another number to get your answer. Getting to an answer is seldom that easy.
If you look at players careers you can clearly see evidence of the benefits of steroids. Bonds, Sosa and McGwire being the most obvious. This has been discussed MANY times before. Bonds was a great player before juicing (by the way, he did admit to "accidentally " using and McGwire admitted to using, Palmeiro was caught, A-Rod was caught........that's how I know) but he was a 30-35 hr guy. He then hits 73. Ted Williams on the other hand had many seasons as good or nearly as good as when he hit .388.
You keep asking the same thing over and over again. Yes, the players cheated during the 1950's-60's etc, but it was still a level playing field, because if you LOOK AT IT you will see they all did about as well as each other. Even the guys like Williams who were better hitters than everyone else didn't have wild unexplained performance swings.
I am not advocating cheating, players will always try to get some kind of advantage. Anabolic Steroids are like the supercharger the guy puts on his car. MLB should have (with the co operation of the union) gotten serious about it right away instead of allowing it to go on because they were benefiting from it financially. They chose not to and the players took full advantage of it.
Now you are going far afield and I am not going to get into your attempts to take the shuttle to Pluto, but I will say if you think cortisone is the same as anabolic steroids that explains your confusion. There is a reason cortisone is legal and the other is not. You are either not reading the material or not understanding it. Cortisone is also administered by a medical person and is provided to all players who need it. Cortisone also does not work long term for most people or Koufax might have had a few more years. You need to do you're research, I don't have the time to explain all this to you. Read more, it's out there.
Spark plugs vs. supercharger.
Next question I am expecting from you is "is an alarm clock a PED? It gets you out of bed before a game, and if you don't get to the game you wont perform well." There, you don't have to ask. And no we don't know how many players would be affected if alarm clocks would be outlawed.
I never said cortisone shots were the same as an anabolic steroid. I am not sure where you read that. It is however performance enhancing, is it not? Could a pitcher perform as well with severe shoulder inflamation without a cortisone injection? sometimes a player would not be able to perform at all without cortisone. so yes, I would say cortisone is performance enhancing.
You didnt address the surgery component. Do you consider surgeries which may enhance performance to be a form of PED? If not, why?
I have, by the way, read at length about PED's over the last 20 or so years since McGwire was caught with a bottle of Andro sitting in his locker in 1998.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
"Yes, the players cheated during the 1950's-60's etc, but it was still a level playing field, because if you LOOK AT IT you will see they all did about as well as each other. "
This is one of the craziest things I have read on this subject. I have looked at it many many times, the players most certainly did not all do about as well as each other. Look at Mantles seasons mid 50's-early 60's. Look at any number of May's seasons. Look at Koufax and Gibson. There were TONS of outliers.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
If you look at statistics, I can reel off a whole bunch of players who everyone assumes are clean, but their statistical record sure says otherwise. Look at Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan, Rickey Henderson, Kirby Puckett and Tony Gwynn. Puckett experienced a huge power surge in his third season and died young from symptoms that can be common with steroid use.
Gwynn had a very unnatural late career resurgence that belies his tubby appearance. His numbers are particularly damning if you dig into them.
Randy Johnson gets a free ride, but I dont believe there has ever been a more effective late career pitcher than him. He went from having back problems in his last years with seattle to being a world beater from age 35 and older.
And then there is Nolan Ryan....
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Don't forget about coffee and cigarettes.
you are deflecting...
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
But I think the point he’s making ( @JoeBanzai ) is that intent matters, sure, but so does the results.
I never met a competitive athlete (or person) who wasn’t looking for an ‘edge’ of some kind. Each person draws their own lines in the sand of what is and isn’t acceptable for themselves and for others; they’re often different, sometimes dramatically so.
So when we go from monkey testosterone to amphetamines to cortisone shots to anabolic steroids to HGH, yes they’re all PEDs when looked at thru a certain lens. At the same time, the effects of each seem to be dramatically different and the current generation seems to derive significant benefit not just into stats but games played and career length.
@craig44 I fall into the same camp as you in that I believe it goes back further than people think. Rumors of steroids in the Olympic Games go at least as far back as far as the 1936 games. Pumping iron cane out in 1972 and it wasn’t like ‘roids had just showed up then, either, and this is a motion picture!
That said, it’s hard to deny that the stuff is better today and the benefits are too - much more money and for a longer period of time. Who wouldn’t want that?
I also think there have been actual improvements to the understanding of baseball that have taken place, too. But again, often much too overdone and usually not new.
The latest is ‘launch angle’ (I guess ‘swinging for the fences’ doesn’t sound good enough any more) which was basically invented by Babe Ruth - innately - when he began to realize that pop flies that leave the park are significantly better than hard hit line drives as many of his peers seemed to think.
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I use steroids, greenies, etc, to continue posting here. But please cut me a break. It's been a grueling 20,604 posts, and I've had to fight thru numerous finger sprains and thumb injuries to be able to type words on the keyboard at a high level.
i certainly hope this revelation doesn't prevent me from future consideration into the CU Hall of Fame, if there is such a thing.
I think the best you can hope for, due to your recent admission, is the veterans committee
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Lets examine what LaRussa said for Baines defense:
"In the '80s and '90s, almost all of the stats that people trust, he was in the top five -- for 20 years. He drove in 100 runs late in his career and he drove them in early. Game-winning RBIs, he's up there with the best of them. He had a very distinguished career." -Tony LaRuss from the article
Tony, I'll give you credit for using the method of the number of times he finished in the top five in a category. I will have to ask what you mean by the 'stats that people trust'. I don't really have to ask, because people use those same stats all the time.
Lets just cut to the chase. Here are Baines's top five finishes in his stats:
SLG% - one top five finish.....finished 1st.
Hits- one top five finish....finished 5th
Triples -one top five finish...finished 2nd.....edited to add he has two top five finishes in triples
RBI- ONE top five finish.....finished 4th
THATS IT! Those are all of his top five finishes in the stats that people trust. Not one one top five in batting average or home runs(the two stats people 'trust' the most),or runs scored.
Five. Five top five finishes in the raw stats. Five.... edited from four as I missed a second finish in triples.
So where the heck is Tony LaRussa getting his information from. He is simply flat out wrong in his factual statements.
He finished 5th in OPS+ one year, and that represents his lone top five finish in an advanced measurement.
Zero top five MVP finishes. His highest being 9th in 1985.
Tony said he was in the top five in those stats for 20 years....how could he be finishing in the top five for 20 years?
All five of Baines's top five finishes all occurred between 1981-1985. So where is this 20 years being in the top five coming from?? LaRussa is a liar.
FIVE. Tony LaRussa, he only finished in the top five FIVE times in his career in ANY offensive stat. FIVE...LOL.
LaRussa also brought up Al Oliver and said that Oliver was not better than Baines.
Lets use LaRussa's own method of top five finishes and apply it to Al Oliver:
Oliver has 24 top five finishes in the 'stats that people trust'. I'm not going to bother listing them all....but here are some highlights:
Batting average, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 5th.
Hits, 1st, 4th, 4th, 5th.
RBI 1st, 4th.
Doubles, 1st, 1st, 2nd,2nd,2nd,2nd, 3rd.
Hmmm....seems Oliver is the guy with the top five finishes in the 'stats that people trust' LMAO. Idiots.
I put doubles in there for Joebanzi since you quoted doubles, and to show you that LaRussa actually doesn't know what he is talking about as LaRussa is extremely biased. LaRussa is also the same guy that denied McGwire using PED's...even though he knew...just so you know the guy we are dealing with here.
Baines doesn't belong. LaRussa is factually wrong, and LaRussa's own measuring method for Baines makes Al Oliver far superior.
LaRussa is biased. LaRussa is wrong. LaRussa is a known liar. He is actually quite a tool.
Case closed.
I lost a lot of respect for Tony during this whole Baines fiasco. I respected him as a baseball manager, but whether his bias for Baines caused this diarrhea of the mouth or if he really is truly this clueless I just cant take him seriously anymore. did anyone see him in the Mad Dog interview on MLB network?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I just scanned a few of the posts and I'll say this. The "tallest midget in the circus" argument isn't good enough in my opinion for a player to be in the Hall of Fame.
Let's say a certain position in a given era was basically filled with mediocrity or simply very good players. But one player rose above that a bit to be the best at that position in that era. That doesn't mean that particular player is a Hall of Fame caliber player, in my viewpoint.
Agree. Especially since Baines isn't even remotely close to being the best DH.
Learned from you my man.
All I can say, is that the direction this thread has taken, makes me wish I'd never started the thread in the first place!
Steve
By the way, Lee Smith and Harold Baines were elected to the HOF.
Still deflecting.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
You certainly are.
Have you asked me a question I haven't addressed?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
You lost me with the arm operation stuff I have moved on on this subject.