Garza isn't as bad as you think

1908_Cubs said:

Every statistic if flawed. Welcome to real life where you can't just take one thing and say "Done!". There is no magic bullet.

The problem here, Dewsox, is that while FIP,xFIP, WAR, and all the rest are in fact flawed statistics, they're not that flawed. They're not so flawed that they become useless. And coupled together, in fact, they become a very strong foundation for an argument. Then you add in K/9. Then you add in BB/9. Then you add in BABIP, LD%, GB% and FB%....and you have a very strong house. To which you continue to only offer arguments of "Pshaw? That doesn't count cause I say so.".

WHIP is not a bad statistic because walks are controlled by umpires. It's a bad statistic because it makes no distinction between types of hits and defense can factor in heavily. Which is uncontrollable for the pitcher.

Now I'm not here stating that Garza is the best pitcher in baseball. In fact, Captain Obvious didn't even state that. It appears you suffer from the same reading comprehension problem that our friend FirstTimer suffers from. What Obvious stated, was that Garza, to this point, had pitched like one of, if not the best, pitchers in baseball. And...in many regards he's correct. He is leading in K's, he's leading in FIP. He's very high up on WAR. He's getting unlucky on hits. Do I think he's the best SP in baseball? Shit no. I'd bet my life that Captain doesn't think that either. What's being said, however, is that to this point Garza's been one of the best. Which is very much true. And if you do not believe it to be so, please, inform me why. Using a statistical basis for your argument. You have yet to do that.

Not to mention, using the word "Special person" when retorting to someone, makes you look like a moron. This isn't me getting uppity about the word, it's me telling you that it's impossible to take you serious when you argue like you're a high school student.

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yes he did say it, read my sig.

So we like to look at the 36 hits in 30.2 innings as maybe what? bad luck? someone who thinks that a specific player should have gotten to a specific Ball in play? I guess the 1.46 WHIP doesnt stand any ground because again the hit portion isnt controlled by the pitcher, it is his defense, and someone stating whether a player should have gotten to the ball or not, or was it just a simple hit that the defense couldnt get to? Again we cant use Whip right because of the umpires as CO has stated in the past, but we can use K/9? sounds about right. how about the h/9....damn, there we go, it is still all about the defense getting to the ball and if the play was makeable? again cant it just be a hit? maybe you think his .696 OPS will stay consistent with his career, doubtful on many levels, but whatever. Will his .429 BABIP come back down? probably, but will it be higher than his career avg? i will bet my cars on that.

04/29/11 Fans are claiming that Garza is the best pitcher if not one of the top few, due to summary: bad luck, balls that should not be hits because the defense should have gotten to them and he has alot of Strikeouts.

cubsneedmiracle said:

I say you should stay.

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I guess, we all need homers and apologists on message boards

Here's the point.

You can give up a large sum of hits in a inning and still strikeout 3 guys.

Does it mean you are good?

DewsSox79 said:

I guess, we all need homers and apologists on message boards

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The full spectrum is needed.

Whether ya like it or not.

DewsSox79 said:

yes he did say it, read my sig.

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I mean, holy shit man, how awful at reading comprehension are you guys on this website? Let's take a little jaunt down educational learning lane and we'll see how awful.

Captain Obvious said:

He has been great. In fact, he's been if not the best pitcher in baseball, certainly one of the top few.

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This is the exact post in your signature. Captain Obvious states that "he's been, if not the best....". Been is the operative word. As in, thus far, in 2011, Garza has pitched like one of the best pitchers in the MLB.

To state that he is the best pitcher in baseball is flat out Special person, and if you believe that he is the best pitcher in baseball you are Special person

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You then claim that Captain believe him to be the best pitcher in baseball. When in fact, Captain has never made such a ludicrous statement. Captain stated, through 4 starts, Garza has been one of the best pitchers. I then explained all of this in my post. You still have yet to understand what's happened here. It's amazing.

So we like to look at the 36 hits in 30.2 innings as maybe what? bad luck? someone who thinks that a specific player should have gotten to a specific Ball in play? I guess the 1.46 WHIP doesnt stand any ground because again the hit portion isnt controlled by the pitcher, it is his defense, and someone stating whether a player should have gotten to the ball or not, or was it just a simple hit that the defense couldnt get to? Again we cant use Whip right because of the umpires as CO has stated in the past, but we can use K/9? sounds about right. how about the h/9....damn, there we go, it is still all about the defense getting to the ball and if the play was makeable? again cant it just be a hit? maybe you think his .696 OPS will stay consistent with his career, doubtful on many levels, but whatever. Will his .429 BABIP come back down? probably, but will it be higher than his career avg? i will bet my cars on that.

04/29/11 Fans are claiming that Garza is the best pitcher if not one of the top few, due to summary: bad luck, balls that should not be hits because the defense should have gotten to them and he has alot of Strikeouts.

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Do you not realize your entire argument has been based on one statistic that is highly flawed on it's own? You romp around here "War sucks. Fip sucks. Rabble rabble rabble". And then...your own defense is, he's given up a lot of hits? Every statistic you've brought to the table has that string in common. H/9 (hits per 9 innings pitched), WHIP (walks + hits per inning pitched). Hits in general. Do you see why all of these statistics point to Garza not being great? Which is flawed to begin with because once the ball is hit in play the pitcher no longer controls the outcome.

I've already stated that CO was wrong on WHIP. Based on your response, I'll just assume that you washed right over that part. The real reason we do not want to use WHIP is not the "W" (walks") but the "H" (hits). This is the entire crux of the argument that we're having. The same one, you're ignoring. His BABIP is a good .150-.200 points over his career numbers. His LD% is very high. His GB% is very high. What you're going to see here is these things regress to the mean to a great deal. His strikeout and walk totals suggest that his stuff is not worse, therefore, he shouldn't be giving up hits at a stupid rate.

Lastly your "do you think he'll keep a .696 OPS statement" is one that is...simply put, the dumbest part of this. Do I think he can? Hell yes he can. Hey, quick question, did you bother looking at his career OPS against? Oh you didn't. Did you know it's a mere .30 points higher than what he's been through thus far? And that in 2008 and 2009, his OPS against, for entire seasons were .684 and .695? Both numbers lower than his current .696 OPS against. Both of which occurred in the AL, which means they should regress simply missing the DH in the NL? So what a great thing you've pointed out. Thanks.

No one here has ever claimed he's going to stay this good on a lot of things. I don't think Matt Garza is going to lead the NL in strikeouts. I don't think his FIP is going to stay at levels that would make pitchers in the deadball era jealous. That said, this argument is not about that. It started when Captain claimed to this point he had been one of the best in baseball, during the month of April. A statement that still rings true. To this point, Matt Garza has been brilliant on the mound, and balls are either finding ways to drop in, or the players in the field have let him down.

1908_Cubs said:

I mean, holy shit man, how awful at reading comprehension are you guys on this website? Let's take a little jaunt down educational learning lane and we'll see how awful.



This is the exact post in your signature. Captain Obvious states that "he's been, if not the best....". Been is the operative word. As in, thus far, in 2011, Garza has pitched like one of the best pitchers in the MLB.



You then claim that Captain believe him to be the best pitcher in baseball. When in fact, Captain has never made such a ludicrous statement. Captain stated, through 4 starts, Garza has been one of the best pitchers. I then explained all of this in my post. You still have yet to understand what's happened here. It's amazing.




Do you not realize your entire argument has been based on one statistic that is highly flawed on it's own? You romp around here "War sucks. Fip sucks. Rabble rabble rabble". And then...your own defense is, he's given up a lot of hits? Every statistic you've brought to the table has that string in common. H/9 (hits per 9 innings pitched), WHIP (walks + hits per inning pitched). Hits in general. Do you see why all of these statistics point to Garza not being great? Which is flawed to begin with because once the ball is hit in play the pitcher no longer controls the outcome.

I've already stated that CO was wrong on WHIP. Based on your response, I'll just assume that you washed right over that part. The real reason we do not want to use WHIP is not the "W" (walks") but the "H" (hits). This is the entire crux of the argument that we're having. The same one, you're ignoring. His BABIP is a good .150-.200 points over his career numbers. His LD% is very high. His GB% is very high. What you're going to see here is these things regress to the mean to a great deal. His strikeout and walk totals suggest that his stuff is not worse, therefore, he shouldn't be giving up hits at a stupid rate.

Lastly your "do you think he'll keep a .696 OPS statement" is one that is...simply put, the dumbest part of this. Do I think he can? Hell yes he can. Hey, quick question, did you bother looking at his career OPS against? Oh you didn't. Did you know it's a mere .30 points higher than what he's been through thus far? And that in 2008 and 2009, his OPS against, for entire seasons were .684 and .695? Both numbers lower than his current .696 OPS against. Both of which occurred in the AL, which means they should regress simply missing the DH in the NL? So what a great thing you've pointed out. Thanks.

No one here has ever claimed he's going to stay this good on a lot of things. I don't think Matt Garza is going to lead the NL in strikeouts. I don't think his FIP is going to stay at levels that would make pitchers in the deadball era jealous. That said, this argument is not about that. It started when Captain claimed to this point he had been one of the best in baseball, during the month of April. A statement that still rings true. To this point, Matt Garza has been brilliant on the mound, and balls are either finding ways to drop in, or the players in the field have let him down.

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finding ways to drop in? those are hits bro! jesus christ.

Yeah those players are letting him down allright, I guess those players should have gotten to each one of those balls.

how many errors did Castro have in inning 2? was it 3? the defense let him down there, but he wasnt penalized for that in his stat line.

1908_Cubs said:

PSD largely sucks because of the mods.

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No kidding. And they really suck at softball!! One of them went 0-3 tonight!

Still was a good time. It was our first game.

DewsSox79 said:

how many errors did Castro have in inning 2? was it 3? the defense let him down there, but he wasnt penalized for that in his stat line.

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not sure what you are meaning here. You don't think it hurt his UZR?

poodski said:

not sure what you are meaning here. You don't think it hurt his UZR?

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cubs 1908and balls are either finding ways to drop in, or the players in the field have let him down.

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^^^^ just stating that garza did not get penalized for those runs due to errors being made on the field. but if there is no errors there are balls in play that could be outs? but they "found ways to drop in"? just stating those are hits,and it sounds like excuses being made. im going to try to find this link for you poodski on this 5 page write up on the specific flaws in using xFIP FIP

I know the flaws to FIP. Trust me.

Fuck stats for a minute...from watching nearly every pitch of every Cubs game this year, Matt Garza and Carlos Zambrano aren't bad. Dempster, Russell, Coleman..yeah, those guys suck.

I think Garza will get going once the weather warms up. He's got some really good stuff. I really like Garza. He was a good pick-up for the Cubbies.

DewsSox79 said:

yes he did say it, read my sig.

So we like to look at the 36 hits in 30.2 innings as maybe what? bad luck? someone who thinks that a specific player should have gotten to a specific Ball in play? I guess the 1.46 WHIP doesnt stand any ground because again the hit portion isnt controlled by the pitcher, it is his defense, and someone stating whether a player should have gotten to the ball or not, or was it just a simple hit that the defense couldnt get to? Again we cant use Whip right because of the umpires as CO has stated in the past, but we can use K/9? sounds about right. how about the h/9....damn, there we go, it is still all about the defense getting to the ball and if the play was makeable? again cant it just be a hit? maybe you think his .696 OPS will stay consistent with his career, doubtful on many levels, but whatever. Will his .429 BABIP come back down? probably, but will it be higher than his career avg? i will bet my cars on that.

04/29/11 Fans are claiming that Garza is the best pitcher if not one of the top few, due to summary: bad luck, balls that should not be hits because the defense should have gotten to them and he has alot of Strikeouts.

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Yeah, I was wrong about WHIP. It's the hits part. Still, I stated that months ago...

Like 1908 says below, you're only using hits. Which is great if... well no, it's not great at all. You really need to read this to see where we are coming from.

Baseball Prospectus | Pitching and Defense

1908_Cubs said:

I mean, holy shit man, how awful at reading comprehension are you guys on this website? Let's take a little jaunt down educational learning lane and we'll see how awful.



This is the exact post in your signature. Captain Obvious states that "he's been, if not the best....". Been is the operative word. As in, thus far, in 2011, Garza has pitched like one of the best pitchers in the MLB.



You then claim that Captain believe him to be the best pitcher in baseball. When in fact, Captain has never made such a ludicrous statement. Captain stated, through 4 starts, Garza has been one of the best pitchers. I then explained all of this in my post. You still have yet to understand what's happened here. It's amazing.




Do you not realize your entire argument has been based on one statistic that is highly flawed on it's own? You romp around here "War sucks. Fip sucks. Rabble rabble rabble". And then...your own defense is, he's given up a lot of hits? Every statistic you've brought to the table has that string in common. H/9 (hits per 9 innings pitched), WHIP (walks + hits per inning pitched). Hits in general. Do you see why all of these statistics point to Garza not being great? Which is flawed to begin with because once the ball is hit in play the pitcher no longer controls the outcome.

I've already stated that CO was wrong on WHIP. Based on your response, I'll just assume that you washed right over that part. The real reason we do not want to use WHIP is not the "W" (walks") but the "H" (hits). This is the entire crux of the argument that we're having. The same one, you're ignoring. His BABIP is a good .150-.200 points over his career numbers. His LD% is very high. His GB% is very high. What you're going to see here is these things regress to the mean to a great deal. His strikeout and walk totals suggest that his stuff is not worse, therefore, he shouldn't be giving up hits at a stupid rate.

Lastly your "do you think he'll keep a .696 OPS statement" is one that is...simply put, the dumbest part of this. Do I think he can? Hell yes he can. Hey, quick question, did you bother looking at his career OPS against? Oh you didn't. Did you know it's a mere .30 points higher than what he's been through thus far? And that in 2008 and 2009, his OPS against, for entire seasons were .684 and .695? Both numbers lower than his current .696 OPS against. Both of which occurred in the AL, which means they should regress simply missing the DH in the NL? So what a great thing you've pointed out. Thanks.

No one here has ever claimed he's going to stay this good on a lot of things. I don't think Matt Garza is going to lead the NL in strikeouts. I don't think his FIP is going to stay at levels that would make pitchers in the deadball era jealous. That said, this argument is not about that. It started when Captain claimed to this point he had been one of the best in baseball, during the month of April. A statement that still rings true. To this point, Matt Garza has been brilliant on the mound, and balls are either finding ways to drop in, or the players in the field have let him down.

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Even using OPS against still uses hits. Which as the article clearly proves, isn't something we should be using.

I cannot believe I wasted my time reading that.

So I guess we will say fuck the hits! fuck em, fuck penalizing a pitcher for giving up hits, I mean its all about the defense right. there should never be a hit counted against a pitcher.

for god sake go back to PSD with the rest of the homers who seem to think the have a grip on sabre and how the highly flawed metrics prove that soriano is a good defender and how garza and wells are so great.

I bet if these players where on the cardinals and someone brought them up for an eval debate you would pick apart all the stats to say they suck. you know im right on.

DewsSox79 said:

I cannot believe I wasted my time reading that.

So I guess we will say fuck the hits! fuck em, fuck penalizing a pitcher for giving up hits, I mean its all about the defense right. there should never be a hit counted against a pitcher.

for god sake go back to PSD with the rest of the homers who seem to think the have a grip on sabre and how the highly flawed metrics prove that soriano is a good defender and how garza and wells are so great.

I bet if these players where on the cardinals and someone brought them up for an eval debate you would pick apart all the stats to say they suck. you know im right on.

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No, you completely missed the point. It's not saying fuck hits. It's taking the fielder out of the equation. There is no fielder. That's the only way to evaluate a pitcher properly. I have to wonder if you actually read that.

You still are not using anything of substance to refute any of my statements or Po or 1908's.

Again, like 1908 stated before, every stat has flaws. We're aware of this. Move on.

Dewey if you can show me that a pitcher has control of how often balls land in play I will never bring up a DIPS stat again.

Ok, I agree with pitchers not having control over where batted balls fall in play.

However, I would like to ask how much do you think Garza's high LD% has lead to giving up many hits?

Since a line drive yields the highest BABIP, shouldn't LD% be the stat to look at for a pitchers ability to prevent hits? Fewer line drives, fewer hits?

AddisonStation said:

Ok, I agree with pitchers not having control over where batted balls fall in play.

However, I would like to ask how much do you think Garza's high LD% has lead to giving up many hits?

Since a line drive yields the highest BABIP, shouldn't LD% be the stat to look at for a pitchers ability to prevent hits? Fewer line drives, fewer hits?

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Honestly, this is the argument Dew needed to make 4 fucking pages ago. Dew actually would have had a decent argument had, you know, he posted this. Because he could have trapped me in a corner. Instead...he decided to piss and moan about....well...nothing.

Yes, LD% and BABIP correlate well. And this is an issue with Garza right now because his LD% right now is through the roof. Which has been, part of why he's been giving up hits. That said, his defense has also let him down significantly.

The thing is, his LD% has never been this high. And it's flukey high considering that his strikeout rate has been so good. And walk rate...so low. Using simple logic, it's a fluke. One would not expect a pitcher, locating his pitches and striking out so many to be so hittable.

I think what you're going to see from Matt Garza is that he regresses to his mean. Or, essentially, you're going to see his K numbers as well as his LD% and hit numbers fall back to around the norm. I do believe, though, that Matt Garza's K numbers will continue to stay a decent amount above his career numbers. The Cubs have a lot of high K pitchers, and it seems as though without having the large OF that he was given in Tampa, he's going to pitch more to strikeouts and more to ground balls.

1908_Cubs said:

Honestly, this is the argument Dew needed to make 4 fucking pages ago. Dew actually would have had a decent argument had, you know, he posted this. Because he could have trapped me in a corner. Instead...he decided to piss and moan about....well...nothing.

Yes, LD% and BABIP correlate well. And this is an issue with Garza right now because his LD% right now is through the roof. Which has been, part of why he's been giving up hits. That said, his defense has also let him down significantly.

The thing is, his LD% has never been this high. And it's flukey high considering that his strikeout rate has been so good. And walk rate...so low. Using simple logic, it's a fluke. One would not expect a pitcher, locating his pitches and striking out so many to be so hittable.

I think what you're going to see from Matt Garza is that he regresses to his mean. Or, essentially, you're going to see his K numbers as well as his LD% and hit numbers fall back to around the norm. I do believe, though, that Matt Garza's K numbers will continue to stay a decent amount above his career numbers. The Cubs have a lot of high K pitchers, and it seems as though without having the large OF that he was given in Tampa, he's going to pitch more to strikeouts and more to ground balls.

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That was brought up over a week ago. no point in even using that in an arguement since the responses where the defense is worse than tampas previous OF, so I wasnt even going to waste my time with that again if that is going to be the arguement.

to say that he is going to pitch more to ground balls, is easier said than done, it isnt just going to happen where he decides "hey im going to pitch groundballs now because im in Wrigley and not in Tampa"

1908_Cubs said:

Honestly, this is the argument Dew needed to make 4 fucking pages ago. Dew actually would have had a decent argument had, you know, he posted this. Because he could have trapped me in a corner. Instead...he decided to piss and moan about....well...nothing.

Yes, LD% and BABIP correlate well. And this is an issue with Garza right now because his LD% right now is through the roof. Which has been, part of why he's been giving up hits. That said, his defense has also let him down significantly.

The thing is, his LD% has never been this high. And it's flukey high considering that his strikeout rate has been so good. And walk rate...so low. Using simple logic, it's a fluke. One would not expect a pitcher, locating his pitches and striking out so many to be so hittable.

I think what you're going to see from Matt Garza is that he regresses to his mean. Or, essentially, you're going to see his K numbers as well as his LD% and hit numbers fall back to around the norm. I do believe, though, that Matt Garza's K numbers will continue to stay a decent amount above his career numbers. The Cubs have a lot of high K pitchers, and it seems as though without having the large OF that he was given in Tampa, he's going to pitch more to strikeouts and more to ground balls.

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Tell us how you really feel, Phil Rogers Jr.