Friday, May 30, 2008

Friday 5/30

1. Al Leiter: BB/9>=4.37, WL%>=.55, IP>=2391, and GS>=382
The guy who most represented the type of pitcher who has been around a long time, was on some good teams and pitched deep into games, but walked a lot of batters.

I love Leiter's quirky personality. I loved him as a pitcher, I loved him even more as an old washed up Yankee pitcher on his way out, and now I love him the most as an amusing TV analyst. Besides for being hilarious, I will also say that while he is no Brian Bannister, he still is for a major league player surprisingly "with-it" in terms of the sabrmetric revelations of the past quarter century, particularly with WHIP, and pitching to certain counts. He had an idea which I found fascinating a few years ago and I will mention it as I also ramble on about the subject in general. I hope this turns out coherent:

While I don't fully agree with his proposed playoff-system that he made several years ago as a player which was quickly lambasted by the local sports media, it definitely would be a step in the right direction and is MUCH better than the current system. He wanted 6 playoff teams from each league with the top 2 seeds in each league getting a first round bye, thus aiding "better" teams and giving them more a shot to win. But why is that necessary you might ask. Don't top teams such as the Yankees of the late 90s seem to survive this playoff system just fine? I truly believe the Yankees got very lucky and a string of success of actual WS Championships like that may go down in the history of this current playoff system as a remarkable dynasty.

For those unaware, the problem with the current system is that the Better team (defined as the team which has been proven to be superior to another team through a 162 game sample) is subjected to 2 brutal short series matchups which pretty much make it, as Billy Beane in Moneyball coined, a "crapshoot."

Here is the best way to show that the system is flawed: in a given league with 4 playoff teams, one of them according to win-loss record is better than one other (namely, the first place team from the same division as the wild card team is better than that wild card team). This means, that unlike the other 3 teams, this team should have LESS than a 1/4 chance of making it to the world series. Because of the 4 teams in its league, at least this one is known to be inferior to one another.

And yet, since the advent of the wild-card system in 1995, out of those 13 seasons in which there are 2 leagues, there should only be, in a perfect playoff system, AT MOST 1/4*(13*2) = 6.5 wild card teams making the world series. And yet there have been 9 such examples:
1997 Marlins, 2000 Mets, 2002 Angels, 2002 Giants, 2003 Marlins, 2004 Red Sox, 2005 Astros, 2006 Tigers, 2007 Rockies.

I, personally believe, that the Yankees have screwed with everyone's perceptions by winning a remarkable 4 world series in 5 years (and 1 inning away from 5/6) in this system. I think the depth of that type of streak will be put into a much greater perspective 40, 50 years from now when it is likely never repeated (assuming the system never changes), and then people will realize how the Yankees spoiled everyone into thinking that Selig's wild-card system was "good" when in essence it gave too much of a chance to the weak team to defeat the strong team in a probabilistic sport.

In case you were wondering my thoughts, the perfect system would have just a regular season with 1 league, no divisions, everyone plays everyone an equal amount of time and the first place finisher is "champion." I would love for this to be the case, and in such a league you can even quantify and give major importance/shep a lot of nachas from your team coming in 2nd, 6th or even 10th place out of 30.

But if there must be a post season for laymen fans' sake, at least make it only 2 rounds, and if you must have 3 rounds, at least lengthen each round! Prediction: none of this will ever happen, and a new wild card team will continue to advance to the world series much to Tim McCarver's "surprise" year in and year out.

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