View Full Version : ESPN Chat...NYYFans vs. SoSH
NicktheStick36
10-16-04, 11:32 AM
The transcript is here:
ESPN Chat (http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=6209)
One thing really caught my eye (the SoSH guy has a statbent...EricVan for those who go there).
It's a very interesing trio of matchups. A healthy Brown is a little bit better than Arroyo -- but we don't know he is healthy and of course, the game is in Fenway. Nobody knows about Wakefield vs. El Duque b/c the knuckler is SO unpredictable. The final game is the mirror of the first game b/c I think the good Derek Lowe is actually, on average, a little bit better than Mussina. But there is no guarentee that the good Lowe shows up. This is very interesting
At first glace, I thought this was completely crazy...as others have too.
But I think about it more, and I think he might be right.
Derek Lowe was one of the best pitchers in the AL in 1999, 2000, and 2002 in various roles. He's shown flashes of brillience in 2003, and 2004 as well.
Statistically, Moose has been better during his career, of course, but do you think the only thing really seperating these two men is the fact that Mussina has been consistantly good, while Lowe has flashed of good mixed with a few weeks of bad?
BTW: I posted a new thread in here because I wanted more of a quntitative discussion than the one currently going on. Wiffle...if you think it's redundant, feel free to lock this thread.
SheffMVP11
10-17-04, 03:48 PM
I think that's ridiculous. "The good" Derek Lowe? What does that mean?
Billy Traber pitched a complete game 1-hit shutout against the Yankees last year. Does that mean I can say "the good" Billy Traber is better than Roy Oswalt, but Oswalt is just more consistent?
Either I don't fully understand the question or the statement from Eric Van is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard.
RhodeyYankee2638
10-17-04, 04:24 PM
There is a big reason that there is talk that no pitcher may not come within 50 wins of 300 W's other than some of the top flight pitchers still in the game today. Pitching is all about consistency. Moose (for the most part, minus couple seasons) has been incredibly consistent. Derek Lowe, is wildly inconsistent, and you never have any idea of what to expect of him. Its that simple. If you are starting a team and are choosing between Lowe and Mussina for a pitcher, you'd be a fool to choose Lowe.
twentyquestions
10-17-04, 04:51 PM
Every pitcher has flashes of brilliance. Hell, Nate Robertson had a 1 run complete game this year. I don't think that the good Lowe, "on average," is better than the good Mussina.
I'm willing to give Eric, who's usually very insightful, the benefit of the doubt, and conclude that he didn't clarify the point that he was trying to articulate. Either that, or I'll just dismiss his bizarre conclusion as unbridled bias (optimism may be a softer term).
NicktheStick36
10-20-04, 01:37 AM
Originally posted by SheffMVP11
I think that's ridiculous. "The good" Derek Lowe? What does that mean?
Billy Traber pitched a complete game 1-hit shutout against the Yankees last year. Does that mean I can say "the good" Billy Traber is better than Roy Oswalt, but Oswalt is just more consistent?
Either I don't fully understand the question or the statement from Eric Van is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard.
Well, Traber wasn't one of the best pitchers in baseball for 3 seasons. So no.,
My thinking is that when Lowe is on his game, he's jus as good as Mussina. Unfortunately for Derek, he's only "on" 50% of the time.
SheffMVP11
10-20-04, 10:59 AM
Originally posted by NicktheStick36
Well, Traber wasn't one of the best pitchers in baseball for 3 seasons. So no.,
For 2 of those 3 seasons that Lowe was "one of the best pitchers in baseball", he was a reliever. Moose has always been a starter. Apples and oranges.
NicktheStick36
10-20-04, 01:18 PM
The quality of Lowe's innings as a reliever in 1999 and 2000 are definately enough to make up the gap in quantity that Mussina has.
Lowe pitched a lot for those Sox teams. Saying that they are apples and oranges is a cop out. Like me saying that you can't compare the two because Moose has a conventional repitiore and Lowe relies on the sinker.
Most of the time Moose is going to be better than Lowe, but not all the time. Comparing Lowe to guys like Billy Traber or Nate Robertson is simply being blind. Those guys had one or two great games; Lowe is INCONSISTENT. He's had several very good to great seasons, not just a few good starts. I can't remember where it was said or who said it, but Lowe is an average pitcher with an excellent pitch. If the sinker is on, his confidence skyrockets, and he can be excellent (see game 4 of the WS, game 7 of the ALCS, all of 2002, etc). He was off with the sinker for most of this year, but when its on, sorry, but he's better than Mussina. Since it isn't on all too often, I'd take Moose over Lowe....but on any given day, Lowe could outpitch him, if his one pitch is on.
twentyquestions
10-30-04, 12:45 AM
Originally posted by Euclis
Most of the time Moose is going to be better than Lowe, but not all the time. Comparing Lowe to guys like Billy Traber or Nate Robertson is simply being blind. Those guys had one or two great games; Lowe is INCONSISTENT. He's had several very good to great seasons, not just a few good starts. I can't remember where it was said or who said it, but Lowe is an average pitcher with an excellent pitch. If the sinker is on, his confidence skyrockets, and he can be excellent (see game 4 of the WS, game 7 of the ALCS, all of 2002, etc). He was off with the sinker for most of this year, but when its on, sorry, but he's better than Mussina. Since it isn't on all too often, I'd take Moose over Lowe....but on any given day, Lowe could outpitch him, if his one pitch is on.
Most of the time Randy Johnson is better than Tim Wakefield, but not all the time. So what? Many major league pitchers have an "excellent pitch." And ANY major league pitcher is capable of outpitching anyone else on any given day. It happens all the time. I don't see why inserting Derek Lowe's name into this obvious fact, and thus acting like he's in some way better than Mussina (why are we even having this discussion?), means anything out of the ordinary.
And your conditional (if the sinker's on, Lowe's better than Mussina) is fallacious because it assumes (falsely) that Lowe's performance is directly related to Mussina's. It is entirely possible that Lowe and Mussina can both be "on" in the same game and that Mussina can outpitch him. You admit this much in your next conditional, where you allow the possibility of Mussina outpitching him, so, again, I don't know why this Good Lowe argument is even meaningful, since it applies to every pitcher, on every team, in both leagues.
SheffMVP11
10-30-04, 01:01 AM
Originally posted by Euclis
He was off with the sinker for most of this year, but when its on, sorry, but he's better than Mussina.
This is where you get silly. I brought up an example before of Billy Traber pitching a complete game 1-hit shutout against the Yankees last year. So by your reasoning, I can say that when "Traber is on" he can beat Lowe, because he's shown that when he's on he can pitch a 1-hitter.
And yes, I know that comparing the likes of Traber or Robertson to Lowe is ridiculous... just like the Moose/Lowe comparison you are making.
Eric Van
10-30-04, 03:46 AM
Just wanted to point out that this topic has come up again in the thread comparing the '98 Yankees to '04 Sox. I go into my thinking quite a bit more there.
In 1998 and 1999 Derek Lowe threw 183 IP at a level that Mike Mussina has never approached, especially recently. That winter, I did an extensive analysis of the notion of Lowe as a starting pitcher. I discovered that relievers turned starters had no tendency for their ERA to go up, contrary to conventional wisdom. Now, certainly that's a function of the fact that the only guys who are so converted are the guys who are believed to have a shot at success in the new role -- but Lowe was one of those guys.
I also took a close look at Lowe's failed career as a starter and concluded it was irrelevant.
I finished the analysis by saying "It wouldn't surprise me one bit if he immediately became the second best starting pitcher in the AL."
The Sox waited a year before they made the conversion. And Lowe became the second best starting pitcher in the AL, having a year that Mike Mussina has never approached, especially recently.
Lowe had skin cancer in the next off-season which prevented him from doing any kind of workout for a good stretch of the winter. He had a bad ST and a 6.53 ERA in his first 8 starts. And a 2.70 ERA in his next 8. And a 6.61 ERA in his next 8. And a 2.67 ERA in his last 10 plus 2 relief appearances in the ALDS. And a 6.43 ERA in the ALCS.
Repeat:
2.58 (all of 2002)
6.53 (8)
2.70 (8)
6.61 (8)
2.67 (10 + 2)
6.43 (2)
Gee, I don't know how the crazy notion that there was a Good Lowe and a Bad Lowe with markedly different performance levels ever occurred to me!
Lowe had a 4.47 ERA in 2003, but at no point in the season was he a 4.47 pitcher. He was either 2 runs better or 2 runs worse. Which is an enormous difference.
This year the pattern was obscured somewhat by the fact that his infield defense kept changing, at times excellent, at times awful. And the Good Lowe wasn't up to the level of 1999, 2000, 2002, or the two stretches of 2003. But you saw what he did in the post-season.
He's spent a lot more consolidated time being a 2.65 ERA pitcher -- which is fabulous, it's CY territory -- than Mike Mussina. I mean, there's no question that he can be that good, be that good for an entire season. In fact, he's been that good most of the time that he hasn't been awful. And (at least since his first full year back in '92) Mike Mussina has never been that good. Ever.
patrick.o
10-30-04, 10:55 AM
Originally posted by Eric Van
He's spent a lot more consolidated time being a 2.65 ERA pitcher -- which is fabulous, it's CY territory -- than Mike Mussina.
Utter bull. As I pointed out in the other thread, if you take a mere four bad starts from Mussina's 2003 season he pitched at a 2.61 ERA. So you can take your guy and his 6.60-2.70 yo-yo streaks and I'll take my guy and his consistent 2.60 with an occasional poor start and we'll both be happy.
And for the record, when my little sister's fastball is hitting 98 she's a better pitcher than either Lowe or Mussina. Unfortunately, it's never actually broken 60.
SheffMVP11
10-30-04, 01:53 PM
Originally posted by patrick.o
Utter bull. As I pointed out in the other thread, if you take a mere four bad starts from Mussina's 2003 season he pitched at a 2.61 ERA. So you can take your guy and his 6.60-2.70 yo-yo streaks and I'll take my guy and his consistent 2.60 with an occasional poor start and we'll both be happy.
And for the record, when my little sister's fastball is hitting 98 she's a better pitcher than either Lowe or Mussina. Unfortunately, it's never actually broken 60.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
:gulp:
twentyquestions
10-30-04, 04:18 PM
Originally posted by Eric Van
Gee, I don't know how the crazy notion that there was a Good Lowe and a Bad Lowe with markedly different performance levels ever occurred to me!
Because the notion's either obvious and applicable to everyone or it's a myth, and as evidence you only have an arbitrary trend that could very well be randomness, and it includes only ERA, assuming that ERA in and of itself summarizes a pitcher's performance on any given day. That is false, because luck contributes (especially for groundball pitchers), as does the quality of the opponent faced, and then there are those things called unnearned runs (at one point this year, Lowe gave up what, 6 or 7 runs against Texas, but ZERO earned?).
Nor is the arbitrary trend you cited from 2003 as pronounced in 2004, leading me to believe that it's randomness. Your explanation, that the infield defense changed, is unconvincing without explication/proof.
There is one pitcher, and his name is Derek Christopher Lowe. Sometimes he pitches well; sometimes he pitches well for three consecutive games. This is nothing new; Euclis called it inconsistency, and hundreds of pitchers have exercised this since baseball began. By demonstrating how Lowe rarely pitches at his earned run average, you're only highlighting ERA's predictive flaws, something that is not uniquely found in Lowe.
Let’s analyze, chosen completely at random, Mike Maroth in 2004. He finished the year with a 4.31 ERA so, again at random, let’s examine the final three months of the year, and see how well his ERA correlates with how he actually pitched.
7/3 11.1 ERA
7/8 8.1
7/16 0.0
7/21 3.0
7/26 5.1
7/31 2.0
8/6 4.8
8/12 2.7
8/17 5.1
8/22 6.4
8/27 7.2
9/1 1.2
9/10 5.4
9/15 2.5
9/20 0.0
9/26 6.7
10/1 5.1 ERA
From these data I conclude that Maroth either pitched extremely well or extremely poorly relative to his seasonal ERA; the closest performance to his seasonal ERA came on 8/6, where the differential was ~.50 points. Sometimes his ERA was slightly higher, sometimes slightly lower, but wow, lots of times it was about two runs higher or lower.
Your claim that “at no point in the season was Lowe a 4.47 pitcher. He was either 2 runs better or 2 runs worse” is flat out false. We have specific dates: 6/16 he had an ERA of 4.9. 7/27 he had an ERA of 4.5. 9/3 he had an ERA of 3.9. 8/13 an ERA of 3.6. Those figures are not 2 runs better or 2 runs worse than 4.47. The only reason the claim appears to be true is because you had arbitrarily grouped Lowe’s starts by the number 8 (and, later, 10).
Let’s examine Lowe’s ERA by groups of 3:
4.9 (3)
5.8
6.00
2.9
3.3
4.2
5.00
6.2
2.8
2.6
3.6 (2)
4.3 (3) starting in the postseason
Well, I see a mediocre pitcher who had four great patches (from 3.3 ERA down), one of which (the 2.6) strangely coinciding with the White Sox, Baltimore, and Tampa Bay. Otherwise, mediocrity.
It's impolitic to group starts by a convenient number, implicitly label that expanse a “part of the season” and the aggregate of those numbers “the season.” Each start is distinct, individual, and different from the preceding and following ones, and it’s misleading to pretend that they can be bunched together in arbitrary configurations to validly represent a season.
Lowe’s not a schizophrenic with a mysterious flaw you can turn off via some miracle drug. He's a man with quality stuff, and sometimes he's better than others because that stuff works. Good pitchers, like Curt Schilling, perform well when their stuff’s not terrific, when the splitter’s falling too soon to fool many batters. Mediocre pitchers, like Lowe, especially those essentially utilizing one-pitch, are bounced quickly if they don’t have their stuff. Occham's razor.
brndnclaussen'sghost
10-31-04, 10:49 PM
This is where you get silly
---------------------------------
Did you watch the playoffs, though? Lowe was ridciulous. Some sucker team is going to pay for that performance for 35 starts, and be disappointed when they only get 15 starts worth of it. But you have to admit---Van's mythical "Good Lowe" had a great October.
Bronson'sCornrows
11-03-04, 10:44 PM
Originally posted by twentyquestions
Most of the time Randy Johnson is better than Tim Wakefield, but not all the time. So what? Many major league pitchers have an "excellent pitch." And ANY major league pitcher is capable of outpitching anyone else on any given day. It happens all the time. I don't see why inserting Derek Lowe's name into this obvious fact, and thus acting like he's in some way better than Mussina (why are we even having this discussion?), means anything out of the ordinary.
I don't see the relevance of this statement (or of this argument, really). You are discussing something based on a comment made on ONE game. There's absolutely no relevance in comparing Mussina's consistency to Lowe's sometime awfulness/sometime dominance. Why? Because the original comment made was used in the context of ONE GAME. I think many have lost sight of this.
If you really want to continue comparing the stats of these two pitchers, go ahead, but I'm not sure how this discussion could have possibly been started by the original statement made from the guy on SoSH.
For the record, for similar money, I'd sign Mussina over Lowe in a heartbeat. For dissimilar money, I probably take Moose anyway, depending on how big of a difference.
twentyquestions
11-04-04, 07:08 AM
Originally posted by Bronson'sCornrows
I don't see the relevance of this statement (or of this argument, really). You are discussing something based on a comment made on ONE game. There's absolutely no relevance in comparing Mussina's consistency to Lowe's sometime awfulness/sometime dominance. Why? Because the original comment made was used in the context of ONE GAME. I think many have lost sight of this.
Again, the original comment is meaningless, that is, it says nothing interesting, compelling, or unique about Derek Lowe. That's the point, and it doesn't matter if you're discussing one, ten, six hundred games.
It means nothing, because it applies to every pitcher, at every time, and is not limited to Derek Lowe, as the original comment implied (the idea of a unique Good/Bad Derek Lowe, distinct from a Good/Bad Generic Pitcher, is a myth).
Soxheaven
11-29-04, 11:41 PM
Originally posted by SheffMVP11
This is where you get silly. I brought up an example before of Billy Traber pitching a complete game 1-hit shutout against the Yankees last year. So by your reasoning, I can say that when "Traber is on" he can beat Lowe, because he's shown that when he's on he can pitch a 1-hitter.
And yes, I know that comparing the likes of Traber or Robertson to Lowe is ridiculous... just like the Moose/Lowe comparison you are making.
The Moose/Lowe comparison is not so ridiculous. I happen to think Mussina is better, but over the past 3 years:
Lowe Mussina
604IP 594IP
274ER 262ER
4.08ERA 3.96ERA
52-27 47-27
WHIP 1.32 WHIP 1.19
.260 Opp BA .256 Opp BA
It's amazing how close their numbers are. When Lowe's sinker is working, he's a frontline pitcher. However, he's a very streaky pitcher. When his sinker isn't working....he's Estaban Loiza!
Soxheaven
11-29-04, 11:46 PM
Originally posted by Eric Van
....He's spent a lot more consolidated time being a 2.65 ERA pitcher -- which is fabulous, it's CY territory -- than Mike Mussina. I mean, there's no question that he can be that good, be that good for an entire season. In fact, he's been that good most of the time that he hasn't been awful. And (at least since his first full year back in '92) Mike Mussina has never been that good. Ever.
Mussina was spectacular in 1992...but that was a long time ago. Mussina's career numbers are a lot more consistent than Lowe's. Given the choice, I would probably take Mussina over Lowe....but I have concerns about both of them...
NJASDJDH
11-30-04, 04:10 PM
Originally posted by Soxheaven
The Moose/Lowe comparison is not so ridiculous. I happen to think Mussina is better, but over the past 3 years:
Lowe Mussina
604IP 594IP
274ER 262ER
4.08ERA 3.96ERA
52-27 47-27
WHIP 1.32 WHIP 1.19
.260 Opp BA .256 Opp BA
It's amazing how close their numbers are. When Lowe's sinker is working, he's a frontline pitcher. However, he's a very streaky pitcher. When his sinker isn't working....he's Estaban Loiza!
Considering your numbers are utilizing Lowe's outlier of '02, of course that is going to happen.
Originally posted by Soxheaven
The Moose/Lowe comparison is not so ridiculous. I happen to think Mussina is better, but over the past 3 years:
...
When Lowe's sinker is working, he's a frontline pitcher. However, he's a very streaky pitcher. When his sinker isn't working....he's Estaban Loiza! SheffMVP's point went way over your head.
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