On May 29, James commented on the NL Cy Young race:
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if the season were to end now, who do you think would deserve the nl mvp &cy young?
Asked by: bill byrd
Answered: 5/29/2012
David Wright and Aroldis Chapman.
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Notice that he said "Deserve," rather than answering "Who do you think would win." Here's a terse little reply on Rodney from September 2:
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Do you think Fernando Rodney could win the AL Cy Young?
Asked by: bill byrd
Answered: 9/2/2012
Yes.
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And now for something completely different, we'll give one of James' perspectives on Chapman's uniqueness:
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Bill: Do you know of any pitcher who has ever averaged two strikeouts per inning over a decent-sized sample (say a minimum of 60 innings)? Aroldis Chapman has struck out 80 in 42.2 IP so far. All the seasonal leaders lists are based on ERA qualifiers, so they don't help; I threw the question out on a message board, and the closest suggestions (Billy Wagner, Eric Gagne) all topped out at 14-15 K/9.
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: 7/24/2012
Taking that record all the way back to 1876, and using 60 innings as the standard all the way. . ..in 1876 Tommy Bond averaged 1.94 strikeouts per 9 innings, leading the National League. In 1877 Bobby Mitchell increased that to 3.69, and in 1878 Mitchell broke his own "record" with 5.74 strikeouts per nine innings.
You have to remember that in this era they would still, for example, change how many strikes were required for a strikeout. . .one year it was 5, the next year 4, etc.. ..so records were pretty fluid. In 1883 Grasshopper Jim Whitney (so called because he had a tiny little head that looked like a grasshopper's head) struck out 6.04 batters per 9 innings, and in 1884 One Arm Daily (so called because he had only one arm) struck out 8.68 per 9 innings. In 1885 Toad Ramsey (so called because. . .) struck out 9.46.
We could start the sequence over at 1900, but. ..let's not. If we credit the 19th century record as a legitimate major league record, that record stood until Bob Feller struck out 11.03 batters per 9 innings in 1936, the remarkable thing being that Feller was only 17 years old at that time. This record stood until Dick Radatz (The Monster) struck out 11.05 per 9 innings in 1963.
That record stood until John Hiller struck out 11.08 in 1975. That record stood until Dwight Gooden struck out 11.39 in 1984; Gooden was only 19 years old, and Gooden was the last starting pitcher to own the record, and the only starting pitcher to own the record since Bob Feller.
Tom Henke broke that record in 1986, at 11.63, and then Henke broke his own record in 1987, at 12.26. Henke's record was broken in 1989 by Rob Dibble, at 12.82; Dibble then broke his own record twice, upping the ante to 13.55 in 1991 and 1992. His record was broken by Billy Wagner. Wagner struck out 14.38 in 1997, then broke his own record twice, with 14.55 in 1998 and 14.95 in 1999.
Wagner's record was broken by Eric Gagne, who struck out 14.98 in 2003. Gagne's record was broken by Carlos Marmol in 2010; Marmol struck out 15.99.
So. . .Chapman may well break the record. If he doesn't, somebody will within a couple of years, and then it is fairly likely that that person will break his own record once or twice, and then the record will be handed off to somebody else within a few years. Records are made to be broken--in this case probably within five years.
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=== Made to Be Broken, Dept. ===
Can anybody break DiMaggio's 56-game hit streak? James has pointed out many times that baseball records will go through long periods of time in which they're [effectively] impossible to break, and then the nature of the game will change, and then the old record will quickly become totally obsolete. A lot of records are broken because the game changes, not because a freakish player came along.
Babe Ruth's* 60 homers was functionally impossible to break in the 1960's. But in the 1990's, several players laid it waste. That is the way with most records.
Strikeouts keep going up, James says, because:
This paradox is driving an upward spiral in K's. The best hitters in baseball are (generally) those who strike out a lot. An amazing paradox that is visibly warping the game.
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=== Superstar Setup Men ===
Watching Mariano Rivera set up John Wetteland in the middle 90's, and watching K-Rod set up Percival or whoever it was, I realized how psychologically devastating it was to have an impossible pitcher throw the 8th rather than the 9th. I've always enjoyed watching 10K setup men more than watching 10K closers.
Fernando Rodney was one of the game's nuclear setup men from like 2002 to 2008, and my BABVA roto teams always chased him in hopes of scoring a midseason closer conversion. Never happened. But now, watching people write about Rodney "coming out of nowhere" brings a smile. We've been waiting for him to do this for what, 10 years.
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Going by WAR, Justin Verlander has a 3x gap on Rodney (like 7.2 to 2.4) that rules out any discussion whatsoever. B-ref.com's WAR has Rodney at 3.7, so if you give a 50% bonus for leveraging, he's still behind by 7 to 5. (Aroldis Chapman, by the way, has 3.3 WAR to Rodney's 2.4.)
Like I've said, WAR is great and I only wish that people realized that it was a subjective "ranking" formula. RBI doesn't "rank" anything; it counts things. WAR ranks players subjectively. Its worst moments come when sabes use it to rail on GM's for signings that they don't think are "correct."
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What's your opinion? Would you prefer a PERFECT reliever, 80 innings of 100% OUTS, to Verlander or Felix to start the 2013 season? There's a caveat: you can't bring him into the game any time you want. You can only bring him into the game in the 9th inning.
If you gave me 80 PERFECT innings and I could deploy them any time I wanted -- say, to nuke Trout and Pujols in a 3-2 game in the 7th inning -- I'd rather have the reliever. But if I had to use the Perfect Reliever in the 9th, I'd rather have a great Opening Day Starter.
The modern "Celebration Closer," coming in to blow away lineups to protect a 94% probability of victory, is a sham that IMHO mars the game of baseball.
BABVA,
Dr D
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I think the way to judge relievers is win probability added, at least relative to each other. WAR as a counting statistic undervalues relievers by a lot. Would you rather have 200 inning of Ian Kenneday or 60 innings of Aroldis Chapman?
I don't really think comparing relievers to starters with WPA is all that useful, but by that standard Rodney (4.84 wins) out performed Verlander (4.04 wins).