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Currently at Toronto Pearson: 24. Going up to 30 or so. Gained nine degrees of dewpoint in the last nine hours.
Today's Special Matinée Edition is prompted by an article in the Journal for the Philosophy of Sports arguing that "good pitching beats good hitting" is a meaningless proposition. (I shit you not.) Basically, the idea is it's meaningless because good pitching and good hitting are relative to each other. Anyway, like any good progressive right-thinking 21st-century baseball fan, I regard this as an empirical question to be decided based on statistics provided by baseball-reference.com. (Someday I might get around to justifying this view.) Here are the results of my preliminary investigations:
In the major league seasons of 2000 through 2007, eventual league-leaders in runs scored played eventual league-leaders in ERA 135 times. (Note 1: This may be fewer than you'd expect, due to the fact that hitting and pitching leaders usually don't come from the same division--in fact, in the period under study, it happened twice: 2007 Yankees and Red Sox, and 2005 Reds and Cardinals.) (Note 2: For the 2001 AL, I used the 2nd-place runs-scored and ERA teams, because the 116-win Mariners led the league in both.) The head-to-head records of the eventual ERA leaders against the eventual runs-scored leaders in those 135 games is 68-67. Throw out the 2005 Cardinals' 11-5 record against the Reds, and the ERA leaders' record is 57-62. Runs-scored leaders won 8 season series against ERA leaders; ERA leaders won 7, with one tie.
However: AL champions from 2000 through 2007 placed an average of 4.5th in the league in runs scored, and 2.5th in ERA. (The last three AL champions in a row have led the league in ERA, and the last champion to finish worse than 3rd in ERA was the 2000 Yankees. Only one champion in the period, the 2004 Red Sox, led the league in runs scored.) For NL champions, the numbers are 5.125 and 4.375. (The 2004 Cardinals were the only runs-scored leaders to win the pennant, but there were no ERA-leading pennant-winners, and the 2003, 2007, and 2006 champions were 7th, 8th, and 9th in ERA.) Overall, league champions placed an average of 4.8125th in their leagues in runs scored, and 3.4375th in ERA. World Series winners finished an average of 5th and 3.875th in their leagues.
So, preliminary conclusion: the old baseball saw that good pitching beats good hitting isn't particularly true, but the old hockey and football saw that defence wins championships seems to be true for baseball.
Today's Special Matinée Edition is prompted by an article in the Journal for the Philosophy of Sports arguing that "good pitching beats good hitting" is a meaningless proposition. (I shit you not.) Basically, the idea is it's meaningless because good pitching and good hitting are relative to each other. Anyway, like any good progressive right-thinking 21st-century baseball fan, I regard this as an empirical question to be decided based on statistics provided by baseball-reference.com. (Someday I might get around to justifying this view.) Here are the results of my preliminary investigations:
In the major league seasons of 2000 through 2007, eventual league-leaders in runs scored played eventual league-leaders in ERA 135 times. (Note 1: This may be fewer than you'd expect, due to the fact that hitting and pitching leaders usually don't come from the same division--in fact, in the period under study, it happened twice: 2007 Yankees and Red Sox, and 2005 Reds and Cardinals.) (Note 2: For the 2001 AL, I used the 2nd-place runs-scored and ERA teams, because the 116-win Mariners led the league in both.) The head-to-head records of the eventual ERA leaders against the eventual runs-scored leaders in those 135 games is 68-67. Throw out the 2005 Cardinals' 11-5 record against the Reds, and the ERA leaders' record is 57-62. Runs-scored leaders won 8 season series against ERA leaders; ERA leaders won 7, with one tie.
However: AL champions from 2000 through 2007 placed an average of 4.5th in the league in runs scored, and 2.5th in ERA. (The last three AL champions in a row have led the league in ERA, and the last champion to finish worse than 3rd in ERA was the 2000 Yankees. Only one champion in the period, the 2004 Red Sox, led the league in runs scored.) For NL champions, the numbers are 5.125 and 4.375. (The 2004 Cardinals were the only runs-scored leaders to win the pennant, but there were no ERA-leading pennant-winners, and the 2003, 2007, and 2006 champions were 7th, 8th, and 9th in ERA.) Overall, league champions placed an average of 4.8125th in their leagues in runs scored, and 3.4375th in ERA. World Series winners finished an average of 5th and 3.875th in their leagues.
So, preliminary conclusion: the old baseball saw that good pitching beats good hitting isn't particularly true, but the old hockey and football saw that defence wins championships seems to be true for baseball.
