Posted by wylie715 on 12/22/2017 11:50:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/22/2017 9:16:00 AM (view original):

Posted by cccp1014 on 12/22/2017 8:57:00 AM (view original):

Oh hey look, they do make posters of mediocre pitchers.

So, which is it? Was Hunter a good pitcher, which you have stated, or a mediocre pitcher, which you have also stated. Mediocre and good do not mean the same thing. At least not to most people.

mediocre: adjective

1.

of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate:

The car gets only mediocre mileage, but it's fun to drive.

Synonyms: undistinguished, commonplace, pedestrian, everyday; run-of-the-mill.

Antonyms: extraordinary, superior, uncommon, incomparable.

2.

not satisfactory; poor; inferior:

Mediocre construction makes that building dangerous.

Synonyms: meager, low-quality, second-rate; so-so.

Antonyms: excellent, superior

Definition of good:adjective, better, best.

1.

morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious:

a good man.

2.

satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree:

a good teacher; good health.

3.

of high quality; excellent.

Mediocre can mean average. A pitcher who lasts in the majors for 15 years and comes out roughly average was good.

Just not a deserving hall of famer.

Posted by dahsdebater on 12/22/2017 11:58:00 AM (view original):

Posted by cccp1014 on 12/22/2017 9:00:00 AM (view original):
I would respect BL's argument more if:

• He didn't believe that "wins" were an irrelevant stat. As I said before some could be lucky but consistent winning is not luck.
• He wasn't so obtuse as to dismiss other people's point of views even if they differ from his.
• He wasn't a complete idiot.

Just my 2 cents.

Kinda ironic to call someone a complete idiot while simultaneously indicating you don't know how to pluralize points of view. That's Junior High grammar.

Wow LOL

You mean I should write peoples'?

Is English your first language? It is my 2nd. I apologize I didn't meet your standards.

He was referring to "point of views". It should be "points of view".

Posted by Jtpsops on 12/22/2017 12:00:00 PM (view original):
Ah, critiquing grammar - the sure sign of a lost argument.

No, there's just no point arguing with the vast majority of people in these forums about baseball. They aren't interested in factual evidence. You dismiss numbers out of hand because only nerds care about stats. Baseball has passed all of you by, every front office in MLB has a whole team of BLs leading their decision-making processes while over half the league has done away with professional scouting, but you refuse to accept the new way of thinking. No point continuing to point out how wrong-headed you are when all you do is point and laugh. Mike talks constantly about the fact that there are too many people in the HOF, but now he's trying to use the fact that Catfish is in as evidence that he deserves to be in? The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. You can't talk about baseball with people who constantly change their arguments to fit the point they're trying to make at the moment. You guys have this fixed perception of baseball that doesn't really make sense. But you're not going to budge on it.

So instead I'll just point out when you do something stupid and wait for an actually interesting baseball discussion. This one is ridiculous.

So there IS a point in being Grammar Nazi?

LOL. That was something stupid. Point yourself out.

No one here is dismissing stats. The main argument is that it's foolish to rely on stats alone (or cherry-pick stats that support your argument). You can't fully assess a player's value by looking at numbers in a spreadsheet and ONLY numbers in a spreadsheet.

Also...it's foolish to evaluate a player from the 1970s according to how the game is played/what is valued 40 years later. Not sure why you fail to grasp that. Get over yourself already. Despite your arrogance, you are NOT more enlightened than everyone else just because you have a raging boner for modern metrics. It takes the full picture to evaluate a player.

Posted by Jtpsops on 12/22/2017 12:04:00 PM (view original):
He was referring to "point of views". It should be "points of view".

Oh crap, I missed that. Nice catch. Thank you.That was a typo actually. LOL

Posted by dahsdebater on 12/22/2017 12:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Jtpsops on 12/22/2017 12:00:00 PM (view original):
Ah, critiquing grammar - the sure sign of a lost argument.

No, there's just no point arguing with the vast majority of people in these forums about baseball. They aren't interested in factual evidence. You dismiss numbers out of hand because only nerds care about stats. Baseball has passed all of you by, every front office in MLB has a whole team of BLs leading their decision-making processes while over half the league has done away with professional scouting, but you refuse to accept the new way of thinking. No point continuing to point out how wrong-headed you are when all you do is point and laugh. Mike talks constantly about the fact that there are too many people in the HOF, but now he's trying to use the fact that Catfish is in as evidence that he deserves to be in? The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. You can't talk about baseball with people who constantly change their arguments to fit the point they're trying to make at the moment. You guys have this fixed perception of baseball that doesn't really make sense. But you're not going to budge on it.

So instead I'll just point out when you do something stupid and wait for an actually interesting baseball discussion. This one is ridiculous.

That was a typo not a grammar error. You are a dummy.

Posted by bad_luck on 12/22/2017 12:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by wylie715 on 12/22/2017 11:50:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/22/2017 9:16:00 AM (view original):

Posted by cccp1014 on 12/22/2017 8:57:00 AM (view original):

Oh hey look, they do make posters of mediocre pitchers.

So, which is it? Was Hunter a good pitcher, which you have stated, or a mediocre pitcher, which you have also stated. Mediocre and good do not mean the same thing. At least not to most people.

mediocre: adjective

1.

of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate:

The car gets only mediocre mileage, but it's fun to drive.

Synonyms: undistinguished, commonplace, pedestrian, everyday; run-of-the-mill.

Antonyms: extraordinary, superior, uncommon, incomparable.

2.

not satisfactory; poor; inferior:

Mediocre construction makes that building dangerous.

Synonyms: meager, low-quality, second-rate; so-so.

Antonyms: excellent, superior

Definition of good:adjective, better, best.

1.

morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious:

a good man.

2.

satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree:

a good teacher; good health.

3.

of high quality; excellent.

Mediocre can mean average. A pitcher who lasts in the majors for 15 years and comes out roughly average was good.

Just not a deserving hall of famer.

Maybe you should write the the Hall of Fame and request that they change the verbiage on Hunter's plaque to:

"An average pitcher for 15 years who is not a deserving Hall of Famer".

Let us know what they say.

Posted by tecwrg on 12/22/2017 12:35:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/22/2017 12:03:00 PM (view original):

Posted by wylie715 on 12/22/2017 11:50:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/22/2017 9:16:00 AM (view original):

Posted by cccp1014 on 12/22/2017 8:57:00 AM (view original):

Oh hey look, they do make posters of mediocre pitchers.

So, which is it? Was Hunter a good pitcher, which you have stated, or a mediocre pitcher, which you have also stated. Mediocre and good do not mean the same thing. At least not to most people.

mediocre: adjective

1.

of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate:

The car gets only mediocre mileage, but it's fun to drive.

Synonyms: undistinguished, commonplace, pedestrian, everyday; run-of-the-mill.

Antonyms: extraordinary, superior, uncommon, incomparable.

2.

not satisfactory; poor; inferior:

Mediocre construction makes that building dangerous.

Synonyms: meager, low-quality, second-rate; so-so.

Antonyms: excellent, superior

Definition of good:adjective, better, best.

1.

morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious:

a good man.

2.

satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree:

a good teacher; good health.

3.

of high quality; excellent.

Mediocre can mean average. A pitcher who lasts in the majors for 15 years and comes out roughly average was good.

Just not a deserving hall of famer.

Maybe you should write the the Hall of Fame and request that they change the verbiage on Hunter's plaque to:

"An average pitcher for 15 years who is not a deserving Hall of Famer".

Let us know what they say.

Well, that would be perfect. I doubt they’d change it, but good thinking.

Posted by Jtpsops on 12/22/2017 12:13:00 PM (view original):
No one here is dismissing stats. The main argument is that it's foolish to rely on stats alone (or cherry-pick stats that support your argument). You can't fully assess a player's value by looking at numbers in a spreadsheet and ONLY numbers in a spreadsheet.

Also...it's foolish to evaluate a player from the 1970s according to how the game is played/what is valued 40 years later. Not sure why you fail to grasp that. Get over yourself already. Despite your arrogance, you are NOT more enlightened than everyone else just because you have a raging boner for modern metrics. It takes the full picture to evaluate a player.

There's no cherry picking. Pitching is just easy.

You can get 98% of the way to knowing how good a pitcher was with nothing but IP and ERA+. A pitcher has one primary job. Stop runs from scoring over the largest reasonable number of innings. That's it. If you do a good job then your team will tend to win games, but maybe not if it's a really bad team. If you do a poor job then your team will tend to lose games, but maybe not if it's a really good team. 1987 Nolan Ryan led the NL in ERA (and strikeouts) and went 8-16 because he got no run support. In the same year Walt Terrell put up an ERA over 4 and went 17-10 for a Tigers team that easily paced the AL in runs scored. It's stupid to give those guys any significant amount of individual credit for their teams' respective abilities to score runs when they pitched. The only thing that remotely recommends Catfish for the HOF is his W-L record. He played for 7 postseason teams at a time when only 2 teams per league made the postseason. You're giving him a huge amount of credit for playing on good teams. I'm not.

Seriously, I brought this up a couple of days ago, and I don't think it really got a response (though maybe I missed it). In what way is Catfish Hunter better than Big Fat Bartolo Colon?

No one here is dismissing stats. The main argument is that it's foolish to rely on stats alone (or cherry-pick stats that support your argument). You can't fully assess a player's value by looking at numbers in a spreadsheet and ONLY numbers in a spreadsheet.

If it's reasonable to argue that the fact that Catfish is in the HOF is evidence that he deserves to be - and don't pretend people aren't leaning heavily on that - then I can appeal to the authority of better-credentialed people as well. Right?

A number of MLB teams have gotten rid of their professional scouting departments because they believe precisely that they can sufficiently assess players' value by looking at numbers in a spreadsheet. If highly-paid Major League executives believe that to be true, why should I take your word that they're wrong?

I'm beginning to think that BL is just a pseudonym of DAHS. There's no way TWO people can be that stupid and self-unaware.

Also...it's foolish to evaluate a player from the 1970s according to how the game is played/what is valued 40 years later.

I think my favorite part of this is the idea that people 40 years ago didn't know pitchers weren't supposed to give up runs.

"Yo, Catfish! Throw it underhand! Who cares if they score?"

Posted by bad_luck on 12/22/2017 12:58:00 PM (view original):

Also...it's foolish to evaluate a player from the 1970s according to how the game is played/what is valued 40 years later.

I think my favorite part of this is the idea that people 40 years ago didn't know pitchers weren't supposed to give up runs.

"Yo, Catfish! Throw it underhand! Who cares if they score?"

Sez the guy who thinks that pitchers shouldn't care if they win games.