211 4274 Guest36253 (IP: 69.141.76.197) Newey^2483 Re: Most Critical Stats for Building a Winning Team [Reply to #4287] 2/24/07, 1:08pm http://baseballgm.blogspot.com/2007_02_24_archive.h
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 I'm alright having you include me as part of your articles as I think we've been having an interesting back-and-forth discussion on this topic. But I would hope that you at least not misrepresent what I said. As far as players that are readily-available, I was talking about: 1) Starting pitchers, not relievers 2) Free agents that were getting new contracts, not pitchers being traded, and 3) Pitchers with at least 6 years of MLB service time, freeing them from their original drafters I'm sure once these factors are applied, your list (which also includes Brian Bannister who has all of 38 league-average innings in his young career) will be reduced significantly. That being said, I'm willing to concede on the support of the contracts. I'm sure I got caught up in the initial debate of listing ERA as an indicator of runs against, that I decided to disagree just to disagree. I think regardless of which stats anyone decides to look to, as you said, none of these pitchers really "deserve" what they will be paid in the coming year(s). I'm with you on this one. Gil Meche probably shouldn't make $11 M over two years... And I do understand your point; that teams can easily look to ERA in choosing who to sign and to what money. And it's not that I think it's a bad idea; it's a very effective and simple tool to look at improving your pitching staff. My only real comment came from your original article in which you talked about how ERA correlated with runs allowed. And in the fact that you mention how the 4 NL and AL teams that gave up the fewest runs last year also had the 4 lowest team ERAs in each league. This seemed much too obvious and I didn't quite understand why it was stated the way it was. Just like a team that scores the most runs/game will lead the league in runs scored (because each team plays the same number of games), the rate stat of lowest team ERA will almost always result in the fewest number of runs allowed by a team over the entire season (barring some unforeseen number of unearned runs). Maybe I was looking for too much in your article, or at least something similar to your point on the correlation between OPS and runs scored when it came to runs allowed. And I probably was a bit harsh on it in my initial comments. But I have enjoyed reading your articles and hope you continue the good work. [Newey from Cincinnati/OH] Replies: 4291