There are a lot of issues with the various "park factors" and U.S. Cellular is not particularly small.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

You're ignoring the fact that he is the second best starting pitcher in most games he starts.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

Nobody want to take on the Buehrle/Vazquez question in spite of their supposed hard held beliefs in SABRmetric research regarding the things a pitcher can "control". Probably because arguing that Vazquez was better than Buerhle is even more ridiculous than calling Quintana "great".

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

Vazquez isn't a good comparison. The Sox offense didn't suck back then and Vazquez was boom or bust. Quintana is as consistent as they come.

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Be well

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Stand out on the 100 level concourse, just above the stairs going into the seating bowl. Do you feel that wind behind you? Now go to the upper deck. Also kinda windy, no? That helps fly balls. You can visually watch the balls carry if you're sitting down the first or third baselines. It is easily seen.

The park is very small with those factors considered.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

JORR never argues that Chris Sale isn't a top 5 pitcher. He ignores the fact that Chris Sale hast only won 14 games once. It's highly likely that he would have won 20 games several times if he didn't pitch for the Sox.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

You're really dancing around the numbers.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

Nobody "turns their greatness up". It just is. You can't be great if you're the second best starting pitcher in most games you start. Period.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

I'm not. It's crystal clear. Vazquez was wildly inconsistent but his best stuff was arguably better than Buehrle's. Quintana is just about as consistent as they come and his best stuff is right up there with any pitcher in baseball.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

How can you judge two pitchers against each other in the same game? They aren't facing the same team. Your logic is severely flawed.

If Quintana pitches against the White Sox offense and Alfredo Simon pitches against the White Sox offense and Quintana loses? Then you're on to something.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I agree. He consistently blows the lead in the sixth or seventh inning.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

Before this year we all considered Sale to be a top 5 pitcher and he spent the previous 3 seasons being the best in only about 50% of his starts. Why didn't we hold this against him? Because he plays for the Sox.

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He doesn't usually have the lead. We're talking about a 0-0 game or at best a 1-1 game.

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Be well

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The difference between most offenses within the minuscule space of a single game is negligible. The way those offenses will perform on that day is largely determined by the pitchers. We only see the difference in big league offenses over many games and many at-bats vs. a wide variety of different pitchers, situations, and plate umpires.

The plate umpire's effect on the game is seriously underrated. Do you really believe that a plate umpire has less effect on the game than the capability of one team to score an average of a fraction run more than the opposition over the course of a season? Do you think it is coincidence that Eric Cooper had the plate in both of Buehrle's no-hitters?

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

Actually, Vasquez was better than Buehrle by almost 2 WAR over their respective careers. Are you asking which pitcher would I take? Vasquez, as he was better at doing the things over which a pitcher has direct control. He only had 4 seasons of 4+ FIP, whereas Buehrle spent 10 of 14 seasons as a full-time starter over the 4 FIP mark, and Buehrle, for some reason benefited greatly from routinely friendly HR/FB rates.

So, your argument that Jose Quintana isn't great hinges on the idea that, across multiple games, he isn't "better" than the pitcher he opposes, because...the White Sox can't hit, which is because...the other pitcher is better...which is because...Quintana isn't better at pitching than the Sox' offense is at scoring...which is because the opposing pitcher is better....you're tying bootstraps to other bootstraps, all being pulled up by another bootstrap.

But still, you want to talk about Jose Quintana not "beating" an opposing pitcher across many games, but don't want to hear about the other things Quintana does, again across many games, that he does better than the vast majority of MLB starters? So we're talking about Quintana's W-L record, essentially. Which...ok.

So why aren't there just 15 "stock batting lineups" in the league? One based out of every ballpark. Baseball rosters would solely be rotations and bullpens. And the hitters play both the tops and bottoms of innings.

Let's get rid of that minuscule space. Sounds like you'd love that. Now we just have pitchers competing against pitchers with all other things being equal.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

This is where Fangraphs has taken people. To arguing that fucking Javy Vazquez was better than Mark Buehrle. There's no point in going on. We just aren't going to agree.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

Time and repetition. Time and repetition.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

I wouldn't argue that. I would say Vazquez at his best was probably better than Buehrle. Buehrle was fairly consistent though and Vazquez was all over the place.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

That's like the 4th time you've mentioned "Fangraphs" today, for the love of God there are at least 3 other reputable statistical databases that can serve as your Evil Numbers Boogymen.

And yes, Vasquez was better than Buehrle, because he struck out batters at a much higher rate, walked batters at only a marginally-worse rate, and was able to induce pop-ups that made up a large bulk of his fly-ball rate, meaning he could sustain league-average-or-worse luck in the HR/FB department and still not be a detriment to his team. Buehrle, on the other hand, was in a much more precarious position, in that he had to have the sustained "luck" (the ability of a pitcher to influence HR/FB rate is still dubious) of fly balls not turning into home runs, which is where he derived much of his value. If you give Buehrle league-average luck over his career, he becomes much, much worse.

You want to incorporate things a pitcher cannot control (defense, offensive "help", and so on) into their overall value, whereas I think it is better to valuate a pitcher with more weight placed on the things that pitcher can control directly. When you do the former, Buehrle is the better pitcher, when you do the latter, Vasquez is the clear favorite. I'd rather build a team based on how good players are at the things they can control and influence, and I think over the long run my team would be better than yours.

We can use this post when someone tries to say that no one just uses SABRmetrics as the definitive answer.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Luck is not sustainable over 3000+ innings.

Well then, substitute whichever one you're getting your idiotic ideas from.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

Have you made your case the Buehrle is better than Vasquez? Because I haven't seen it.

Dude...Buehrle was the #1 starter on a World Series team. He's probably the greatest pitcher in White Sox history, he won the White Sox an obscene amount of games. I'm not talking about pitcher wins, I'm talking about team wins. Buehrle is responsible for a lot a lot a lot of them. Definition of a horse.

I have no interest in making such an argument. If you think Vazquez was better than Buehrle feel free to go around saying it.

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General Jim wears Fort Bragg down... to get it!

How is any of what you said quantifiable and comparable across other teams and pitchers? I just asked for an argument for Buerhle being better than Vasquez, and what I got in response is "team wins" (what the hell are those?), "a horse" and "#1 starter on a World Series team". He was also the #1 starter on a lot of really bad White Sox teams, why aren't you counting those seasons?

Better include this last bit, numb nuts:

Your argument was "he was lucky" so you didn't make a strong case either.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!