This is how I invest in the stock market: naked eye. Hostess Twinkies looked awfully good to me.

Annoying when people display ignorance openly and proudly. Morris' ability to 'pitch to the score' has been debunked many, many times by many people. Lets check the Phillies record in Lee starts last year...

Supported by >5 runs: team record: 4-1 - the loss was a 10-6 game where he gave up 2 runs over 6 IP and left in a tie situation but then the game went nuts.

Gave up >5 runs: team was 1-1 in those 2 games, 0-3 in games giving up 5 runs, one was a one run loss (what one would expect given the authors view) while the other two saw 4 runs scored by Philly total.

4 losses that were 2-1 games, 1 lost 1-0, 2 lost 5-4 and 1 6-5 (could be what the author is thinking of). To counter it 4 wins of a one run nature. So in 1 run games 4-8 but with more than 1 run of support it was 4-3 which would make sense (1 run games are generally viewed as luck based for end result).

I suspect this is a writer who preferred 'winners' like Jack Morris over 'losers' like Dave Stieb in the 1980's. A team put together by him would be slaughtered by the non-clutch team I'd suspect.

This reads like an Onion article.

But the naked eye, the one that watched the season in its entirety, recalls at least a handful of times when he received substantial leads and could not hold them.

Not sure what a "substantial lead" is but let's go with three runs. Here's the list of games Lee blew a three run lead;

June 10 against Baltimore

Yup, it's the stats that are creating an alternate reality.

Discussing Schilling's Hall of Fame candidacy, a stat disciple mentioned that his win total averaged out to 12 games a season.

Um, what?

Discussing Schilling's Hall of Fame candidacy, a stat disciple mentioned that his win total averaged out to 12 games a season.

Um, what?

That's a really bizarre line on a couple of levels. First off, I don't know how they came up with that number. If you just divide Schilling's wins (216) by seasons (20) you get less than 11. Somehow they've decided Schilling has 18 seasons (216/18 = 12) but I don't know where the logic is in that.

Second, I'd like to know who this "stat disciple" is who is knocking Schilling's Hall of Fame based on this (imaginary) win per season total. You can certainly make a case that Schilling isn't a Hall of Famer, but that's not it.

Thing is, I saw Jack Morris pitch, and he was great. Great enough for the Hall of Fame? All I know is there are less great players in there

And he has seen all these lesser HOF members? Didn't have to rely on their numbers?

That's a really bizarre line on a couple of levels. First off, I don't know how they came up with that number. If you just divide Schilling's wins (216) by seasons (20) you get less than 11. Somehow they've decided Schilling has 18 seasons (216/18 = 12) but I don't know where the logic is in that.

Probably not counting his first 2 seasons in which he was 0-4 over 25 innings. But then he is counting his next 2 seasons in which he started 0 games. Starting in 1992 when Schilling became a full time starter (more or less), he won 212 games in 16 years, an average of 13.25 per. That includes seasons in which he started 11, 13, and 17 games.

Let us make a solemn vow to never speak of pitcher wins again.

Well, I guess I need to take off my contacts or glasses when watching baseball games.

Cliff Lee also blew a 3-run lead to Toronto on June 16, but that's it. The writer obviously only has two fingers in his hand.

If they’re going to argue that Morris or even Curt Schilling are less significant than guys already in there, guys like Bert Blyleven, then they ought to call the place the Baseball Bureau of Statistics. Because to the naked eye, it’s absurd.

You need statistics to make sense of a player's career when he's pitched several hundred games. Jack Morris had some great games. So did Blyleven. They both had awful games. Blyleven had more 1-0 wins than Morris, but Morris had more 1-0 wins coming in game 7 of a world series.

So on going by the naked eye does this guy mean just cherry picking the games he saw to make the case he wants to make? That's pretty useless.

If he means it in a scouting sense, then my opinion is that Blyleven was far greater, and far more memorable there. Jack Morris at his best had a low to mid 90's fastball. Good, but nothing legendary. Early in his career he had an excellent slider, and later he relied more on the split finger, or forkball, or whatever he wanted to call it. It was a good pitch, but not on the level of Mike Scott's, and no better than other contemporary pitchers, like Chuck Finley.

Blyleven, on the other hand, had a curveball that has to rank in the top 5 of any pitcher ever. Watching highlights of him striking people out on the curve was breathtaking. He ignored the laws of physics with that pitch. If I hadn't seen it I would not believe that much movement was possible. His fastball was ordinary when I saw him at the end of his career. Not sure if he was a fireballer when he was young.

I'll take a HOF curveball and ordinary fastball over several HOVG pitches in my eye test.

I guess the question for me is whose naked eye to trust: a baseball writer's or those of a few hundred major league hitters? The hitters' naked eyes (some with contacts, no doubt) saw a lot of hittable pitches.

There is no doubt that Lee deserved better. But the naked eye, the one that watched the season in its entirety, recalls at least a handful of times when he received substantial leads and could not hold them. Morris would say, I suppose, that in those cases, he failed to pitch to the scoreboard.

I have more respect for Jack Morris than to think he'd make such a buffoonish statement about Lee. You guys have found 2 games where Cliff blew a 3 run lead. I suspect most 20 game winners will have some games like that over a 33 start season. Some games that define Cliff's year:

10 innings, 0 runs, no decision
8 innings, 1 run, no decision
7.2 IP, 2 R, 12K, loss
8 IP, 2 H, 1 R, ND
8 IP, 2 R, 11 K, Loss
7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, ND

No one looked better to the eye than Bo Jackson. Why isn't he discussed for the Hall of Fame?

What's sad is the the bulk of the comments (that I could see) agree with him. I posted this on Hardball Talk, but if there are no consequences for writing this drivel, then why should the author care? One thing I learned from years of simply posting at Baseball Primer/Thinkfactory is that if you’re going to assert something, like the “handful of games” bit, you damn well better be right about it, because if you weren’t, someone whose opinion you probably respected (and from whom you wanted respect) was going to point out that you were wrong. And it takes all of about two minutes to check a fact like that. I can't count the number of times I was all set to make a point about what I had "seen" or what I remembered to be true, and when I went to check the facts, I found out that my recollection was not accurate. Saved myself from looking like an idiot a few times (though that doesn't explain all the other times I was unable to save myself from looking like an idiot).

But hey, who are you going to believe, actual box scores which are filled with scary statistics, or your lying, naked eyes?

take all this naked talk to the Bill James thread, pervs

7 out of 10 primates agree: Best to judge baseball talent while naked.

You need statistics to make sense of a player's career when he's pitched several hundred games

Yes exactly. There would be nothing wrong with judging a player by the eye test if we were comparing everyone on the basis of ability in World Series games or something.

The problem with the eye test is threefold. You can't see nearly as much of a player as stats can; you can't accurately recall what you did see 20 years later; not everybody's eye is an accurate judge of baseball talent.

Jack Morris pitched to 16,501 batters. I don't recall if he was a fast or slow worker, but (literal) back of envelope calculations are around 1 min per PA, which is about 10.5 full days of pitching. Even a Detroit beat writer might catch half of that. And that still doesn't let you compare him to others.

7 out of 10 primates agree: Best to judge baseball talent while naked.

Well, when you're in your Mom's basement, why not be naked? There's no windows.

7 out of 10 primates agree: Best to judge baseball talent while naked.

Only 70%? I call BS.

Sam Donnellon isn't even a baseball specialist. This article is just random blather.

This is the 5th baseball piece he's written since the end of baseball season. The others:

1/11/13: Lidge still recalls '08 run
12/07/12: Rips on Amaro are unwarranted
11/16/12: Loria stole Marlins' hope
10/04/12: Bring back Victorino, Madson

Going back into the season, the second thing to pop up is this, which is echoed by the article this thread is about. It ends with the convincing conclusion:

These are plays not measured in any comprehensible statistics, although those scripting for something called "The Fielding Bible" have given it an honest effort. But all baserunners do not have the same speed, guts or baseball IQ. Strength of arm is not just about putouts, but by a lack of attempts to run on that arm. They have tried to measure range, but these are not dynamic or even easily understandable stats.

The good news for you people is that Amaro, whose resume is still without a championship and thus incomplete, seems to get it, too.

I can't tell you how many runs will be saved in moving Utley to third and having Galvis at second for a season.

But my eyes can tell he's right for doing it.

Jack Morris had more games where he started and pitched at least 5 innings, either finished the game with a lead, left with a lead that his bullpen never relinquished, or had his teammates take a lead while he was still the pitcher of record and which was never relinquished, within a series of years where the second digit was 9 and the 3rd digit was 8 as specified by the Gregorian calendar.

But that's just a statistic, so if you want to make a case for him solely on the eye test, you better throw that one out.

Edit: Research into the origins of the sport indicates that Jack also had more wins than any pitcher in the 980's. That was a down decade for pitchers, so the above description is safe.

Jack also had more wins than any pitcher in the 980's. That was a down decade for pitchers,

I don't know, this pitcher looks pretty nice.

Why would you even become a writer in the first place if you feel like "your eyes can tell" everything and there's no point delving any further?

I don’t use my Hall of Fame ballot.

Well, that's good.

7 out of 10 primates agree: Best to judge baseball talent while naked.

Only 70%? I call BS.

Results may have been skewed by conducting the survey at the ballpark.

Results may have been skewed by conducting the survey at the ballpark.

Come on, everyone knows we don't go to the ballpark, we just look at spreadsheets.

DA Baracus Posted: February 07, 2013 at 12:03 PM (#4364889)

7 out of 10 primates agree: Best to judge baseball talent while naked.


Only 70%? I call BS.

- well i agree and that's 71% right there
watching nekkid ballplayers is the very best wayt o judge them. line forms on the right. starting with matt kemp. i i will ba happy to have spread sheets

There are a fair amount of people who think that sabermetrics and statistical analysis within baseball means looking at things like "batting average in Thursday night home games against left handed relievers with one out and two runners on base."

I thought Schilling WAS a 'stat disciple' candidate.

- well i agree and that's 71% right there
watching nekkid ballplayers is the very best wayt o judge them. line forms on the right. starting with matt kemp. i i will ba happy to have spread sheets

Spread sheets, or spread cheeks?

FPH

hey, either way. i'm kewl with the HOTTTTTT

Schilling's an obvious candidate. He has almost nothing in common with Jack Morris.

This article is irrefutable. In order to refute something you have to refer to a common structure of meaning. Pointing out the many ways in which this article "doesn't make sense" is begging the question.

You wouldn't try and refute random letters scrawled in a blackboard and you shouldn't try and refute this.

And what is this ridiculous practice of "keeping score"?? Why, you can tell who is winning simply by using your EYES!!!

I will give the guy some credit. He sent me this reply to my tweet about the column: "thanks for your polite admonishment of what was clearly a sloppy effort in my part."

In some ways maybe we have too high of standards for sports reporters with our expectations that they do research and be accurate. We should really just look at them like we do the guy who has to clean the restroom at the gas station. Sure we want it clean, but we realize there are going to be days where the guy doesn't feel like doing his best and just kind of phones it in. This column was basically this guys dirty restroom.

I will give the guy some credit. He sent me this reply to my tweet about the column: "thanks for your polite admonishment of what was clearly a sloppy effort in my part."

In some ways maybe we have too high of standards for sports reporters with our expectations that they do research and be accurate. We should really just look at them like we do the guy who has to clean the restroom at the gas station. Sure we want it clean, but we realize there are going to be days where the guy doesn't feel like doing his best and just kind of phones it in. This column was basically this guys dirty restroom.

This article is irrefutable. In order to refute something you have to refer to a common structure of meaning. Pointing out the many ways in which this article "doesn't make sense" is begging the question.

This article isn't right. It's not even wrong.

Sorry about the double post.

F'ing retard. How do these people not get that the naked eye is different from person to person? Or should we call the HOF the "Hall of Players who Sam Donnellon thinks were good with his naked eye"?

Stats are valuable because they are objective and verifiable. Furthermore, stuff like runs per 9 innings and innings pitched, which is all you need to quote to get Bert a HOF and Morris not, are by far the most important aspects of pitching.. uh, giving up fewer runs. Christ!

Or should we call the HOF the "Hall of Players who Sam Donnellon thinks were good with his naked eye"?

No, that's why lots of people vote. It should be the "Hall of Players that consensus has decided were great with lots of naked eyes".

Someday, we'll have the ability to more-or-less rank players by how great they were, statistically. Maybe we already do, or close enough. When that day comes, it won't matter what people thought of players.

Isn't it far more interesting to have a record of what people thought of a player, with their naked eye, when they were contemporaries? That's information that we'll never be able to get back, unless we record those votes and opinions today.

Isn't it far more interesting to have a record of what people thought of a player, with their naked eye, when they were contemporaries? That's information that we'll never be able to get back, unless we record those votes and opinions today.

It is interesting, but that shouldn't be confused with the HOF vote.

Isn't it far more interesting to have a record of what people thought of a player, with their naked eye, when they were contemporaries?

Morris voters are basically lying about contemporary opinion, though.

I dunno about lying; memory doesn't work that fiendishly. They are remembering the moments after Gene Larkin hit that ball in 1991, when it did indeed seem like Morris was the love child of Cy Young and Hercules. They were forgetting the several years of just-another-starter that Morris turned in during the 1980s.

He was treated as an ace throughout his career, by all factions of the game, as measured in a variety of ways. No one's "lying" about that.

It's even refutable!!!

He was treated as an ace throughout his career, by all factions of the game, as measured in a variety of ways. No one's "lying" about that.

It's even refutable!!!

What accounts for the huge dropoff in opinion about him between 1994, his final season, and 2000, when he only received 22% of the HOF vote, then?

There's a pretty serious gap between ace and the obviously-would-be-in-the-HoF-except-for-stat-nerds that guys like Jon Heyman are portraying him as.

the one that watched the season in its entirety, recalls at least a handful of times when he received substantial leads and could not hold them. Morris would say, I suppose, that in those cases, he failed to pitch to the scoreboard.

This is just strange. "Pitching to the score" is not about not losing big leads. Pitching to the score was the excuse invented to explain away Morris's high ERA by saying that, when ahead 5-1, rather than pitching at his absolute best trying to hold them at 1, he'd pound the strike zone resulting in an efficient 5-3 or 5-4 win. In short, like Ichiro, Morris's career ERA could have been 3.20 if he wanted it to. It also meant that he would magically hold the opposition to 2 runs when his team only scored 3. That has been debunked of course but that's still the way the story goes.

The knock against Cliff Lee from this mythical perspective is not Lee blowing big leads but that Lee kept losing those 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 games. Those are games where Lee needed to pitch to the score because he should have known he couldn't afford to give up those 1, 2, 3 runs that day.

Bill Belichick: "Stats are for losers, the final score is for winners. That's really what it's about."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t-r2HASo5M

can anyone give morris' data in relation to:

he gets crushed in 1st or 2nd or 3rd, but pitches long enough (beyond 5th) and puts the brakes on the other team, to let his team get back in the game. that's what i always thought pitching to the score should mean, at least. because that's a noble thing for a pitcher to do and plays to the bulldog image and doesn't reflect well in the stats.