The OFFICIAL 2012 MLB League Championship Series Thread

[moon]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

yea that's about right, they simply don't care. Maybe the guy had a good game?

They aren't facing Justin Verlander or Felix Hernandez even if Zito has a good game for him they should be able to get more than 6 hits against him and certainly shouldn't give up 5 runs to the Giants.

[TitovFTW]

Zito actually had a -0.3 WAR this season. He pitches in the most pitcher friendly park in MLB, so again, ERA just is not a telling stat. his strikeouts were down considerably, He gave up a lot of hits this season as well. Barry Zito is not a good pitcher. The randomness of baseball is that in small sample sizes, one game and short series, a ton of crazy stuff can happen.

And while I agreed with Moon on the W-L record and Barry Zito stinking, these nights happen. i don't see anything in the Cardinals game that would tell me they don't care. They just missed some chances early on to go ahead. They're still up 3-2 on the best team in the NL IMO and have Chris Carpenter still ready to go. Cardinals will be fine.

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by moon

I am not sure why you are focusing on wins so much. Awesome the team won when he pitched that tells us about 0 about his actual ability or what he did in those games.

Cardinals should be able to easily beat him if they want to go to World Series but they appear to not care all that much as shown by their pathetic effort tonight. Not sure it will matter much because if this is the best the Cards have to offer then the Tigers will be easily walking away with the Title this year anyways.

I focus on wins, because that's the most important stat. Seriously, what stat in baseball is ranked higher than wins? The team that wins four games first in the LCS goes to the World Series. That's the only stat that matters. Right now Zito is giving his team a chance to win. Tonight he pitched phenomenally, especially getting out of the jam in the second. When a pitcher shuts down the Giants I commend the pitcher, realize it's a long season and understand the game of baseball. I've seen how you react to the Flames, so I'm not surprised in your analysis. Zito beat St. Louis in the one game he faced him during the regular season. Was that pathetic too? Sometimes, and some games, one team is just better. St. Louis was easily better in game four of the LCS. The Giants weren't pathetic then; St. Louis was simply better that game and overpowered the Giants.

Since you were concerned over Zito's ability, tonight he pitched 7.2 innings of shutout baseball. On August 7th when he beat St. Louis he pitched 6.2 innings and allowed two runs. In the two games against him He had 14.1 innings and an ERA of 1.26. In the current 13 game team win streak of Zito starts has a 3.60 ERA. If he gave up 10+ runs in the first 3 innings as you suggested, he'd have an ERA of 30.00 or so.

Fun stats: In the 162 regular season games and 11 post season games, St. Louis scored 10+ runs in 13 plus games. The earliest they got to 10 runs was the third inning once against the Brewers on April 27. Other than that they got 10 runs twice by the 7th inning. Including the playoffs, 4 of the 13 games were against the Nationals. The other 9 were against non-playoff teams. It just goes to show, that it isn't easy to get 10+ runs in a few innings, especially against playoff teams and a pitcher that has won a Cy Young before, and is currently on an excellent win streak.

[TitovFTW]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

I focus on wins, because that's the most important stat. Seriously, what stat in baseball is ranked higher than wins?

Literally every other stat is more important when talking about pitchers. The W-L record of a pitcher tells us nothing at all about their skill level. Cliff Lee didn't win a game until months and months into the season and he had a 1000x better season then Barry Zito and is a 1000x better pitcher. ERA while giving us more insight into a pitchers performance is also useless due to the many different unfair factors that make up the stat. Team defense, ballpark the pitcher is pitching in, inherited runners, exc.

Barry Zito is not a good pitcher. He just isn't. He's not a god awful pitcher but he's just not that good. He had a good performance tonight. Kudos to him.

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by TitovFTW

Literally every other stat is more important when talking about pitchers. The W-L record of a pitcher tells us nothing at all about their skill level. Cliff Lee didn't win a game until months and months into the season and he had a 1000x better season then Barry Zito and is a 1000x better pitcher. ERA while giving us more insight into a pitchers performance is also useless due to the many different unfair factors that make up the stat. Team defense, ballpark the pitcher is pitching in, inherited runners, exc.

Barry Zito is not a good pitcher. He just isn't. He's not a god awful pitcher but he's just not that good. He had a good performance tonight. Kudos to him.

I have been a lifelong Giants fan. I was extremely excited to get him from Oakland and extremely disappointed in the first five years of his San Francisco tenure. Besides some glimpses at his former greatness, a few of which I have been at AT&T Park to witness in person, I couldn't wait for his contract to end. This year has been different. He pitched very well all year in 2012. Every pitcher will have some bad games, and he had 3 terrible ones this year. This was very much needed, since Lincecum had a terrible year. His ERA and losses led the NL. That's unacceptable for him, and the team's supposed ace.

It's not like the Giants have huge bats behind them. I'd agree Zito had a bad year if he lost a lot of games, had a high ERA or from watching 150 out of the 162 games had seen other things. He had a good year this year. This year he was a good pitcher. If you ranked the NL starting pitchers from 1-80 on their pitching up until today, he'd be second on the Giants and probably top 25 in the league. That's not a bad pitcher. It just isn't. I don't forget what happened since he came to SF, but I appreciate what he's done, especially this year.

[TitovFTW]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

I have been a lifelong Giants fan. I was extremely excited to get him from Oakland and extremely disappointed in the first five years of his San Francisco tenure. Besides some glimpses at his former greatness, a few of which I have been at AT&T Park to witness in person, I couldn't wait for his contract to end. This year has been different. He pitched very well all year in 2012. Every pitcher will have some bad games, and he had 3 terrible ones this year. This was very much needed, since Lincecum had a terrible year. His ERA and losses led the NL. That's unacceptable for him, and the team's supposed ace.

It's not like the Giants have huge bats behind them. I'd agree Zito had a bad year if he lost a lot of games, had a high ERA or from watching 150 out of the 162 games had seen other things. He had a good year this year. This year he was a good pitcher. If you ranked the NL starting pitchers from 1-80 on their pitching up until today, he'd be second on the Giants and probably top 25 in the league. That's not a bad pitcher. It just isn't. I don't forget what happened since he came to SF, but I appreciate what he's done, especially this year.

Wins and losses don't matter.

Barry Zito is nowhere close to being a top 25 pitcher in this league. He's the 4th best on the Giants. Calling him 2nd best to ta team with MadBum is mind boggling on so many levels. Barry Zito is not that good, statistically clearly tell us that. Barry Zito has not been a good pitcher his entire time with the Giants. He got off to an okay start this year, but his numbers are so inconsistent.

The Giants had one of the best offenses in the NL the second half. I'm not sure why you keep quoting wins and losses for him or Lincecum, they don't matter. The way a pitcher pitches has no bearing on how an offense will perform. None what so ever. A pitcher can get tremendous run support and still pitch bad but win a game. A pitcher like Cliff Lee, can also put up amazing numbers but get no run support and lose games.

Barry Zito is not a top 25 pitcher in MLB. Barry Zito is the #4 or #5 stater on every single major league baseball team

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by TitovFTW

Literally every other stat is more important when talking about pitchers. The W-L record of a pitcher tells us nothing at all about their skill level.

I looked up the list of MLB pitchers that have won 250 or more games. There are 46 men on that list with win totals ranging from 251-511. 33 of them are in the HOF. Of the 13 who aren't in yet, the list includes Maddux, Clemens, Glavine, Johnson, Mussina and Moyer, who will all likely make it in.

I find it hard to believe that a pitcher's win total means absolutely nothing. You don't get wins unless you are good. You can get some by being average, but you don't accumulate huge win totals without being an excellent pitcher. In no way am I saying Zito is a HOFer. What I am saying is that win totals are an important stat for pitchers and that Zito had a good 2012 season. The stat I would guess is the least important for a pitcher is velocity or maybe crotch grabs. Saying "Literally every other stat is more important when talking about pitchers", is incorrect.

[TitovFTW]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

I looked up the list of MLB pitchers that have won 250 or more games. There are 46 men on that list with win totals ranging from 251-511. 33 of them are in the HOF. Of the 13 who aren't in yet, the list includes Maddux, Clemens, Glavine, Johnson, Mussina and Moyer, who will all likely make it in.

I find it hard to believe that a pitcher's win total means absolutely nothing. You don't get wins unless you are good. You can get some by being average, but you don't accumulate huge win totals without being an excellent pitcher. In no way am I saying Zito is a HOFer. What I am saying is that win totals are an important stat for pitchers and that Zito had a good 2012 season. The stat I would guess is the least important for a pitcher is velocity or maybe crotch grabs. Saying "Literally every other stat is more important when talking about pitchers", is incorrect.

"You don't get wins unless you are good" That is simply not true. You can be awful and get great run support and win a whole hell of a lot of games!!!!


Win totals are not an important stat. You can easily win games and not be that good or lose games and be a great pitcher. If you put Clayton Kershaw on the Houston Astros, he would not win many games at all. That would have nothing to do with him and everything to do with the team around him. A Pitcher can not make batters hit the ball better or score runs.

Jamie Moyer is not a HOF'er. It bares to reason that if you are an All Star Pitcher, you're going to win more games then you lose over the course of your entire career. It's been proven by statistics a 100x over again that wins and losses don't matter. Jack Morris had a great W-L record but was really not that great of a pitcher at all. All those players had long careers and were great pitchers. Wins and Losses should fall in to order for them.

Every other stat for a pitcher is more important then W-L because it all depends on run support. A pitcher for the New York Yankees, the best offensive team in baseball is going to get more wins then one pitching for the Astros.

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by TitovFTW

Wins and losses don't matter.

Barry Zito is nowhere close to being a top 25 pitcher in this league. He's the 4th best on the Giants. Calling him 2nd best to ta team with MadBum is mind boggling on so many levels. Barry Zito is not that good, statistically clearly tell us that. Barry Zito has not been a good pitcher his entire time with the Giants. He got off to an okay start this year, but his numbers are so inconsistent.

The Giants had one of the best offenses in the NL the second half. I'm not sure why you keep quoting wins and losses for him or Lincecum, they don't matter. The way a pitcher pitches has no bearing on how an offense will perform. None what so ever. A pitcher can get tremendous run support and still pitch bad but win a game. A pitcher like Cliff Lee, can also put up amazing numbers but get no run support and lose games.

Barry Zito is not a top 25 pitcher in MLB. Barry Zito is the #4 or #5 stater on every single major league baseball team

What gets teams to the playoffs? Wins. What determines who moves on to the next round? Wins. What determines the World Series champion? Wins.

This year Zito is 2nd best pitcher on the Giants. I love Lincecum. He's my current favourite player in baseball. I like Cain and MadBum more than Zito. It pains me to say that Zito has been better this year. It's crystal clear on that fact. When you evaluate the whole 2012 season up until now, Zito has been better. This is easy to say, being that I watch this team every day. When you evaluate the entire career, Cain, Lincecum and Bumgarner will have better careers. Going forward, the three of them will be better. All three will be long term starting pitchers that hopefully will thrive for the orange and black. That doesn't change that Zito had a better year this year. Lincecum was not good this year. He's been great in the playoffs as a relief pitcher, but he deserved to be sat. I hoped he was going to dominate game four, but he got rocked by a team that was ready for him in St. Louis. Bum's arm is dead. He's pitched too many innings. If they make it to the World Series, I would guess Bum doesn't get to start. In 2010 when they won Zito deserved to sit. He was the fifth best pitcher on that team at that time. That doesn't mean he wasn't the second best pitcher this year. Vogelsong has been very good during the playoffs, but over the year, Barry has been better. This year, being the 2012 season from starting until now, he is a top 25 pitcher in the NL.

[TitovFTW]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

What gets teams to the playoffs? Wins. What determines who moves on to the next round? Wins. What determines the World Series champion? Wins.

This year Zito is 2nd best pitcher on the Giants. I love Lincecum. He's my current favourite player in baseball. I like Cain and MadBum more than Zito. It pains me to say that Zito has been better this year. It's crystal clear on that fact. When you evaluate the whole 2012 season up until now, Zito has been better. This is easy to say, being that I watch this team every day. When you evaluate the entire career, Cain, Lincecum and Bumgarner will have better careers. Going forward, the three of them will be better. All three will be long term starting pitchers that hopefully will thrive for the orange and black. That doesn't change that Zito had a better year this year. Lincecum was not good this year. He's been great in the playoffs as a relief pitcher, but he deserved to be sat. I hoped he was going to dominate game four, but he got rocked by a team that was ready for him in St. Louis. Bum's arm is dead. He's pitched too many innings. If they make it to the World Series, I would guess Bum doesn't get to start. In 2010 when they won Zito deserved to sit. He was the fifth best pitcher on that team at that time. That doesn't mean he wasn't the second best pitcher this year. Vogelsong has been very good during the playoffs, but over the year, Barry has been better. This year, being the 2012 season from starting until now, he is a top 25 pitcher in the NL.

Wins as a team get you into the playoffs!!!! Can you not see the difference between a team record and a pitchers W-L record not being used as an accurate measure to rank a pitcher? The Giants won this year because they got great production out of the top of their rotation, they have a great bullpen and the NL's best offense in the second half. You've yet to refute any of my arguments. W-L records for pitchers don't matter because they can be so decieving. They don't tell us the full story. As I said, if Matt Cain went to the Astros, he would not have won many games this season. Correct? A pitcher could easily win more games then a better pitcher, because of the team he plays on? If the Giants are averaging 8 runs a game and the Blue Jays are averaging 5, the pitcher on the Giants is much more likely to win.

Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarnerm Ryan Vogelsong all had better years then Zito. In every single important stiatistic. They're better pitchers. It is literally insane to think the Giants would even think for a second of starting Barry Zito over Madison Bumgarner. I am not arguing Lincecum is good at all anymore. he lost a lot of his velocity and was brutal this season.

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by TitovFTW

"You don't get wins unless you are good" That is simply not true. You can be awful and get great run support and win a whole hell of a lot of games!!!!


Win totals are not an important stat. You can easily win games and not be that good or lose games and be a great pitcher. If you put Clayton Kershaw on the Houston Astros, he would not win many games at all. That would have nothing to do with him and everything to do with the team around him. A Pitcher can not make batters hit the ball better or score runs.

Jamie Moyer is not a HOF'er. It bares to reason that if you are an All Star Pitcher, you're going to win more games then you lose over the course of your entire career. It's been proven by statistics a 100x over again that wins and losses don't matter. Jack Morris had a great W-L record but was really not that great of a pitcher at all. All those players had long careers and were great pitchers. Wins and Losses should fall in to order for them.

Every other stat for a pitcher is more important then W-L because it all depends on run support. A pitcher for the New York Yankees, the best offensive team in baseball is going to get more wins then one pitching for the Astros.

If wins don't matter, why do they keep score. Baseball is all about winning. It's why teams play the game and how they determine who is the best. Dismissing wins is ridiculous.

A team will not keep sending out a pitcher unless he can still get wins. There are enough bodies, at cheaper salaries that there is always someone else. you don't get to over 250 wins without being good. How can someone who isn't good get 250 wins? Jack Morris was a five time all star, won three World Series, of which he was he postseason MVP in two and WS MVP in one. You are not a terrible player with those accolades. He had 14 opening day starts and was the highest paid pitcher several times during his career. They don't give those out to bad players. Morris may not be a HOFer, but he was a very good pitcher.

[TitovFTW]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

If wins don't matter, why do they keep score. Baseball is all about winning. It's why teams play the game and how they determine who is the best. Dismissing wins is ridiculous.

A team will not keep sending out a pitcher unless he can still get wins. There are enough bodies, at cheaper salaries that there is always someone else. you don't get to over 250 wins without being good. How can someone who isn't good get 250 wins? Jack Morris was a five time all star, won three World Series, of which he was he postseason MVP in two and WS MVP in one. You are not a terrible player with those accolades. He had 14 opening day starts and was the highest paid pitcher several times during his career. They don't give those out to bad players. Morris may not be a HOFer, but he was a very good pitcher.

Wins do matter. A team winning baseball games is clearly important. I'm saying the W-L records of pitchers don't matter. They don't give us an accurate read on how good a pitcher is. For the millions of reasons that is glaringly obvious, due to how good a team is offensively, to how good of a bullpen that pitcher has, what if you're a great pitcher with an awful bullpen?!?

A team will certainly keep sending out a pitcher, no matter what his W-L record is. Cliff Lee never won a game for months this year and the Phillies kept getting shut out when he pitched. Clearly he was still pitching great but his team was not scoring any runs.

I never said Jack Morris as a bad pitcher, I sad he's not hall of fame worthy. His pitching statistics at the end of the day were not that great. He was not terrible. I never called him that.

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by TitovFTW

Wins as a team get you into the playoffs!!!! Can you not see the difference between a team record and a pitchers W-L record not being used as an accurate measure to rank a pitcher? The Giants won this year because they got great production out of the top of their rotation, they have a great bullpen and the NL's best offense in the second half. You've yet to refute any of my arguments. W-L records for pitchers don't matter because they can be so decieving. They don't tell us the full story. As I said, if Matt Cain went to the Astros, he would not have won many games this season. Correct? A pitcher could easily win more games then a better pitcher, because of the team he plays on? If the Giants are averaging 8 runs a game and the Blue Jays are averaging 5, the pitcher on the Giants is much more likely to win.

Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarnerm Ryan Vogelsong all had better years then Zito. In every single important stiatistic. They're better pitchers. It is literally insane to think the Giants would even think for a second of starting Barry Zito over Madison Bumgarner. I am not arguing Lincecum is good at all anymore. he lost a lot of his velocity and was brutal this season.

Did you watch Bum pitch lately? His arm is dead. He has too many innings this year. It was an easy decision to start Zito tonight. If they get to the WS, Zito starts game 1. Bum will be back, but this year his arm is a wet noodle. I don't enjoy it. Included in my 15 Giants jerseys is a Bumgarner 2010 WS one. I have no Zito stuff. That doesn't cloud my decision that I'd start Zito over him every single day the rest of the year.

Tim's velocity has gone down during the last few seasons. he game up throwing 98 and then learned to pitch with lower level stuff during his Cy Young years. His fastball is near where it was in 2010 when he dominated the postseason, but he's had to pitch from the stretch more often as his mechanics are shot.

I understand pitchers on better hitting teams have a better shot at winning. I'm not arguing that. I am arguing that you need to be a good pitcher to get on those teams for long period of time, and thus they don't just hand those jobs to scrubs, unless you are the Yankees the last few years .

The Giants won this year because Posey put that team on his back and Scutaro helped out huge. The Cabrera issue could have killed them and it didn't. They were a lot better in the second half, and it helped that their pitching was better, Zito included. Bum is a better pitcher, just not right now.

[moon]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

I've seen how you react to the Flames, so I'm not surprised in your analysis.

How I react to the Flames? You mean by pointing out they are a bad team that has deservedly missed the play-offs the last 3 years?

The Cardinals are at home, against a weak line-up, a team that is on the ropes and struggling right now and against a pitcher that is very beatable. So of course it was a bad and angering loss. Now they put the ball in the Giants hands and one good performance from Cain and some bad luck and the Cards are out. They went from a very winnable series to shakey ground without so much as a fight.


As for wins yes they matter but it is a team stat not just on the pitcher. The reason guys with 250+ wins are in the HOF because it is a long period that you look at and having other teammates pick you up and get you wins you don't deserve doesn't factor in as much as it would over say a 13 game period.

Zito is at best the 6th best pitcher in this series (more likely 9/10) and St. Louis alone has 3 guys better and 2 guys equal. He is not in the top 25 of NL pitchers this past year and may even struggle to make the top 40.

[troutman]

LOL - missed some great rants last night. The Giants don't have a "weak line-up". Zito is not number 2 on the Giants' depth chart.

The Giants have scored more runs than the Cards in this series, and game 3 could have gone the other direction. STL is a great team, but not some invincible juggernaut that should score 10 runs automatically on Zito, just because. Moon said before the playoffs that the Cards were not that great, and now he thinks they should win just by showing-up?

W-L is a deceptive stat when measuring pitchers, I agree. I am very impressed with how Zito rededicated himself this year. Still, a lot of his games this year were a real adventure, and he made most Giant fans real nervous when he got the ball. Hats-off to Barry for having his best game of the year when it mattered most. IIRC, seven Ks, one walk, two sac bunts. The Giants were great defensively last night, and really helped out Barry.

Hilarious how Zaun was so upset about Zito's "Invisi-poo".

It is a tall order for SF to beat STL three in a row, but at least we have one interesting LCS to enjoy. I think the winner of the NLCS wins the WS.

[moon]

Originally Posted by troutman

The Giants have scored more runs than the Cards in this series, and game 3 could have gone the other direction. STL is a great team, but not some invincible juggernaut that should score 10 runs automatically on Zito, just because. Moon said before the playoffs that the Cards were not that great, and now he thinks they should win just by showing-up?

Against the Giants yes, against other teams in the play-offs no.

I think the Tigers should sweep whoever wins the NL barring a miracle Carpenter performance or blow up by one of their pitchers.

[TitovFTW]

Troutman I agree 100%. Zito did seem to rededicate himself this year, and got off to a good start, you just didn't know what you would get from him and that's why it terrified Giants fans to have him going last night.

Giants in good shape now. I just wish we didn't have to wait till tomorrow for Game 6!

[troutman]

Originally Posted by TitovFTW

Troutman I agree 100%. Zito did seem to rededicate himself this year, and got off to a good start, you just didn't know what you would get from him and that's why it terrified Giants fans to have him going last night.

Giants in good shape now. I just wish we didn't have to wait till tomorrow for Game 6!

Vogelsong and Cain need the extra day rest.

[GirlySports]

matt holliday benched--back tightness.

[squiggs96]

Vogelsong made me nervous throughout the regular season. He's been absolutely outstanding in the playoffs so far. This game has a great start to it. Hopefully the Giants can keep it up and get the ball to Cain tomorrow.