It’s my like/despise relationship with Bill Conlin again. The Philly Daily News columnist had a pretty good take on the Phillies/Jamie Moyer situation Wednesday (I still don’t understand why the club didn’t offer him arbitration. If he wants a second guaranteed year, and since he’s 46 you’d of course rather not give it to him, isn’t offering arbitration a no-brainer? It’s probably moot, because Moyer likely wouldn’t have accepted arbitration, but still…).
Anyway, then Conlin went analytical, and here’s where the big guy always gets in trouble. Cole Hamels, clearly the Phillies’ best pitcher, had a 3.09 ERA to Moyer’s 3.71. Hamels had 73 more strikeouts, and allowed fewer hits and runs despite throwing 31 more innings. But Moyer went 16-7 and Hamels 14-10. It’d be nice if Conlin would treat the respective win totals as the meaningless quirks they obviously are, or, better, start to figure out that being credited with a pitching win isn’t, literally, winning the game, and that thus pitching wins aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, but, no, our man has a theory…..
“The offense didn’t back [Hamels] the way it backs Moyer, for some reason. I am starting to believe that many offenses swoon when playing behind their No. 1 pitching stud for a simple reason: They are out in the field watching opposing hitters flail at their ace’s excellent stuff. And it is human nature to say, “Man, this hitting is tough. How the hell could I hit a pitch like that changeup Hamels just threw?”
The proof the great ones provide about how tough it is to hit in the big leagues fills the lineup’s heads with negative thoughts. Or, as Yogi Berra said, “Who can think and hit at the same time?” Moyer works fast. He pitches to contact, a pithy line the first 50 times Chris Wheeler said it. Moyer’s ball is hit hard and often. But it is hit hard on the ground. Deep, but not quite deep enough, in the air. Then . . . Yaaaaaaaaaah . . . a hitter turns into a soft pretzel flailing at Moyer’s changeup, which is thrown off a fastball that couldn’t get ticketed in a school zone. Hey, his offense says, throw me some of that junk.”
Now, most of you have probably played baseball or softball at some level, even if just little league or sandlot. Can you imagine losing or gaining confidence in your ability to hit the other team’s pitcher based on your how good own team’s pitcher looks? Now can you imagine that happening to major-league hitters who play 200 games a year? How did Sandy Koufax’s teammates summon the courage to step in the box? And can you imagine drawing such a conclusion, or believing that any conclusion can be drawn, from the fact that, in a given year, one guy won 14 games and another 16?
And by the way, if you count the postseason, Hamels had 18 wins, Moyer 16.
Yaaaaaaaaaah indeed.
