TWITTER TALK
John Granato: When it comes to baseball, stat guy deserves to be muted
Jun 7, 2018, 6:56 am
A.J. Hinch has had troubles with his bullpen. Jason Behnken / Getty Images
For the most part Twitter is awesome. The creativity is phenomenal. There is a lot of great stuff out there. And then there’s the other side: the Twitter argument. It’s basically two sides shouting their opinions with no chance of convincing the other side that they’re wrong. It happens all the time in political and sports arguments and most of all on the sports side in baseball arguments.
Why?
Stat guy.
A couple of weeks ago when the Astros gave up that five spot in the 9th to the Indians I asked why couldn’t A.J. Hinch have just left Devenski in to finish them off. He pitched a beautiful 8th throwing just 9 pitches, 7 strikes in a 1,2,3 inning. The Astros were up by 5. He was throwing well. If he got in any trouble they could always go deeper into the bullpen. It’s one of my pet peeves that a manager pulls a guy when he’s throwing well. Why not let him go and give him an extra day of rest if he needs it after a multi-inning outing.
Instead A.J. went to Ken Giles. An hour and a half later the Astros were on the losing end of a 10-9 14-inning heartbreaker.
You would have thought I told one guy on Twitter the earth was flat. To him it would have been impossible to have pitched Devenski in the 9th and just plain stupid. We went back and forth until I couldn’t anymore.
Mute.
It’s my favorite feature on Twitter. The mute button.
You don’t have to look like a jerk and let them screencap you blocking them but it’s basically the same. You can’t see anything they write but they don’t know it. For all I know that guy is still chirping at me and he’s probably getting madder and madder because I’m not responding to any of his trolls. Totally sweet.
Fast forward to the Red Sox game Saturday night. Verlander had thrown another beauty. Not his best but he battled like a champ. 6 innings, he gave up 2 runs and left with a 3-2 lead.
Enter Will Harris. Exit two baseballs and the Astros go on to lose 5-4.
So I tweeted:
I just thought of my next Sportsmap article. It’s going to be about HOW THE BULLPEN SUCKS
For the most part the response was positive.
I had 102 likes, 10 retweets and 30 responses.
“I am ready and would like to fistfight the bullpen.”
“It’ll take more than a single article. You’re looking at a series of articles.”
“No need to write an article - we already know.”
And so on.
And we all lived happily ever after....
Until stat guy showed up.
If you don’t know him stat guy is smarter than you. He knows more baseball than you. As a matter of fact you shouldn’t breathe the same baseball air as stat guy. You don’t deserve it. You should hang on his every word. Never ever ever disagree with stat guy because you’re too stupid to form an opinion on anything baseball.
Stat guy was having none of this bullpen sucks talk. Stat guy wanted us to know that we didn’t have any idea of what we were watching. He actually said that Ken Giles has been “dominant.” I should have muted right there. You have lost all credibility when you say something like that.
He did have facts though. Giles was 10/10 in save situations and the bullpen was top 3 in the league in ERA and number one in FIP.
If you’re not familiar with FIP it’s another way to measure a pitcher’s effectiveness. It’s Fielding Independent Pitching. It takes the fielders totally out of the equation. It deals only in home runs, walks, hit-by-pitches and strikeouts. Any ball that’s put in play is not taken into account.
The thing I’m not crazy about is that if you give up a home run it counts against you but if they hit 20 balls that dent the wall they don’t count. How about if you don’t strike a lot of guys out but induce a lot of easy grounders? Doesn’t count.
Don’t get me wrong. Stat guy knows what he’s doing. Most of the guys at the top of the ERA list this year are at the top of the FIP list except Corey Kluber. He’s fourth in ERA and 16th in FIP. He’s better than the 16th best pitcher in the league.
In 2015 Dallas Keuchel won the Cy Young and finished fifth in ERA but 14th in FIP. You can’t tell me he was the 14th best pitcher in baseball. He just wasn’t. I saw that with my human eyes.
And that’s the problem with stat guy. You can’t use your human eyes. You can’t “feel” anything about the game. The numbers don’t lie. Unless….. you make them lie.
Stat guy can manipulate numbers any way he wants.
When you look at the Astros bullpen this year and see that league leading 2.99 FIP you can’t help but be impressed.
But there’s another stat that stat guy left out: clutch. There’s an actual number for coming through when needed most and for the Astros bullpen it’s not good. As a matter of fact it’s the worst in the league and by a wide margin; more than double the White Sox who are second to last.
-2.67 to -1.24.
And let’s add one more stat. I’m not sure you’ll find this one anywhere else because I just made it up.
I call it RPYRSI.
Relief Pitching against the Yankees, Red Sox and Indians
It’s kind of a big deal. Those are the teams you’ll be facing in the postseason. Those are the ones you’ll have to get out to have another parade. Those are the ones that are killing you.
In their 50 innings against those three teams the Astros pen has given up 28 runs. That’s a 5.04 ERA. Not sure what the FIP is. Don’t care because I saw with my human eyes that they weren’t good against them, that they gave up huge runs late that cost the Astros wins.
Over the next month and a half the schedule eases up drastically. It’s full of the Rangers, the Royals, the A’s and Rays. The Astros could and should be 25 plus games over .500 by the All-Star break. The bullpen should right the ship, bring their numbers down and look good again. But it’s not good enough.
And here’s the thing stat guy: Jeff Luhnow knows it.
He knew it last year when he tried to get Zach Britton at the trade deadline. He knew it this offseason when he brought in Hector Rondon and Joe Smith.
He knows it now. I’m telling you he will trade for a closer this deadline.
So I wonder stat guy, if he does, does that mean you were wrong? If he does it means that Jeff Luhnow didn’t think the bullpen was good enough even though you said it was.
Are you going to disagree with Jeff Luhnow?
I would imagine for stat guy Jeff Luhnow is a god, a sabermetrician who actually won the World Series. He’s got to be on their Mount Rushmore.
Billy Beane is George Washington.
Theo Epstein is Abraham Lincoln.
Jeff Luhnow is Thomas Jefferson.
Andrew Friedman is Teddy Roosevelt*
*I’ve never considered Brian Cashman a sabermetrician. He just had more money than everyone else so he bought great players.
It’s all a guess though. I don’t know. I’m not a nerd.
But not even stat guy can think he’s smarter than Luhnow. Well, maybe because he’s stat guy. Stat guy knows all.
If Luhnow doesn’t do anything this trade deadline I’ll eat crow. I’ll admit I was wrong. I’m not like you stat guy. I can admit when I’m wrong.
But if he does trade for a closer or if this bullpen blows up in the postseason and costs us a parade this year you better be ready because you’re gonna need my favorite button.
Mute.
Sengun has 32 points and 14 rebounds as the Rockets beat the Grizzlies
Jan 10, 2025, 2:32 pm
Everyone raved about the leadership of second-year quarterback C.J. Stroud this week as the Houston Texans prepared for their wild-card playoff game against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Everyone, that is, except the man himself.
“I don’t think I’m a great (leader),” Stroud said sheepishly. “I don’t know. That’s probably a bad thing to say about yourself, but I don’t think I’m all that when it comes to leading. I just try to be myself.”
But the 23-year-old Stroud simply being himself is exactly what makes him the undisputed leader of this team.
“C.J. is authentic, he’s real,” coach DeMeco Ryans said. “It’s not only here, it’s in the locker room around the guys and that’s what leadership is to me. As you evolve as a leader, you just be authentic to yourself. You don’t have to make up anything or make up a speech or make up something to say to guys. C.J. is being C.J.”
Sixth-year offensive lineman Tytus Howard said he knew early on that Stroud would be special.
“He has that aura about him that when he speaks, everybody listens,” he said.
Stroud has helped the Texans win the AFC South and reach the playoffs for a second straight season after they had combined for just 11 wins in the three years before he was drafted second overall.
He was named AP Offensive Rookie of the Year last season, when Houston beat the Browns in the first round before falling to the Ravens in the divisional round.
His stats haven’t been as good as they were in his fabulous rookie season when he threw just five interceptions. But he has put together another strong season in Year 2 despite missing top receiver Nico Collins for five games early and losing Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell to season-ending injuries in the second half of the season. He also started every game despite being sacked a whopping 52 times.
“He’s taken some crazy shots,” Howard said. “But even if he’s getting sacked and stuff like that, he just never lets that get to him. He just continues to fight through it, and it basically uplifts the entire offense.”
He also finds ways to encourage the team off the field and works to build chemistry through team get-togethers. He often invites the guys over to his house for dinner or to watch games. Recently, he rented out a movie theater for a private screening of “Gladiator II.”
“He’s like, ‘I want the guys to come in and bond together because this thing builds off the field and on the field,’” Howard said. “So, we need to be closer.”
Another thing that makes Stroud an effective leader is that his teammates know that he truly cares about them as people and not just players. That was evident in the loss to the Chiefs when Dell was seriously injured. Stroud openly wept as Dell was tended to on the field and remained distraught after he was carted off.
“It was good for people to see me in that light and knowing that there is still a human factor to me,” he said. "And I think that was good for people to see that we’re just normal people at the end of the day.”
Stroud said some of the leaders who molded him were his father, his coaches in high school and college, and more recently Ryans.
His coach said Stroud has been able to lead the team effectively early in his career because he knows there are others he can lean on if he needs help.
“Understanding that it’s not all on him as a leader, it’s all of our guys just buying in, doing what they have to do,” Ryans said. “But also, C.J. understanding a lot of guys are looking up to him on the team and he takes that role seriously. But it’s not a heavy weight for him because we have other leaders, as well, around him.”
Stroud considers himself stubborn and though some consider that a bad quality, he thinks it’s helped him be a better leader. He's had the trait as long as he can remember.
“That kind of carried into the sport,” he said. “Even as a kid, my mom used to always say how stubborn I was and just having a standard is how I hear it. It’s stubborn (but) I just have a standard on how I like things to be done and how I hold myself is a standard.”
And, to be clear, he doesn’t consider himself a bad leader, but he did enjoy hearing that others on the team consider him a great one.
“I just don’t look at myself in that light of just I’m all-world at that,” he said. “But I try my best to lead by example and it’s cool because I don’t ask guys and to hear what they have to say about that is kind of cool.”
Though he doesn’t consider himself a great leader, Stroud does have strong feelings about what constitutes one. And he’s hoping that he’ll be able to do that for his team Saturday to help the Texans to a victory, which would make him the sixth quarterback in NFL history to start and win a playoff game in both of his first two seasons.
“That would be making everybody around you better,” he said of great leaders. “Kind of like a point guard on the offense, the quarterback on the football team, the pitcher on a baseball team — just making everybody around you better.”