Media Meltdown: St. Louis Writers Just Don't Get It

Ed. Note: Sorry for not posting the Must list this week. School and other factors played a part in me not getting to it this week. Plus do you really want me to explain why you should watch Cal vs. Stanford this week? I didn't think so.

Look I'm first one to admit, I don't fully understand sabermetrics and baseball. I couldn't tell you the difference between WHIP and VORP. I leave these stats up to the guys who used to run Fire Joe Morgan and stat geeks like Keith Law. But I can tell you one thing, Tim Lincecum deserved the Cy Young and St. Louis writers just don't understand that.

I'm especially looking at St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bryan Burwell. This is the same guy that wrote inflammatory remarks about Rush Limbaugh in a column when Limbaugh was trying to buy a minority part of the St. Louis Rams. So anything he writes I take with a grain of salt, especially since that one quote against Limbaugh turned out to be a complete fabrication.

Mr. Burwell though completely pissed me off with his column today. He just doesn't understand why pitcher's wins don't count anymore in Baseball. First let me explain why pitcher's wins should not be the measuring stick for pitcher's value before I dissect his ridiculous column.

1) Wins are a phony stat in baseball with the rise of bullpens, specialty pitchers, and closers. Hardly any pitcher today goes the entire distance. (Lincecum tied the majors in complete games.)

2)Let the great people of Fire Joe Morgan explain why wins are a phony stat.

A simply awful pitching statistic that should be swallowed up by the earth itself, personified, given ears, and forced to listen to a tape loop of Bermanisms for all of eternity. The reason being – and again, you know this, intuitively, even if you have never quite expressed it to yourself – if Carl Pavano gives up nineteen runs in five innings but the Yankees score 20 runs, and they hold on to win, and Pavano gets the win, is Pavano a good pitcher? No he is not. (This scenario is assuming he ever comes back and actually pitches, btw.) If Francisco Liriano throws 9 innings of no-hit ball, but gives up a run on four consecutive errors by Terry Tiffey and gets a loss, is Francisco Liriano a bad pitcher? No he is not. Wins stink to high heaven as a way to value pitchers because they are in very large part dependent on the actions of the other guys on the team.

There you go Mr. Burwell. Now it's time to dissect your ridiculous argument.

"Apparently I have been misled for all these years. Here I was thinking that guys who win 18, 19, 20 or 25 games were some kind of special. I always figured that a guy who was able to go out on the mound every five days and pretty much guarantee his team a victory was one of those Cy Young-type hurlers everyone dreams about. Now I find out that I am wrong. Baseball's new wave of deep thinkers and pseudo-intellectuals have told me so loud and clear with the voting in this year's Cy Young awards.

What was my greatest fear in the past is now upon us. Armed with their "advanced metrics" and clutching their spread sheets, the new-age baseball voters have officially taken over the sport both in the front offices and behind the scenes. Baseball's seamheads have won the battle — and I fear are about to forever dominate the old-school vs. new-school war — with the results of this year's Cy Young voting."

So basically Burwell calls the likes of Law, Joe Po, and Buster Olney geeks. Well done sir for taking a secretly back-handed shot at some of the best baseball writers in America. You should be so proud of yourself. And yes, their way of thinking has changed the game. I know it's hard for old-timers like yourself, Joe Morgan, and Tim McCarver to comprehend this.

"Particularly in the NL voting, I am taken aback, because two voters — ESPN.com's Keith Law and Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus — did not include Chris Carpenter on their ballots. Law also had the NL's winningest pitcher, Adam Wainwright (19-8), in third place on his ballot behind Lincecum (15-7) and Javier Vazquez (15-10). And apparently all of baseball geekdom is perfectly cool with this."

He's still confused over the facts that pitchers like Lincecum and Vazquez had better seasons than Wainwright and Carpenter, but their wins didn't reflect their season.

"Look, I think Lincecum is a heck of a pitcher, arguably the most gifted hurler in baseball. But I always thought the Cy Young was intended to honor the pitcher with the best season, not necessarily to reward the guy who has the best stuff."

So I guess leading the majors in strikeouts and 2nd in ERA doesn't count as the best season? Becuase Lincecum did both of these things.

"If I lived in Dallas I would have a problem with this NL vote, so don't tell me I'm a homer. And as evidence of that, please refer to my NL manager of the year ballot where I voted for Colorado's Jim Tracy over Tony La Russa with no hesitation (La Russa was second on my ballot)."

Thanks for clarifying that your not a homer. Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle clarified that he wasn't a homer either. And you know what, your both still wrong.

"So here's what I still don't get. How can you look at what Wainwright did from a won-loss standpoint and essentially dismiss it in favor of Lincecum? As gifted a pitcher as Lincecum clearly is, he faltered down the stretch when his team was in the playoff hunt. In his last 10 starts, the San Francisco ace was only 3-4 with a 3.15 ERA. I'm sorry, but that has to mean something, doesn't it? If won-loss records are suddenly obsolete, why do we bother to keep the stat?"

Yes Bryan, you clearly don't understand and clearly you didn't watch one Giants game this season. I keep going back to this one particular game, but I have Justin backing me up on this. The San Francisco Giants traveled to Philadelphia for an early September game. Lincecum lost that game 2-1 to Pedro Martinez and the Phillies.

So let me get this straight. Lincecum lost a game to Martinez (no shame in that since Martinez is a sure fire hall of famer) and lost to the Phillies in Philadelphia. He lost a game 2-1 to the eventual NL Pennant winners in their bandbox of a stadium. But that doesn't mean anything because Lincecum lost.

Excuse me Mr. Burwell, but did you see the lineup protecting Lincecum this year? Bengie Molina was the fucking cleanup hitter! Aaron Rowand was the sixth place hitter and Randy Winn waw the second place hitter, not exactly the murders row of hitters. If he had a Chase Utley or Ryan Howard or Albert Pujols, he probably would have had more wins. But he didn't have those players though and still won 15 games and recorded 10 no-decisons. The best hitter on the team was Pablo Sandoval and he's only 23 and doesn't fully understand the game yet. Lincecum could have easily won 20 games this season if he had a competent lineup protecting him and he would have qualified to win the Cy Young in your faulty knowledge.

"So tell me again, why is winning not an important stat anymore?

It makes me feel like they're either trying to out-think themselves or justify their sabermetric fascinations when I hear people tell me that a pitcher's victories aren't all that important."

Burwell is stuck in the old sports writers world. Old timers like him will never understand today's writers and the way they think. Old writers are still stuck in the past when wins for pitchers was all that mattered. The baseball world though has moved on and Mr. Burwell and the rest of his type better keep up.

Tim Lincecum deserved this award and the majority of baseball writers thought the same thing.

Why don't wins count anymore? (Stltoday.com)