Best Pitching Performance Yet?
Let’s just put this to a vote. Of the three historically awesome pitching performances we’ve seen so far, which was the best?
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Let’s just put this to a vote. Of the three historically awesome pitching performances we’ve seen so far, which was the best?
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Wait, people are seriously going to vote anything but the no-hitter…?
Some see the the no hitter as a luck of the draw… It’s a matter of what you value: things under the influence of the pitcher, or balls in play, which is are a team effort
The no hitter is sort of a luck of the draw thing, but Halladay had less hard-hit balls than Lincecum and went more innings than Lee. In my opinion, going a full 9 counts for a considerable amount more than going 8. It means you didn’t have the roll the dice with how your bullpen might be feeling on a particular day, plus keeps them fresh for the next day.
Halladay had one hard hit ball the entire night and it was a liner to Jayson Werth by the opposing pitcher. That was it.
Halladay is the winner here…no question.
People are seriously going to vote for one of the NL pitchers?
Uhm, yah. The Yankees lineup, while still very solid, is no longer the end-all-and-be-all of baseball. I just plain don’t see the level of hitting dominance that would have made much of a difference in facing Halladay. To be frank, the way Halladay was pitching- I’m not sure if I’d trust anybody but Pujols to break up that performance.
Halladay left the AL East, joined a contender, pitched a no-hitter in the postseason, and he’s still in the shadow of Yankee stuff.
BobLoblaw – stick to your law blog and lobbing law bombs. Halladay had the best performance. He’s very good – just like me.
but they were all awesome
Given the circumstances and opposition, Cliff Lee was unbelievable tonight.
He would’ve gone 9 if there’d been a need- hard to hold that against him
Agreed, if we hadnt given up those runs in the ninth he would have come back out for the bottom half. Even with his 120+ pitch count. Who would Ron Washington have gone with, the rookie closer who has (personal opinion) looked shakey in a couple of playoff games, or Cliff Lee.
27 batters faced and only 3 managed to even get the ball off the ground, one of which was a lucky bloop hit. 13 K and no question he would’ve added to that number had he been needed to pitch the 9th. Just incredible stuff.
I didn’t watch the no-hitter (the last two innings aside), but Cliff Lee was absolutely brilliant tonight. The Yankees have a lot of offensive weapons, but Lee dominated them with stuff, command, mental focus, and sheer determination. Hard to believe that he was traded for Aumont, Gillies and Ramirez. A rotation of Doc, Lee, Oswalt and Hamels would have been as close a lock to a WS championship as you can get.
I don’t think the Phils trade for Oswalt had they kept Lee.
Cliff Lee faced the best offense
not sure he did. the reds could really hit this year
In the weak league…
Also, the Yankees were a better hitting team than the Reds: .347 wOBA versus .339.
I’d still put my money on the Yanks as being better, but Lee did only go through 8 innings and had over120 pitches (i.e. unlikely to finish the game). Halladay did his whole 9 innings in about 100. To me, that’s dominance. Unfortunately, standard stats don’t even capture this form of dominance. In K/BB, FIP, xFIP, etc it assumes a K is the best possible outcome.
But let’s look at it the other way: If you’re better than your bullpen and you can make your pitches count so that you get batters out in 1 or 2 pitches rather than 3 or 5… shouldn’t you? Even if you had a minor loss of efficiency in the early innings, you would compensate for it by going more innings.
I think Lee definitely faced the best offense, in the toughest “ballpark matchup” of the three. The Yanks destroyed at home this year, scoring 5.84 runs per game with an .832 OPS. Very tough homerun hitters park, potentially hurting a pitcher like Lee who doesn’t usually rely on high groundball rates.
Somehow I’ve missed all 3 great pitching performances because I had college.
How does this happen?
hey, me too. blows, right?
there’s way worse reasons to skip class than to watch a ball game
Watch Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum, and Cliff Lee dominate….. OR learn my kanji and how demand and supply affect the foreign exchange rate equilibrium?
Kanji is acceptable but I almost fall asleep at how easy Economics is to learn. I missed a ball game for that.
Hey man, I’m a teacher writing my Economics tests while I listen to the games on radio. It can be done!
I tried my postseason.tv thing in the classroom, however, I couldn’t get a signal in class. You’re lucky you’re the teacher, I wish if I had a radio I could have done that.
I’ve missed all but a few innings of them as well.
Grad school + fatherhood = not much baseball
I’m in grad school with 2 kids under 2. I’ve flown from New York to Tampa to Texas (twice) for 6 of the 8 Rangers playoff games so far.
You need to rethink your priorities.
Yes, unfortunately I like my family and my work more than baseball. Baseball sure is great through. Can’t wait tell my son is old enough to play catch, then I can do both at the same time.
I missed them all because I live in Europe and the games start WAAAAY after midnight.
Running this poll immediately after the Yanks/Rangers game is bad polling form. You’re bound to get biased results.
Good point.
Also, people naturally hate the Yankees.
So, there’s also that.
not to mention how much dave cameron sucks
Definately. Pretty hard to be very objective.
I didn’t see the game, but I voted for Timmy. Pretty similar line, and Tim finished all 9IP.
I see no way that we can look at the results and say that any of the three was distinctively better than the others. But looking at the lineups the pitchers faced and you can come with a clear winner.
Halladay can make the NYY hitters look like little leaguers too.
just look at halladays record against them
Lincecum pitched against a injured plagued lineup in the Braves
Forgot to mention it was on the road as well. Yankees hit .279/.360 /.472 at the Stadium
Halladay, there one only one hard hit in that game, by the pitcher
One thing that impressed me about Lee was the way he hung tough after Swisher’s lengthy AB (must have been around 10+ pitches, in the fourth inning I think). Somehow he still put himself in a position to pitch a complete game – no small feat after all those strikeouts and against a very patient Yankees lineup.
Game Scores:
Lincecum: 96
Halladay: 94
Lee: 90
terrible comparison
Timmy = 9IP
Halladay=9IP
Lee=8IP
Game score takes into account innings pitched…
Rating Lincecum’s effort over a no-hitter shows you the limitations of the Game Score statistic, not that Lincecum had the better game.
Strikeouts are weighed too heavily.
…or it shows the limitations of conventional thinking on no-hitters.
Is a weak groundball that takes 2 pitches to achieve more impressive than a 5 pitch strikeout?
That’s what you’re debating in all actuality.
in the case of one batter no, but over the course of a game i would rather see the strikeouts than the balls in play. they won’t all be weak, they won’t all be grounders, and even the weak grounders won’t all be sure outs.
But they were all weak, every single ground ball against Halladay was weak. Sometimes you really due need to watch the games.
I thought all three performances were awesome. I’d put Halladay first, but not cause he was really any better than the other guys, but because I hate having to hear about Don Larsen, NY Yankees, only no hitter, etc.
weak is fairly subjective, and even then weak contact is not as impressive to me as a swinging strike.
also, fwiw, the rangers got two hits and some runs on two ‘weak’ groundballs yesterday off of robertson. even a bunch of weak groundballs need some good luck to result in all outs.
If Lee gets through the ninth with no K’s, BB’s, or hits, he gets a 95. It seems to me that he was more likely to pick up another strikeout or two than allow a runner to reach base.
There’s no wrong answer, but Lee on the road against the best offense in the game, plus the CS v. the DS, makes him tops for me. It’s splitting hairs though.
Cliff Lee, Game Score 90 – 122 pitches
Roy Halladay, Game Score 94 – 104 pitches
Tim Lincecum, Game Score 96 – 119 pitches
If Lee had pitched the 9th without a hit or a walk, his Games Score would have be 95, so all three games are really close. However, once the Rangers had blown it open in the top of the 9th, it made sense to get him out of the game with 122 pitches.
I know that peripherals favour strikeouts, but I like that Halladay does his best to make the worm an endangered specie. It shows in his pitch count, which in the long run has to help his durability.
Ultimately, I voted for Lee due to the circumstances. With three games in NY against the Yankee offense, the Rangers need that win.
How’s this for a question: It’s game 7 of the world series – who do you want as your starting pitcher?
Any of those three plus a few others would be just fine with me. Limited to those three I would probably go with Doc but with my choice of all pitchers I would probably go with a homer pick and choose Wainwright. But it is hard to go wrong in that crowd.
I can’t wait for Lee vs Halladay/Lincecum in the World Series.
+1
Counting before they’re hatched
Maybe so, but it does my heart good to dream of the loathsome Yanks taking a digger!
Why the heck did the Rangers manager waste Neftali Perez for the 9th inning when they were up 8-0? Was it just because he was already warmed up? If not, why use him when victory was 99.99999% assured?
who is neftali perez, and why are we lamenting his use?
if you’re referring to neftali FELIZ, it’s probably because he didnt want a ridiculously talented yankee lineup, well-known for its comebacks and having recently proved their lack of fear against the rest of the ranger bullpen, to have any more chance than he could, and unless you’re edwin jackson throwing a no-no, 122 pitches is an awful lot.
He wasn’t saying to leave Lee in, but to bring in someone else (yeah game 1, but seriously, if they can’t hold an 8 run lead in the 9th with someone other than Feliz, they’re going to lose the series anyway)
Clearly it was to get Feliz some postseason experience in Yankee Stadium in a low-leverage situation, because there’s really no other legitimate explanation with no off-days until game 6. Feliz has clearly had some issues with nerves this postseason, so getting a 1-2-3 clean inning in YS isn’t a terrible idea… it’ll look more terrible if they need him in games 4 and 5, but if not it’ll probably have wound up being for the best
Why didn’t he use Feliz in the 8th of game 1 and save one of those guys to pitch the 9th last night? Leverage was nothing last night.
I don’t know how you could choose objectively, but the baseball fan in me loves that this discussion can even happen. Great postseason so far.
Halladay. Shouldn’t even be a discussion. Complete game, no hitter, low pitch count. Why not the others?
Lincecum – People actually hit some balls hard.
Lee – Didn’t finish the game. 9 great innings trumps 8.
QED. Though they were all great performances.
Halladay got to face the pitcher three times and a weaker overall lineup on top of that. No-hitters are mostly a matter of luck, no matter how good you are, hence are rather overrated in my opinion. The Yankees are also a far more patient team, which drives up pitch counts. Give me Lee!
No he didnt. He faced Travis Wood in 1 AB. The other 2 ABs were PHs. Wood was the only guy to even make good contact on him.
The thing is, those PH’s were Miguel Cairo and Juan Francisco. Cairo has a career .293 wOBA against righties while Francisco has 84 career PA. In addition, the penalty for PH-ing is significantly stronger than for DH-ing.
Marcus Thames, the Yanks DH, has a career .359 wOBA against lefties. While Halladay only faced the pitcher once, the DH still makes a big difference in terms of overall lineup strenghth.
Brandon makes a good point about the patience of the Yankee hitters. Look at Swisher’s at bat as one example of a hitter who simply wasn’t going to hit a groundball on the first pitch, no matter who he was facing.
Lee could have easily come out for the 9th, and in fact, was planning on doing so before the offense exploded.
Besides, Lee was all of 15 feet from being a no-hitter… the difference between Halladay’s game and Lee’s game is just a matter of luck.
Luck and another whole inning where you dont know what would have happened. Lee could have easily hung a pitch in the 9th for all you know. Its impossible to compare the 2 efforts that way. Lee MIGHT have pitched all 9 innings that well but the fact is that he didn’t.
For me, each performance had its merits:
Lincecum — All of those strikeouts! He got the Braves to swing and miss so many times. Lincecum also had the least run support, pitching with a microscopic 1-0 lead. Nonetheless, a couple of Braves did hit the ball hard and that lineup is considerably weaker than the Yankees or Reds.
Halladay — Doc threw a freaking no-hitter! And against a pretty tough lineup. Though we all know that there is a great deal of luck involved in such a feat–it’s not like Posada’s hit against Lee was hit at all hard–but to throw one in the postseason is a miraculous, once in a lifetime type deal. On the other hand, he had the most run support early and the fewest strikeouts by far.
Lee — The Championship series is higher stakes than the Division Series, and he made the best lineup in the major leagues look like they had no clue up there. And he didn’t get to face a pitcher three times. And he had to pitch on the road at Yankee Stadium where the Yankees dominate and where pitchers cry. Practically no one even managed to get the ball out of the infield tonight, and he struck out almost as many as Lincecum in one fewer inning. On the other hand, this was the only non complete game of the three.
Conclusion? Hard to say! I go with Lee by a hair because of the difficulty of the lineup he had to face and because he didn’t get to face a pitcher, but it’s hard to vote against a post season no hitter!
These are so close that it’s painful to choose. Three masterpieces. The only nitpick is that Lee didn’t finish his game (and shouldn’t have, regardless of the score, as he’d have been going through the order for the 4th time at 120+ pitches).
TImmy. 31 missed swings, 5 more then anyone else this year.
Against a terrible Braves team…thats hardly that impressive.
if 91 wins is a ‘terrible team’ then i would hate to see your views on the pirates…
31 swing-and-misses is impressive regardless of which team he’s facing. Halladay’s performance wasn’t the only one that was great!
Their offense was severely drained by injuries to key guys. The lineup they put out there against Lincecum was not a 91 win lineup.
right, we all know that. but it was far from being a terrible lineup too. mccann and heyward are both great lefthanded hitters.
nevermind the fact that lowe threw a good game too. lincecum didn’t have halladay’s benefit of sitting on some nice run support.
fredsbank says:
I forgot his last name; too many players to keep track of. They were winning 8-0. Their win expectancy was so high that the odds of the yankees winning was something around the order of one in several thousand.
I’m not saying that it was a bad decision to remove Lee (it was a good idea since he had already thrown 122 pitches) but the Texas manager should have put in a scrub.
Based on your comment, you’re going by emotions instead of the cold, objective (logical) numbers. Even if a team is winning by 1 run with 1 inning left, the win expectancy is something like 85%.
Oh, well. Logic>>>>irrational emotions.
When it comes to just savoring the joy of these amazing performances, I say emotions>>>>>>>>>> logic!
it doesnt matter what your fangraphs win expectancy is, and i seriously doubt ron washington had his laptop open to check it anyway. its the same reason girardi used mo to shut down the twins in game 3 when they were up 6-1, its the postseason, you dont want to give the opposing team any more breathing room than you absolutely have to.
sometimes it’s right to go by emotions, because guess what, real people were out there playing, not just numbers on your LCD screen, and that’s what sabre nazis never seem to get
This echoes some earlier comments but Lee did face an AL lineup which has a DH and is a playoff tested lineup unlikely to have a case of the jitters like the Reds and Braves, and probably the best offense in MLB. Lee also had a smaller strike one than I remember from the Halladay and Lincecum games. Also, he did it on the road.
It looked like he was coming out for the 9th, but after waiting 40 minutes while Texas scored 6 runs, Washington would have been crucified if he sent him out for the 9th. So you can not hold the lack of a CG against him.
Lee got my vote..
Unfortunately, we can hold the non-CG against him. He did not pitch as many innings.
Air tight logic
Can we vote after the postseason is over? Somehow I don’t think this will be the last amazing pitching performance we’ll see this October.
I don’t understand how you could vote for Cliff Lee when he didn’t throw 9 innings like these other guys…Lee was amazing but those other guys had pretty good outings too if you know what I’m saying.
Lee not throwing 9 innings was NOT under his control, and I see no reason to punish him for that.
It’s not a matter of “punishment.” It’s a matter of fact vs. conjecture. The fact is he only pitched 8 innings, which is inferior. Maybe he would have pitched a three-up, three-down 9th. And maybe he would have given up a homer. We’ll never know.
From a pure numbers standpoint of course 9 IP looks better, but if you get the job done, and his job was to shut the Yankees down so his team won the game, you get the job done. I can honestly see voting for any of these three guys, but there are so many factors I think looking at it and immediately throwing out Lee’s start because he got 3 less outs when they had a huge lead by the ninth is not really weighing all the factors. That’s a lot of Ks against a potent lineup and he did it out of only 24 chances to record a K.
Why do we even look at/consider hits given up?
just look at the # of balls in play…. everything else as we all know is all luck and defense based and you should just assume 30% of balls in play go for hits.
Since none gave up a HR, just look at strikeouts and walks… that’s all that a pitcher has control over. So it’s a tossup between Lincecum who had the most strikeouts and Lee who had the highest strikeout rate (though a marginally higher walk rate since he only went 8 innings). I’d go with little Timmy as he had the most swings and misses (even if it was an inferior lineup)
A pitcher has control over the number of groundballs he gets.
Especially weak groundballs. That’s a legitimate skill. It’d be different if a bunch of them were smoked right out infielders but they werent. They were mostly weak dribblers to Utley or Rollins.
“just look at the # of balls in play…. everything else as we all know is all luck and defense based and you should just assume 30% of balls in play go for hits.
”
No, we don’t know that at all.
So what folks are saying is that looking at the three “true” outcomes that a pitcher control may not actually be a measurement of a pitcher’s past performance? And ignoring balls in play is not simply eliminating luck and defense, but also some performance which a pitcher can control?
And this concludes the lesson today on why FIP (or WAR which is the same with innings included) is not a measurement of PAST performance, and should be used as it was intended – a model to estimate/predict pitcher skill and a useful indicator of what might happen in the future.
according to B-R’s play index, there have been 782 9-inning 13+ K games from 1920(the earliest date allowed, and going back earlier would only increase it, since a total can’t go down) to the present, and 269 no hitters since 1875 according to wikipedia…
the 13+ K games include no-hitters featuring that event as well, so even assuming every single had 13+ (which we know they didn’t), there have still been almost twice as many 13+ as no-hitters… so statistically, it is the less impressive achievement
RARE and IMPRESSIVE are distinctly different concepts. Just because something is rare doesn’t mean it’s more impressive….
so you’re saying the Ks are more impressive? what if every single game played in the 2011 season featured both starters throwing the exact same game as lincecum or lee, but only 5 no hitters happen over the course of the season, would you still consider it more impressive?
Lee didn’t go 9 innings but he also never faced the pitchers spot. I still vote Halladay. Only one of the balls in play was remotely well hit.
It all comes down to quality of opponent. Tim and Halladay both had amazing games, but to put Cinci and Atl’s offense in the same breath as New York is not really fair. Lee completely shut down by far the best offense in baseball.
Lee didn’t go 9 innings because the game was already put away. If it were a close game, he would’ve been back out there. The walk he issued to Texiera had a lot to do with a tight strike zone that seemed to be smaller for Lee than for the Yankee’s pitchers.
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/zoneplot.php-pitchSel=all&game=gid_2010_10_18_texmlb_nyamlb_1&sp_type=1&s_type=7.gif
He got off both sides of the plate and a good number of low strikes (bottom 3rd of the zone that are sometimes called balls depending on the ump). It wasn’t a tiny zone by any means.
Hint: The TBS Strikezone tool sucks…so does the Fox one for that matter.
Halladay had the better game. not just because it was a no hitter. but because there was only one single HARD HIT BALL ALL GAME. and that hard hit ball was a fliner at that. it wasn’t a screaming line drive. absolutely incredible how he worked the strike zone.
they are all very good games. but halladay gets the edge because the quality of AB’s against him weren’t anywhere near quality.
the hard hit ball argument trotted out repeatedly is a weak argument. for halladay. it is a very subjective measure, and even a weak ground ball hit to the right spot will land for a hit – see the yankees pitching in the 9th inning yesterday.
the difference between a weakly hit ball and a hard line drive is fractions of an inch and over the course of a season it might be a skill to induce “weak” balls in play. but over one game there is just as much luck there as their is with standard babip.
halladay threw a great game, no doubt, but if one/two of those weak balls in play had squeaked through like they did yesterday for the yankees, there wouldn’t be much of a discussion for halladay compared to the other two.
Yes, there would still be a discussion for Halladay even if one ground ball had squeaked through.
CG, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K against the Reds’ lineup in CBP would be a better line than Lincecum’s performance against a weaker Braves’ lineup in AT&T.
Actually, the hard hit ball argument is not a weak argument at all. The difference between a weakly hit ball and a hard hit ball is not a difference of distance or space, but a difference in time: fielders have less time to reach the ball if it is hit harder. Therefore, the harder the ball is hit, the higher the probability that it will go past the infielders, assuming other factors remain constant.
All 3 games were completely dominant, but I have to give it to Halladay. Cliff Lee has proved he is the best postseason pitcher around right now, but Hallday had the best 1-game performance this year.
Halladay and Lee faced very good offenses, but Halladay pitched a no-hitter, went a full 9 and only threw 100 pitches and change while Lee threw over 120 pitches in 8 innings. Lee had more K’s, but Halladay can’t be faulted for the Reds putting the first pitch in play on multiple ABs. He was quick, effective and never let a runner get past first. Lee had a bit of a scare when Gardner got on and made it around to 3rd.
i don’t think anyone has discussed wpa yet, so i will toss the number’s out there.
tim lincecum – .711 wpa
cliff lee – .572 wpa
roy halladay – .323 wpa
Thats only because of the run support. Also, a pitcher that puts someone on base is more likely to have a higher wpa than one who keeps everyone off the basepaths.
i am not proposing it as THE solution stat, just something else to consider. i realize the run support is part of the importance, but that has some value in determining what a best game is. had any of the pitchers given up a run, it would have been more costly for lincecum than lee, and more costly for lee than halladay.
also, putting runners on base does not create a higher wpa. you can allow all the baserunners you want, but as long as there are no runs allowed the wpa will be the same for one inning pitched.
Umm…I don’t think that’s how WPA works. I’m not sure though. I thought if you give up a single, thats x, and if he makes it to third the next out you get will be worth y, where x<y. I don't know though. Any one clarify?
If you are right, then I suppose WPA isn't as bad as I thought. I still think that the dominating performance should really only be looked at for the half innings, and ignore what your offense does (similar reasoning [for me] as to why pitcher wins are useless). But it's not as irrelevant as I thought then.
WPA is a poor measurement for this since, IMO. Halladay’s WPA was so low because he got decent run support, while Lincecum ‘hogged up’ all of his team’s WPA because his team scored only 1 run.
WPA doesn’t show Tim’s performance to be qualitatively better than (or worse than) either of the other two; but it was more critical than either of the other two to getting the win, because of the levels of support provided by the Phils’ and Rangers’ offenses that the Giants didn’t provide.
Young Timmy was basically was pitching with much less margin of error; Halladay, and Lee especially, could have been more ordinary/less magical and still gotten the W.
(Similar to what you said, but stated a bit differently.)
As a Yankee fan watching his first playoff game ever at Yankee Stadium, I vote Lee. We screamed like maniacs when Teix drew a walk. Went insane when Gardner got on base and stole, only to see these tiny glimmers of hope ruthelessly and methodically quashed by Lee.
Crap! That seals the deal. After the game, I’m sure cashman asked Lee what number he wants to wear next year.
I voted Lee. If I had to rate the games on a scale of 1 to 100 in terms of how well I thought each pitcher actually pitched the baseball, I’d say
Lee – 97
Halladay – 96
Lincecum – 96
Each one was one of the best pitching performances I’ve ever seen. Granted I’ve only seriously been watching baseball since about 2001.
Cliff was obviously aided by the rosin bag. That’s the only way to explain the Yankees being defeated so handily.
Isn’t CC Sabathia’s LCS game one an option? Best big game pitcher, period, I know this because I watch ESPN
I really can’t speak to Lincecum’s performance since I didn’t see it. The numbers look very good on paper.
Lee gets serious props for going into Yankee stadium and being unphased by the whole situation. The Yankee lineup, however, has been doing all of nothing this series, short of one big inning (fueled by Darren Oliver’s walks), so that I don’t find impressive.
In Lee’s case, Arod got a hold of one ball that nearly fell into the gap for a run. Also, he had Brett Gardner in scoring position for a full inning. Credit to him for now allowing Gardner to score. Dominance, but the Yankees had life.
Halladay’s case, there wasn’t even a sniff of a run scoring opportunity. Nothing ever materialized for the Reds, beyond a two out walk that was erased a couple of pitches later. He could have continued pitching several more innings at the rate and pace he was going. Also important is he only faced the pitcher only once, the other two times through were PH (already noted, but people continue to mistakenly reference this)
Just as an aside, the offense didn’t hand Halladay four runs either. He had an rbi single and scored a run as part of the 3 run 2nd inning. Lee obviously doesn’t get that opportunity.
Halladay missed a perfect game by one little non call third strike on Bruce before missing with ball four. I disagree that a no hitter in the playoffs is merely luck. That was a pitcher completely dominating the best hitting Team in the NL, only facing a pitcher 1 time the whole game. Somewhat weakens the “DH” arguement, especially if Marcus Thames is your DH.
The fact that Lee didn’t go the whole game is the end of the discussion. He was at 120 pitches, we don’t know if he would have gone out there after that long inning of 6 runs and have been loose, or been able to keep throwing as well. That is why a complete game is better than NOT a complete game.
Freaking no hitter in the playoffs at a band box staduim against a bunch of really good hitters > 8 inning game.
I voted Lee for many of the reasons stated above. The biggest reason is the quality of the Yankees’ offense. One more point to add though against the “Halladay pitched a CG in only 100 pitches” argument is again to do with the quality of the opposition. The Yankees are much more patient and are better hitters – as such, I think it’s reasonable to assume that Halladay’s pitch count would have been just as high as Lee’s had he faced a similar lineup. And we don’t know how Halladay would have fared once he got into the one-hundred-and-teens.
This is merely the tiebreaker for me as they were both obviously amazing games. I just give a lot of credit to a guy who can pitch the way Lee did against a lineup like Yankees’ in a stadium like that.
Definitely depends on how you feel about “luck.”
What if someone threw a perfect game on 65 pitches but gave up a dozen line drives and only had 2 or 3 strikeouts? Obviously those results would be largely luck, but the results are what the results are.
Cameron asks which was the “best?” Not “which was the best predictor of future pitching excellence” or “which pitcher is best”.
So, first you’d have to define what you meant by best, which is a bit slippery.
Of course, if the question were defined narrowly enough, there’d be no debate…
(OT) Good thing Washington saved Feliz for a situation like last night.
a discussion like this would need to properly weigh the innings pitched, offensive quality of the other team, context of the game (wpa), park, defensive quality of own team, strikeouts (and swinging strikes), walks, hits and babip luck, and how hard the ball was hit.
i am probably missing one or two considerations in there, but it is a start. i vote that carson cistulli develops a new stat to evaluate a pitching performance.
(Using 3.10 as the FIP-ERA constant)…
Halladay: 6 fly balls, 1 BB, 8 Ks, 9.0 IP = 2.61 xFIP
Lincecum: 10 fly balls, 1 BB, 14 Ks, 9.0 IP = 1.91 xFIP
Lee: 3 fly balls, 1 BB, 13 Ks, 8.0 IP = 0.76 xFIP
And against the best line-up in baseball no less.
I didn’t see enough of Lee’s start to comment on it, though I have no doubt it was amazing. Halladay’s was utterly dominant though, so I have a hard imagining anything better than it.
By the way, I don’t mind people picking Lee’s because the Yankees are the strongest offense, nor do I mind the usual comments about the AL being generally the stronger league, but the constant remarks whenever league comparisons come up about the NL being “incompetent” or “weak” or “AAAA” or “clearly inferioror” are neither helpful nor scientific, nor, finally, true. It’s still major-league baseball.
There seems to be widespread recognition within the sabermetric community (and rightly so) that pitchers can induce weak contact. Changing location, changing speeds, mixing pitches in an unpredictable manner and good control, among other things, help a pitcher induce weaker contact. It also seems to be understood that pitchers can induce groundballs. Keeping the ball down in the strike zone goes a long way toward achieving that end. So I don’t understand why many people claim that pitchers have no real control over balls that are put in play.
There is no question that luck plays some role on balls that are put in play. Some hard hit balls result in outs, and some weakly hit balls result in hits. But it seems fairly obvious that, as a general matter, the harder a ball is hit, the higher the probability that it will result in a hit. Furthermore, it seems obvious that, amongst balls hit as line drives or fly balls, the harder the ball is hit, the higher the probability that it will result in an extra-base hit. If the above is true, then it follows that a pitcher does have real control over balls that are put in play: by inducing weaker contact and balls hit as grounders, the pitcher reduces the chances that he will yield hits and runs.
Of course, the probability that a ball in play will result in a hit is always higher than the probability that a strikeout will result in a hit. But it seems that some people place far too much value on strikeouts relative to other forms of outs, and don’t give enough credit to pitchers who successfully pitch to contact.
So when it comes to comparing these three single-game performances, we shouldn’t overvalue strikeouts. GameScore, for example, unfairly places an arbitrary degree of importance on strikeouts, as reflected in the addition of 1 point for each K. So, naturally, Lincecum had a higher GS than Halladay. But for those of us who watched the games, it would be be extremely disingenuous to say that Halladay had more luck than Lincecum. On the contrary, as others have noted, only one ball was actually hit hard off of Halladay. So Halladay gets my vote over Lincecum.
As far as Lee goes, the fact that he only pitched 8 innings has to work against him. True, had the Rangers not scored 6 runs in the top of the 9th, he would have pitched in the bottom of the 9th. But if he had been more efficient–say, had he thrown 100 pitches instead of 120–it’s possible he would have pitched the 9th anyway. Furthermore, you can’t assume what “would have” happened if he continued pitching.
Lincecum was masterful, no doubt. But I think people aren’t realizing just how bad the Braves’ lineup was that night. Heyward, McCann and Infante were the only hitters who come close to league-average, and the game was played in a pitchers’ park. Context matters.
I’d rank them Halladay, Lee, Lincecum.
Lee threw just 62 of his 122 pitches in the strike zone (50.8 percent)
Are you saying that makes it a better performance, or worse?
You still have that seed on your chin, here’s a towel.
Why isn’t Phil Hughes’s 4 IP, 10 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 1 HR, 3 BB, 3 K gem from Game 2 of the ALCS on the ballot? He absolutely destroyed the Rangers.
I voted for Lee’s start.
He absolutely devastated the Yankees hitters and “stole home field advantage”. At times, he was absolutely unhittable against an incredible lineup. He did have some fortunes in facing a bottom third of lefties, but still…It was incredible!
Halladay’s start, while “historical” is as meaningful as the 20-20 or 30-30, they are nice milestones, but at the end of the day there are other milestones that are just as meaningful. Halladay had the benefit of pitching against a young Reds team. The same Reds team that his teammate made look silly 3 days later.
Lincecum’s start was miraculous and better then Halladay’s based on how dominating it was from a balls in play aspect. But it was less
Seriously? I may be a homer. But Halladay threw a no-hitter. I like the sabermetric approach but there is a point where it just becomes ridiculous. How many actually watched Halladay’s performance? That was absolutely breathtaking and easily could have been a perfect game. He threw 104 pitches and yielded no hits. Now, obviously an element of the game is luck, but that element is the same for each of those three. In fact that element exists for every single game ever pitched. The question asks what the better performance was. Clearly it is the no hitter. How can you honestly sit here as a baseball fan and tell yourself that that wasn’t one of the greatest pitching performances ever. Put the calculators aside for a moment and just enjoy all three, but c’mon it’s definitely Halladay.
I’m with you on enjoying all 3 for what they were, and a playoff no hitter is an amazing feat and garnered my vote because it was a no hitter. But by your logic did you actually watch the Lee or Lincecum starts? Those were breathtaking too, and if we’re putting the calculators aside then I guess we’re not adding up the pitches, counting the exact number of outs recorded or strikeouts, or really should be looking at the hit total. All three guys dominated an opposing lineup in what can only be described as remarkable fashion. I can see why people would vote for any one, as a baseball fan for life, all numbers aside. IMHO
You ignore the fact that there is a luck component as to when a BIP results in a hit or an out (all 19 went for outs), so the number of hits in and of itself is not conclusive.
Nobody has said that Halladay did not pitch a great game, what we point out is he did it against a weaker (pitcher in BO, not Yankees) and less playoff experienced lineup, at Home and not on the Road, and had the benefit of a large strike zone, and he did it in the DS (against a team that did not make the NLCS) as opposed to the AL/NLCS.
He also had the advantage of a late afternoon start and IIRC the shadows at one point hindered the hitters, and he had a larger lead than Lee which reduced some of the stress until he realized he had a no hitter.
As for not pitching the 9th because he was not as efficient as Halladay, he would have pitched the 9th if not for the 6 runs scored by Texas, so the criticism by another comment seems more that he was not as efficient as Halladay.
I would say that Halladay had the benefit of facing the pitcher 2 times, facing a lineup not as patient as the Yankees in their first playoff game, and having a larger strike zone. The net result was he got a lot of his balls off the plate called as strikes or swung at by Reds hitters (due to being impatient and the larger strike zone) which helped him be more efficient.
No calculators needed to pass judgement for Lee, with Lincecum and Halladay not far behind.
Halladay only faced a pitcher once.
who would have thought this site, which spent so much of the regular season jizzing over halladay, would have its readers being so down on him now…. if there is one pitcher whom you would pick to be able to throw a no-hitter on any given outing, isn’t it halladay? yeah, there’s a bit of luck, but there’s luck in batters swinging and missing too, and no one mentions that
This thread makes me sad.
If you are just going to quote stats to prove what you believed before even thinking about the numbers, don’t bother with the stats. Numbers to back up a conclusion you already made are totally meaningless and don’t lead to edification.
Halladay threw the better game. I don’t need stats to tell me that, that’s what decades of watching baseball has taught me was the better game. If you disagree, that’s cool, but no amount of stats will convince me, so I won’t try to use them to deceive you into agreeing with me.
I’m nothing if not considerate.
I have a problem with this idea that “sabermetrics” types are going with Lee as opposed to Halladay. I think a lot of the arguments for Lee aren’t stat-head arguments (road game vs. home game, vaunted Yankee lineup, etc.), not just calculating FIP and calling it a day.
Also, if “no amount of stats will convince” you, when you cite hits (a “stat” afterall) as the benchmark for what makes a great game, then that’s a shame. Unwillingness to be convinced of something you disagree with because it counter-intuitive is an unadmirable trait in its lack of curiosity.
If in your mind it’s impossible for a 2 hit game to be better than a no hit game, well, that’s a position that you’re just going to have to defend on a site like this.
Where exactly does Sal Paradise cite hits as a benchmark for what makes a great game? It seems that some of the “sabermetric type” assume that people who consider Halladay’s game to be the “better” one are simply doing so because he allowed fewer hits. If you would read more of the comments–and not supply your own assumptions about the writers’ arguments–you will find that there are reasons to favor Halladay’s performance that go beyond the fact that he didn’t allow any hits.
there have been 3,974 2-or-less-than-2-hitters that the pitching team of that event has won (B-R play index), and 185 no-hitters that the pitching team has won (i used team win in my search because people on fangraphs dont believe in pitcher wins and anything citing them is automatically denied the slightest credibility).
what possible world is it that contains 3,974 of one thing, and 185 of another, and the 3,974 is the better one?
halladay threw a no-hitter in the first start in the postseason of his career, against the best hitting team in his league. it’s pretty tough to lose a no-hitter, but it’s a lot easier to lose a 2-hitter
Shonig – a lot of the comments in this thread have said something to the effect of “it was better because it was a no-hitter”. Of course there have been comments that have expanded on this (lack of pitches, lack of hard contact) but it still kind of comes back to the lack of hits. Honestly, do you think Halladay would have as much support if one of those weak groundballs happened to go through for a hit? I think the mystical designation of “Playoff No Hitter” is what’s making this an argument.
The arguments that Lee’s was the better game are more persuasive to me because I think that 13 Ks against 3 runners allowed in 8 innings is more impressive when factoring in lineup differences. I need more than “it was a no-hitter” to think otherwise…
Nick V – Yes, there have been people whose only argument is “it was a no-hitter.” I wasn’t denying that. I was saying there are more nuanced arguments. Presumably, at least some of the people offering the former type of argument would not vote for Halladay if one of the balls did get through for a hit. But that would only reflect common perception of the performance, not the actual merits of the performance, much like you would argue that Lee’s performance was better even though a minority of voters agree with you. I do agree that “mystical designations” sometimes affect the perceptions of certain people, and in this case, the same is probably true. Personally, my vote was based on my own judgment, not the judgment of others. If you care to know my reasoning, I’ve already expressed it in an earlier post in this thread.
“What if…”
Let’s play this game for a moment…
Halladay’s start was excellent, outstanding, phenomenal. Had Lincecum or Lee’s starts not existed we wouldn’t even be talking about this. It’s historical and will be remembered forever – much longer then Lincecum’s or Lee’s, however worthy that may be.
That being said, “what if…” Halladay hadn’t been pitching in front of one of the league’s top defensive units? What if he was pitching in front of say Pittsburgh or Houston’s fielders? He gives up 2 or 3 hits, finishes with a CGShO but not a no hitter. Maybe he racks up another strikeout due to facing an additional hitter or two.
Would you then stand back and say, “meh, not that hot of a start”? Really? That would be your barometer of success? Because his fielders got to a ball or two less?
I’m sorry, the no no was incredible, but it’s simply one of those imaginary lines that exist. It’s like having a “quality start”.
Brandon – I’m not even sure you’re responding to my comment, so if you weren’t, never mind. But if you were, I thought it was implied that I’m not among those who consider Halladay’s game better simply on the basis of the zero hits allowed. Certainly if you read my longer comment earlier in the thread, my rationale should be better understood. But if there’s only one “Brandon” in this thread, then I find it hard to take your opinion seriously, considering that you didn’t actually watch any of the games. There’s a lot more to baseball than a boxscore.
All these were night games so how you people missing them? Halladay is dang good and efficient.