Bigger 2nd half - Sabathia or Yelich?

[homer]

Which 1/2 season made a bigger impact - Sabathia's 2nd half in 2008 or Yelich's in 2018?

[YelichPosse]

Dear God....

 

Do I have to choose?

 

Sabathia put the team on his back.... Yelich is having a monster half though...

[KeithStone53151]

Sabathia, as good as Yelich has been...it really isn't all that close in my opinion.

[StearnsFTW]

Yeah, it's Sabathia. Good part is Yelich for 5 years is almost certainly going to destroy Sabathia's impact.

[homer]

I think there's two ways to look at it; Sabathia had a better half season, Yelich made more of an impact (simply because of games played)

[StearnsFTW]

True. Hard to quantify. I guess it's pretty close because both teams are screwed without those guys.

[long ball]

I would pick CC. What he did was so far outside of the normal confines of what a SP does. He went on short rest for a month. Pitched a bunch of CG. He was the one guy who held up a collapsing team.

[topper09er]

I think there's two ways to look at it; Sabathia had a better half season, Yelich made more of an impact (simply because of games played)

 

Pitching games make a bigger impact than batting games. Just look at this year, here are the games played by the top WAR leaders

9.7 WAR 33 games Scherzer

9.6 WAR 31 games deGrom

9.4 WAR 32 games Nola

7.8 WAR 32 games Freeland

7.0 WAR 136 games Cain

6.6 WAR 142 games Yelich

6.1 WAR 154 games Baez

[homer]

That's where WAR loses me. How can a guy playing 17 games have more impact than a guy playing 70? I guess I don't understand the math there.

[Baldkin]

That's where WAR loses me. How can a guy playing 17 games have more impact than a guy playing 70? I guess I don't understand the math there.

 

Think of it by PA. A pitcher is 50% of every PA they pitch. If a guy throws 200 innings and averages say, 4 PA/inning that's 800 PA's in a season.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

That's where WAR loses me. How can a guy playing 17 games have more impact than a guy playing 70? I guess I don't understand the math there.

 

Think of it by PA. A pitcher is 50% of every PA they pitch. If a guy throws 200 innings and averages say, 4 PA/inning that's 800 PA's in a season.

 

 

 

I do have one question, though: isn't it better to average 3PA an inning and only get 600 PA? Pitchers want to reduce opposing PA right? I really like thinking of it in these terms, but that part confuses me...

[Baldkin]

That's where WAR loses me. How can a guy playing 17 games have more impact than a guy playing 70? I guess I don't understand the math there.

 

Think of it by PA. A pitcher is 50% of every PA they pitch. If a guy throws 200 innings and averages say, 4 PA/inning that's 800 PA's in a season.

 

 

 

I do have one question, though: isn't it better to average 3PA an inning and only get 600 PA? Pitchers want to reduce opposing PA right? I really like thinking of it in these terms, but that part confuses me...

 

Yes, this is true. I was just using an example. If a guy pitches 35 perfect games, he'll obviously be more valuable than any 1/9th of the offense.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Got it. I mean, the basic principle is that any inning for a pitcher is equal to like 1.5 games for a player, right? If a pitcher throws a perfect nine innings that is 27 PAs, or about what a player would get in 6 games or so.

 

Am I getting it?

 

Just want to be sure because I find this way of thinking about it useful and hadn't thought in these terms before.

 

Edited to remove funky quote formatting.

[homer]

That's where WAR loses me. How can a guy playing 17 games have more impact than a guy playing 70? I guess I don't understand the math there.

 

Think of it by PA. A pitcher is 50% of every PA they pitch. If a guy throws 200 innings and averages say, 4 PA/inning that's 800 PA's in a season.

 

OK that makes more sense.

[MrTPlush]

I will bet my life we see another half season like Christian Yelich in Brewers history...CC and his pure dominance? Never again.

[Ennder]

Pitching WAR is a horrible stat though so that isn't a very good example, you can toss it right out the window. Especially fangraphs which is mostly based off of FIP which is the worst of the component ERA stats.

 

But pitchers face more PA than hitters make so it makes total sense that they would technically be more valuable. Especially that season by Sabathia where he seemed to pitch every other game at the end. I feel like Yelich is leading a surging team into the playoffs while Sabathia dragged a collapsing team into the playoffs.

[Greenleaf1]

Yelich is at 4.6 fWAR in the 2nd half of 2018.

 

Sabathia was at 4.2 fWAR in the 2nd half, but he had two starts before the "2nd half" for the Brewers, one of which was a CG and both were Brewers wins.

 

I'd say it's pretty close to even (although obviously one stat doesn't tell the whole tale, it at least doesn't "prove" who was better one way or the other).

 

Neither team makes it to the playoffs without that player, but I'm inclined to say CC because of how magically impossible it was that he was so good. Yelich has been almost like having Barry Bonds for half a season which has been incredible to watch, but there was something about CC shutting guys down every 5th (or every 4th) day for months that just feels more dominant and special.

 

Kinda makes me wonder what this team would look like right now if we had emptied out the farm for DeGrom (glad we didn't, but man would that be a team to be feared).

[topper09er]

The math is based on runs saved or runs created. Batters faced for pitchers is not necessarily the best measure of impact because as was mentioned more batters/inning is bad. Using innings pitched makes more sense those only counts outs. In 2008 CC pitched 130 innings starting from Brewer team game 90. That means we roughly had (162-90)*9 = 648 defensive innings with CC on the team, and he pitched 20% of them. Each position player only roughly 11% of the PA (obviously more for the 1-2-3 hitters etc).

 

using a very simple approximation, the average ERA in the NL in 2008 was 4.29. An average pitcher with 130 IP would have allowed ~62 earned runs, CC allowed 24. So he saved 38 runs above average.

 

On offense we can use the very simple original runs created formula, RC = TB x (H+BB)/(AB+BB). Yelich in the second half = 182 x (88+25)/(245+25) = 76 runs created total, not above average. That would be .28 RC/PA. In the NL the average RC/PA is .113. So in 273 PA, the league average runs created would be 273*.113= 31. So Yelich has created 76-31 = 45 runs above average. A little more than CC but close.

[jjgott]

Sabathia no doubt. No disrespect to Yelich. He's been awesome.

[Dragonbait]

It CC to me.

[OnaBadger58]

Yelich's 2nd half compared to the Barry Bonds' 7 MVP years averaged out (2nd half). Pretty amazing.

 

[SRB]

Yelich may in fact be more valuable because he plays everyday whereas a starter does not, but 2008 Sabathia was the most locked in I have ever seen a baseball player. Every single game you just knew he was going to dominate and probably throw a complete game. I've never experienced that feeling since.

[PinaMadness]

Sabathia. The guy was a workhorse, pitching on three days rest most of the time.

[torts]

who cares about WAR, CC started games every 4th day in september. CC by a mile.

[giffted1]

Sabathia. It wasn't just an incredible run statistically but also personal sacrifice. He undoubtedly risked injury with the high pitch counts and short rest, but he put his new team ahead of his impending free agency.

 

The Derrek Lee GIDP followed by Rock's "Yes, Yes, Yes" is something I'll never forget.