Comments on: Proven Veteran Starters

By: Steve Phillips' Evil Twin

Steve Phillips' Evil Twin — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:30:34 +0000

What Blackburn and Perkins mean is that compared to Livan’s “veteran presence,” their stats look even more impressive.

It’s like if you say you are handsome compared to Peewee Herman. If Peewee Herman is ugly, then you being handsomer than some ugly dude is no big deal. But, if you say Peewee is a stud, then you must be some super chick magnet.

By: Joser

Joser — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:42:11 +0000

An interesting note is that both Perkins and Blackburn credit Livanâ€™s â€œVeteran presenceâ€ for there great performance.

Of course they do. That’s what you say when you don’t have anything else nice to say about the old guy who isn’t pulling his weight.

By: twinsfan

twinsfan — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:15:43 +0000

An interesting note is that both Perkins and Blackburn credit Livan’s “Veteran presence” for there great performance.

By: Simmy

Simmy — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:55:56 +0000

It’s amazing how this stigma around old and crappy pitchers continues to persist despite obvious glaring improvements in team management in the moneyball era as a whole by GMs. Plenty of mistakes are still made with offense (Pierre, Eckstein) by certain GMs but not nearly as much as with overpaying for old/crappy/league average pitching. Remember that Adam Eaton, Ted Lilly, Gil Meche, Randy Wolf off-season?

By: Conor

Conor — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:46:47 +0000

Isn’t it also that veteran pitchers are more likely to get a shot to stick around and compile bad counting stats? If you sign a veteran pitcher, you can’t just send him down to the minors when he sucks.

I’m thinking of Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes, who have been terrible this season. I know Hughes got hurt, but there is always the option of sending them to the minors, which makes it more difficult to have one of the worst seasons.

Kennedy and Hughes have combined to throw 59 innings and allow 55 runs. I don’t know what the WPA is for that, but I am guessing pretty bad.

By: Steve Phillips' Evil Twin

Steve Phillips' Evil Twin — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:33:19 +0000

There is some use for the proven guys. If a GM signs veteran guys and they are bad, then you can say the players disappointed and “underperformed,” but if a GM takes a chance with green rookie pitchers and they fail, then the GM gets the blame for taking stupid risks. This is especially true for teams with the “win now” mentality, namely the big market teams.

By: Graham

Graham — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:47:04 +0000

What’s even more ironic is the Twins went out and signed that “proven veteran starter” (Livan) who’s been awful and yet they’re ERA is still better.