Nexii

The chip wouldn't have to know player height (though it could). It's the program that reads the data of where the ball is that would have to know that information. But player height is easily measurable and recordable. If anything it would be more fair, crouching low shouldn't give a player a smaller strike zone. On that thought I'm sure that soon we'll be hearing about crouching/leaning in for extra BBs is now worth WAR like how catchers frame

The Jays pitching wasn't good. Even if the offense was #1 they'd be fighting for a WC spot.

Good points. I wonder where the Jays would be at if they'd spent all their money on pitching rather than offence. I suppose there was a chance their pitching could have been average or a bit above, but it didn't turn out that way.

Cherrypicking? No team wants to just win a WC spot now. It's all about winning the division. DET'14 would not be in a playoff spot in previous years. There's a big difference between 3.82-4.02 ERA (somewhat below average) and 4.17 ERA (mediocre). TEX/BAL '12 were tied WC winners and had to do a one game playoff which is never preferable. Looking at MIL this year they are in a weak division and also exceeding their xW/L by 3 games. Maybe that was the Jays hope, that all 4 other teams would finish at or around .500? It's not so much about giving up more than 4 runs a game as requiring at least average pitching to get into the playoffs. You can't have below average pitching and expect to make the playoffs. I'd rank pitching generally as 1-5 = good, 6-10 average, 11-15 bad. How would the Jays look if they were even average (3.87 ERA) at pitching? 0.30 less ERA over a season is about 48.6 runs, or 5 wins. At the least they would still be in the running. Maybe even that wouldn't be enough, but it does go with generally having to have good pitching to make it. 1992 Jays had 3.91 ERA good for only 9th. Pythag was only 91-71, they actually got very lucky. (MIL '92 had xW/L of 96-66) 1993 Jays had 4.21 ERA good for 5th. Pythag again was only 91-71, but they were the strongest team in their division.

No, my question was why the position players get blamed more than the pitching. It's the pitching that hasn't done well. You could do this for more seasons or xFIP, but I think it'd be similar. Not one of the 27 teams over the last 3 years did well with bad pitching (in the bottom third or so).

We all knew the Jays roster was slanted to offence, with pitching questionable. I was curious whether poor pitching teams can still win their division. The answer is that it's not that likely. Forgive the ugly formatting below, there isn't a good table function. 2014 Record ERA Rank WSN 71-53 3.06 1 MIL 71-55 3.57 8 LAD 71-56 3.36 3 STL 68-57 3.62 9 ATL 66-60 3.38 4 SFG 65-59 3.41 5 BAL 72-52 3.62 6 KCR 70-55 3.58 4 LAA 74-50 3.62 5 OAK 74-51 3.21 2 DET 67-56 3.97 10 SEA 68-57 2.94 1 TOR 64-62 4.17 11 2013 Record ERA Rank STL 97-65 3.42 5 ATL 96-66 3.18 1 LAD 92-70 3.25 2 PIT 94-68 3.26 3 BOS 97-65 3.79 6 OAK 96-66 3.56 2 DET 93-69 3.61 3 CLE 92-70 3.82 7 TBR 92-71 3.74 5 2012 Record ERA Rank WSH 98-64 3.33 1 CIN 97-55 3.34 2 SFG 94-68 3.68 5 ATL 94-68 3.42 4 NYY 95-67 3.84 5 DET 88-74 3.75 3 OAK 94-68 3.48 2 BAL 93-69 3.90 6 What we can see over the last three years is: - No AL team has won their division with an ERA over 3.84 (Jays at 4.17) - No team ranked below 6th in ERA has won their division (Jays at 11th) - MIL this year seems to be an outlier (8th and leading) - Even WC ranked teams are usually 6th or better in ERA, and rarely have below average pitching So the question is why is so much of the blame on our lineup? They've done pretty well I think when considering injuries. 2nd in AL OPS only to DET..

I think defensive indifference could happen. If say you're well up in a game that might get shortened to rain and want to just speed things up by not holding runners at all. IBB (though BB was of course mentioned) GIDP was mentioned, but going a bit further with that you could theoretically score from third on a triple play if the last out was not a force out (runner oversliding or trying to advance on error and caught, etc)

I've wondered if there's a an advanced metric for batters analogous to TIPS for pitchers that looks at per pitch outcomes. Something like that might regress better for batter projections (like platooning) than looking at AB outcomes? Or at least for small sample sizes perhaps

Jim Abbott never complained about being bunted on.

AA should know this but the Jays *are* a company. Or more accurately owned by one (Roger's) who can throw around money like Apple if they feel they are going to get a return on it.