>and more snipping
>
>>>Last baseball note for now -- a couple of weeks ago I said it already looked like Halladay vs. Lincecum for the Cy Young award. In fact a number of NL starters are off to sensational starts. Here are the current stats from espn.com. Click on any column to sort in that order.
>>>
>>>http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/year/2010/seasontype/2/league/nl
>>>
>>
>>Yeah. That's why I mentioned Jimenez. Where the heck has he been the last few years. What was he smoking over the winter?
>>
>
>Or what has he been injecting into his butt? You'd think they would know better by now but apparently the temptation is sometimes too much. I have NO knowledge that this is the case with Jiminez. Sadly, in this era it's the first thing you suspect when a guy comes out of nowhere.
>
>>>I consider walks and hits per nine innings the most indicative pitching stat. Six of them are below one per inning, which is terrific.
>>
>>How about simply strikes vs balls per pitch.
>>
>
>Why? A pitcher wouldn't last long throwing all strikes. Besides, it's a data point, not an outcome. Hits, walks, and outs are outcomes.

True, but outs don't tell you anything about whether or not the outfielder made a great catch over the wall or a diving catch to save a triple. Outs don't necessarily tell you how well or poorly the pitcher is being hit. I've seen batters who look, from their records, like they're in a terrible slump, while in fact, they're hitting line shots that are getting picked off. The pitcher may be getting hit hard, and still coming up smelling roses. I don't think outs as a stat really mean all that much.

And then, back on hitting the strike zone. Watch the Yankees sometime. Yankee batters have a tendency to wait on pitchers making them throw a lot more pitches than they would be if they were throwing strikes. Guys like Halladay who throw mostly strikes bother them because they can't sit on his pitches. He gets ahead of batters, and they know that if anything is anywhere around the plate, they'd better swing, because if they don't, it's probably going to cut to a corner. Then he hits a corner causing a grounder or a pop-up.

That's why I love to watch him. His command is almost supernatural.