The Case For Jon Lester

Recently and also before the season started Jon Lester was getting hammered by some experts including a mild ribbing by my good friend and co-host Evan Dickens. It's apparent that no matter what Lester does he will be criticized in the end. Criticism's of Lester come primarily from Sabermetric folks who love to dabble in the formulas and the anomalies they create.

Some of us who actually do work and research know that Sabermetrics is a failed system and you cannot judge a pro ballplayer just by punching 6 weeks worth of stats into a calculator. I've always stated that variables play too big of a role in baseball for Sabermetrics to work the way it's used in fantasy baseball. I'll put it to you like this, if it worked, Why is Lester still pitching for the Red Sox? That might be a silly question, they are a big user of the system, only they use it to enhance scouting and not replace it like many fantasy baseball analysts do.

Here is another question, if Sabermetrics is full proof, why don't professional gamblers use it and get rich from it? Because it doesn't work and nobody would put big bucks on it.

OK, back to Lester. When I look for a guy that I want on my team, Lester is perfect. Here is a man who beat cancer. There aren't allot of people who can say that. Not only did he beat it, but during his first season back he throws a no-hitter. How amazing was that and consider that he can do that at any point. Then he dominates for the Red Sox in the playoffs and get a World Series ring. All in the same year. Then he follows that up with an encore year in 2008. Now that he's had a slow start in 2009, the wolves smell blood.

Lester hasn't had the best start. Last year these bedroom Sabermetric guys attacked his ERA and K/9. I told everyone before the season in my breakout article on Lester that his K/9 rate would go up, wins up, and his WHIP would go down. So far I got the first one right. Now, on a recent article I read on Bleacher Report his ability to hold the K/9 of 10.67 would be tough. Tell me something I don't know. I'd be thrilled to get a 8.5 K/9 out of Lester, so even a drop in over 2 K/9 would be alright.

So why has Lester had such a tough start? Well, there are lots of reasons. Freezing cold and rain doesn't help and also timely plays and lucky bounces. Here is the deal, every year a pitcher has a certain number of bad hops, unlucky bounces, errors, and general bad defense throughout the year. It happens to everyone, but for Lester he's had allot of that in his first 6 weeks! Once things even out, you will see the impact of that on his WHIP, ERA, and W/L (psst. the stats the really matter Saber-guys).

Now he has had a very rough start and 8 home runs already after only 14 last season should open up your eyes. Why aren't Sabermetric experts pointing out that fact as an anomaly that will be corrected? Id Lester the GW of baseball pitchers? I digress.

Here is the dish on Lester that the average Saber-guy doesn't pay attention too. Lester added a changeup this year to battle right hand batters and to keep all hitters honest on his fastball and cutter. That is the reason his K's have gone up as having a changeup to compliment your fastball is crucial to punching out players. That's a little pitchign lesson for the Saber-guys.

Adding a new pitch doesn't always yield perfect results upfront. While Lester is getting more strikeouts, the change in pitch calls and strategy has thrown him off a bit and I'm sure he's left some hanging in the zone as well. Also, once you slow down the batters bats, bloops and other lucky hits occur, but the overall results will be there.

So Sabermetric guys, back off of Lester. I'll tell you this, no one is giving up on the guy and frankly he was drafted super high by allot of experts including my friend Scott Engel at RotoExperts.com who stole him from me in the 7th round of an expert draft. I haven't heard Scott posting , "Will trade Lester for food!"

So until that happens or at least we see Lester sucking at the end of June, will you guys lay off the man and let him pitch.

Here are my updated projections for Jon Lester:
19-8, 3.69, 1.25, 192 Ks

Let's see how it all turns out. Remember, it's the guys that give up on their studs to early that lose.

Jon Lester Is Back To Form

It took three starts, but the real Jon Lester showed himself today against Baltimore. His first two starts were bad, but primarily unlucky. His first start consisted of one bad inning (5th) where he allowed a bloop hit and a hit and run play prevented a double play. His second start wasn't very good. He just left everything up and got hammered.

Today was different. First off, he commanded every pitch and kept the Orioles off balance all day with strikeouts and pop outs. He struck out 9 batters and gave up only 4 hits.

One of the big Sabermetrics boo-boo's for Lester was his K/9 rate, which last year was around 6.5. I told everyone this season that Lester is just getting better and his K/9 rate will get better as well. Granted his ERA is 5.50, his K/9 rate after three starts and 18 innings is 8.5.

I know it won't stay that high, but I think he can maintain a 7.2 K/9 rate the whole year. One reason I know this is in the off-season he worked on his change-up. He already has a 96 mph fastball and a great cutter and curveball. Now mix in the changeup as another out pitch and he is dominating. He showed that today and expect more starts like this now that Lester has hopefully got settled.

Todd "The True Guru" Farino

Go out and get him if you can, unless you use Sabermetrics. In that case, get Oliver Perez.

Useless Sabermetrics Stat Of The Month: BABIP

This is my first installment of pointing out terrible sabermetric stats. Note before this first article gets underway that I don't dismiss all sabermetrics stats and/or formulas. Just the lame, repetitive statistics that were clearly meant for MLB scouts, but somehow sabermetric guys in a last ditch effort to make themselves sound fantasy relevant pull them out in hopes they will sound smart and informative. (Was that a run-on sentence?) Sabermetrics does provide us with some very useful stats like OBP, Strikeouts per 9 innings, and OPS amongst a few others. Those will not be the ones that I point. However, I will point out stats that have zero value to a fantasy manager and in most cases will create so much work that you may in fact damage your team by the sheer volume of time you waste applying these statistics to your fantasy team.

This month is Batting Average Balls In Play or better known as BABIP. The pure and simple definition of this stat is the accurate batting average based on the number balls put in play by an individual batter. If that is not clear enough, its the batting average minus the at bats where the batter gets a strikeout. If you like formulas, try this:
(Correction 1/7/2009 ) I did simplfy the formula, because it was a repative formula to begin with the actual formula is
BABIP = (Hits - HR / AB - HR - SF)

The reason I simplified it was it was misleading. most players donot sacrifice at all or that much, especially the players we care about. removing HRs was a mistake, and I should have kept that in there. Everything else in the article still applies because I was basing it on the actual formula.

BABIP= Total Hits / (Total At Bats - Strikeouts)

Wow. It is because of stats like these that I refuse to call sabermetric guys experts because they don't analyze baseball, they analyze and twist numbers. Otherwise, teach Algebra.

First lets cover what this statistic was originally meant for. If you don't already know sabermetrics (SABR Society for American Baseball Research), was the brain child of Bill James, but made more famous by Billy Beane and Theo Epstein. It was a tool developed for scouts to use in order to evaluate players on more of a team value basis. BABIP would be a significant tool used by managers and scouts to determine how often the hitter gets a hit when he makes contact. This is a great stat for young players because scouts feel they can be taught to make better contact, or used for pitch-hitters. Either way its far to random and not very useful for an everyday batter.

So I'm going to tell why BABIP (Batting Average Balls In Play) is not only meaningless, but its a repetitious, misleading, and in general stupid statistic. Its repetitious because from a fantasy point-of-view its the same thing as batting average! Really, it's just a better average because you remove one way a player can make an out. Call it IABIPO, (Inflated Average Balls In Play Only). Am I the only person who sees that its the same thing as regular old batting average only inflated by removing a key stat, strikeouts. Let's examine this from a fantasy baseball perspective because what's important in all this is how helpful it is to a fantasy baseball manager. If a batter has a batting average of .333, is he a good fantasy baseball player? Are you going to draft him or are you going to need to see his inflated BABIP of .370 to know he's truly good and worth drafting? The same goes for bad players, besides what does it tell you that batting average doesn't tell you?

Now, the reason it's misleading is you can't remove strikeouts or eliminate homeruns from your fantasy players, so why have a stat that does that for you? Seriously, why have a stat that does something no fantasy league does, nor does Major League Baseball for that matter do? On the back of a baseball card do you see BABIP? I can see why it works for scouts, but for fantasy baseball it's wrong and misleading. So unless your fantasy league removes strikeouts of doesn't allow homeruns (LOL) for a batter then BABIP it is in fact 100% misleading. I'll make sure this is clear. If a batter has a batting average of .250 (100 hits in 400 at bats 20 homeruns), his BABIP would be .2 with 50 strikeouts. So, not to be repetitious like BABIP can be, but unless your league will use the .242, its meaningless!!

Finally, its just stupid. The whole point of a batting average is the number of hits divided into the number of at bats. Everyone uses it that way, all experts, MLB, and all fantasy leagues, so why should you use a statistic that leads you down the wrong path. Its like looking at a discounted retail item with a price tag that says $42.99, but when you get to the cash register they say $57.99. They tell you, "oh, we just removed the discount to inflate the price."

Alright, I'll be fair and try to be positive and think of a reason I would use it. Let me think.........................................................................................................Give me a second.................................................................hold up, I'm onto something..............nope, nothing.

Sorry can't think of one reason. BABIP reminds me of kung fu in movies. You always see all those kung fu guys doing all those useless showoff moves with their hand and legs flailing all over the place before a fight, but in the end it does nothing to win the fight. That is BABIP, lots of show, but absolutely hollow. Of course when some of the sabermetric guys read this they will try to talk over your head with fancy diatribe to get you to believe in this stat and say what an idiot I am. So the next time some sabermetrics analysis brings up BABIP ask them one simple question.
"In the context of fantasy baseball, how is BABIP effective with batting average already established and how is it applied to an individual player in a fantasy format?" I guarantee you will stump the sabermetrics experts and he'll probably mumble, "luck" or something.