« Padres Grab Michael Gardner In Rule 5 | Main | Will The 2007 Yankees Add To This List? »
December 06, 2007
SOTD: Santana, Buehrle & Hampton
Just in case you haven't had enough Johan Santana talk this week, so far.
To tack on to the above link here, something via the Complete Baseball Encyclopedia:
AMERICAN LEAGUE, 2000-2007, LEFT HANDED PITCHERS
RSAA RSAA 1 Johan Santana 190 2 Mark Buehrle 155 3 Barry Zito 146 4 C.C. Sabathia 97 T5 Kenny Rogers 68 T5 Jarrod Washburn 68
Buehrle is not that far behind Santana here either - about an average of 4 RSAA per season.
Posted by Steve Lombardi at December 6, 2007 12:13 PM
Comments
Buehrle has pitched more than 300 innings more than Santana. That is going to make the difference between them look smaller than it is.
Posted by: jonm ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.waswatching.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 6, 2007 01:14 PM
This is a misrepresentation in a big way. RSAA is a cumulative statistic. Johan Santana pitched his first full major league season in 2004. Mark Buerhle had his in 2001. So Mark Buerhle has about 2 full seasons of RSAA added to his total.
A better way of doing it would be lefthanders from 2004 through 2007.
Posted by: Andrew at December 6, 2007 01:14 PM
~~~A better way of doing it would be lefthanders from 2004 through 2007.~~~
Fair point. Then it's Johan over Mark by a landslide.
But, is that a small sample size thing? Just because a guy does something for 3 years, we can't assume that he can do it over 6, right?
Posted by: Steve Lombardi at December 6, 2007 01:55 PM
Johan has led the league in baserunners allowed (and WHIP, if you're into that sort of thing) 4 years in a row, and has been at least in the top ten in all other pitching categories during that time. I read somewhere that no pitcher in history has done that.
Posted by: Andrew at December 6, 2007 03:14 PM