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Larry Stone on the Pitching Staff

I was going to take a look at this article, but Jeff beat me to it. So go read that, because it pretty much echoes my sentiments. That Price is trying to force Meche into pitching through an injury is absolutely horrifying, at least to me. This is the kind of thing that good pitching coaches don't do.

There was one part of the piece that amused me:

After Monday's flawless replacement start by Ryan Franklin, the Mariners ranked 11th among 30 teams in earned-run average (3.86, nearly a run better than last year's 4.76), tied for ninth in opponents' batting average (.252), sixth in opponents' OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) at .671...

All right, all right that all sounds good, but all this stuff is partially defense-dependent, so it would be nice to take a more analytical approach.

...11th in the stat-geeky...

He's already throwing insults. Terrific. Let me guess: I need to buy a new pocket protector, right?

...but meaningful...

Sweet, sweet redemption! Maybe new-aged statistical analysis has a place in the papers after all!

"WHIP" (walks plus hits divided by innings pitched) at 1.33.

Oh. WHIP. That stat that's been a part of traditional 5x5 roto leagues since the dawn of time. I wonder what he thinks about such crazy new-fangled metrics as "walks" and "stolen base percentage".

Interesting that Stone doesn't mention the fact that the Mariners rank 29th and 26th in K/9 and K/BB, respectively. If and when someone other than Guardado starts giving up home runs, look out.