stark love fest
19 September 2007I realize that Trapped in LA has been something of a Jayson Stark promotional tool of late, but I received another mention in his Useless Information Blog, and so I’m reposting part of it here again.
RAISING CAIN
Is Matt Cain jealous of Adam Eaton and Horacio Ramirez? He ought to be. As we’ve mentioned in this blog a couple of times, Eaton and Ramirez have ERAs that look more like Peyton Manning’s yards per passing attempt — but neither of them has a losing record.Out in San Francisco, on the other hand, poor Matt Cain is having one of the greatest 7-15 seasons of all time.
His ERA is 3.71 — lower than the ERAs of Chien-Ming Wang (18 wins), Ted Lilly (15 wins) or Roy Halladay (15 wins).
He has made four starts in which he gave up no more than two hits — a total beaten only by Jake Peavy (six) — yet has won none of them.
He has made 11 starts in which he gave up one run or none — and hasn’t even won half of them (five of 11).
And opposing hitters are batting just .235 against him — lower than the averages against John Smoltz, Justin Verlander, Josh Beckett or Brad Penny.
Well, here’s the difference: Smoltz, Verlander, Beckett and Penny are all going to get Cy Young votes out of their seasons. And Matt Cain has gotten a 7-15 record out of his.
That sent loyal reader Aneel Trivedi to his annals, trying to figure out where Cain ranked on the list of Worst Records by Pitchers Who Are That Unhittable. He came up with this dazzling list of lowest opponent batting averages against pitchers with winning percentages under .350 (since 1900, with 30 starts or more):
PITCHER YEAR RECORD BAA Nolan Ryan 1987 8-16 (.333) .200 Walter Johnson 1909 13-25 (.342) .221 Jerry Koosman 1977 8-20 (.286) .232 Balor Moore 1973 7-16 (.304) .233 Matt Cain 2007 7-15 (.318) .235 Whew. It would take an 0-3 finish for Cain to have the lowest winning percentage of anyone in that group. And there’s probably not much chance of that. But if you’re on any kind of list with Nolan Ryan and Walter Johnson, there’s a good shot you’ve made some kind of history. And we have a feeling it’s not the last kind of history Matt Cain is going to make before he’s through, either. Except we’d bet the next kind will be a lot more attractive.