Watched “Baseball Tonight,” um…tonight. Obviously, they covered Cliff “I Show You How To Do This, Son” Lee’s start in Philly. Lee’s line: complete game, 11K, 0BB, 2H, 0 ER. I feel like if you said those words out loud, recorded them, and played them backwards it would just turn into “Redrum! REDRUM!” over and over.
Anyway, after showing the highlights, the host kicks it over to Fernando Vina for a short “analysis” segment, based around the question, “Fernando, what’s made Lee so good since coming to the NL?”
Let’s ignore for a moment that Cliff was also a monster when he was in the AL, so no one should be surprised that he became a total wrecking crew when he got traded into a league where he’s only got to face 8 real batters and none of them can really hit anyway.
Instead, I want to focus on this: Vina’s answer embodies exactly the type of pseudo-analysis in sports that makes my ears bleed. (Note: I’m paraphrasing the below to some degree, but all of the exact quotes are in bold.)
“Well, Cliff Lee won the Cy Young in the AL…but since coming to the NL, he’s become Cy Young. He’s really good. His mound presence is incredible. He’s really aggressive. He goes after hitters. He can throw all his pitches for strikes. He throws breaking balls in fastball counts and fastballs in breaking ball counts. Put that all together, and he makes it very tough on opposing batters.”
OK, let’s break this down quickly.
First, Cliff Lee’s move to Philadelphia has somehow granted him the power to shape-shift into a dead Hall of Famer. So far so good.
Second, what makes Cliff Lee so good is, literally, that he’s really good. Keep signing those checks, ESPN.
Third, there’s his “mound presence.” I first heard this term a week ago. The best I can figure out is that it means the guy who’s on the mound is intimidating in some capacity. Why is he intimidating? Um, because he’s…really good?
Fourth, Lee “goes after hitters” aggressively. This idea is troubling to me. I understand it in principle - that there are some guys who are not afraid to throw strikes. But this raises a point that Mike and I were discussing yesterday when watching HBO’s “Hard Knocks.” There was a sector of the episode where the Bengals’ coaches were discussing that there were guys in camp who wanted to take / give out hits, and those who didn’t. Mike’s question was basically, if you’re not the type of person who wants to give out hits or take hits, why have you been playing football? Not just professionally, not just collegiately, but EVER? That’s like saying, “Man, crime is really not my thing. Too bad I’ve hatched this elaborate plan to steal an insanely large diamond from a Swiss museum. Oh well, better go ahead with it…”
The point when applied to pitching is this: if you’re not the type of guy who wants to throw strikes or to get hitters out, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU PITCHING IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Maybe this is why Rick Ankiel is now an outfielder. Oh wait, that was the HGH.
So if we go back to the Fernando Vina translation game, the fact that Lee is aggressively “going after” hitters means that he likes to throw a baseball in such a way that it gets people out. In other words, he is a pitcher.
Fifth, Cliff can throw his full repertoire of pitches for strikes. I’m OK with this point in general. It raises a broader question to me, which is - shouldn’t all pitchers theoretically be able to throw all their pitches for strikes? Shouldn’t that be a requirement for being in a starting rotation? I would think so. But as Fausto Carmona has proved over the course of the past 2+ seasons, it’s not really.
Sixth (or really fifth-and-a-half), Lee can throw breaking balls in fastball counts and vice versa. Of course, traditionally pitchers throw more breaking balls when they’re ahead in the count and more fastballs when they’re behind in the count. However, if point #5 - Lee’s ability to throw all his pitches for strikes - really separates him from the pack, then the only reason that such a thing as “fastball counts” and “breaking ball counts” exist is because most pitchers can’t consistently throw a breaking ball for a strike.
So really, all that Vina’s saying here is that Cliff Lee throws a lot of strikes. Unfortunately, despite its cutting wisdom, he already made this point a sentence earlier.
We *could* take this one step further and suggest that since Cliff throws a lot of strikes, he is probably not behind hitters all that often. The fact that he fanned 11 guys and walked none in 9 innings seems like good supporting evidence. But then again, Vina didn’t say that. I did. He’s riding this “Cliff Lee throws strikes” train to the end of the line, baby.
Let’s recap. If you break down Vina’s analysis, this is how he answers the question “What makes Cliff Lee such a good pitcher?”
1. Thanks to the city of Philadelphia, Cliff Lee can transform into dead people.
2. Cliff Lee is really good.
3. Cliff Lee is intimidating because he’s good.
4. Cliff Lee is a pitcher.
5. Cliff Lee throws a lot of strikes.
6. Cliff Lee throws a lot of strikes.
It’s a really good thing I have no idea how much ESPN is paying Fernando Vina, because if I knew, I’d probably start chewing on my desk like a wild dog. Keep up the good work, guys.
-T
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