Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Not-So-Social Morgan Network

School just started up for me again, which means boring professors galore and plenty of free time to look for pieces of sports literature that frustratingly tickle my funny bone in just the right spot. What better way to come back from a long hiatus than to take a look at 'ol Joe's "JoeChat."

IT'S T-SHIRT TIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!

Jay (South Korea: Love ur work Joe! Last night's gem against Washington locked up Halladay for Cy, do you agree?

Joe Morgan (11:09 AM: Well, the fact that Jimenez has not been able to win, I would say yes. Jimenez has pitched well, but he hasn't been able to win and Halladay has won. I think with the fact that the Phillies have won that Halladay will win it.


Number of forms of "win" used in paragraph: 5
Number of forms of "win" necessary in a Cy Young argument: 0
Number of min left in this boring International Business class: 97
Number of billion dollars Mark Zuckerberg has made from Facebook: 22

M@ (Hattiesburg, MS): As wide open as the AL CY Young race is, I haven't heard Jon Lester mentioned once, even though his numbers are better than C.C.'s. across the board, an equal to Felix. For instance, opponents hit .243 off CC, .213 against Felix and .214 against Lester. Did his flirtation with a no-hitter against the Yankees Saturday put him on the map, finally? Who would you give the CY to?

Joe Morgan (11:12 AM): I think he's always been in the race in my mind. I like what Felix Hernandez has done, but he has won only 12 games.


Irrelevant.

People say that he doesn't get support from his teamamtes,


Hernandez has 12 losses. In those 12 losses, the Mariners have scored a grand total of 14 runs. 14. As in two more runs than the number of games lost. As in 1.2 runs scored per game. For 12 starts, saying he didn't get support from his teammates was almost literally true. He was literally 1.2 runs of support away from getting literally no support from his teammates. Literally.

but guess what, every award is a team award.


No it's not. As a matter of fact, I can't think of any actual "team" awards besides the World Series Title. Other than the super obvious ones like Silver Sluggers, Gold Gloves, and MVP's, I mean.

Anyways, among A.L. pitchers with at least 160 innings pitched, Sabathia ranks 8th in run support with 7.31 runs per game. Hernandez is dead last (42nd) with 3.75 runs per game.

You can't win the MVP without your teammates.


Yes you can. The M.V.P. award, according to trustworthy Wikipedia, stands for "Most Valuable Player", not "Most Valuable Team-Player As Deemed By Joe Morgan And His Painstakingly Outdated Chass-Like Ways Of Looking At Things" (or M.V.T.P.A.D.B.J.M.A.H.P.O.C.L.W.O.L.A.T.).

Do we look at an MVP candidate and say his team didn't give him a chance to drive in runs?


Who's "we"? Because my answer to your patronizing, sarcastic, condescending, leading, naive, ignorant, arrogant-poised question is... HELL YES!

Also, the Seattle Marines scored less runs than any other team in baseball this year. The Yankees scored the most. You will ignore this information.

The fact is that Felix has won 12 games and CC has won 20.


True fact (well, technically King Felix has 13 wins now, but at the time of the JoeChat this was a true fact). You know what else is a true fact? Felix beat C.C. in ERA, FIP, xFIP, WAR, K's, IP, CG, K/9, BB/9, K/BB, HR/9, and WHIP. True fact.

It is harder to win in a championship environment in New York than in Felix's situation.


Yeah, it's easier to win when your team scores 3.75 runs for you per game and more difficult to win when your team scores 7.31 runs per game. Poor Sabathia man... King Felix has it easy, bro! He's got a castle and a queen and servants and shit!

Just look at AJ Burnett this year.


Awesome example. For heaven's sake just last year this guy threw 207 innings, struck out 195 batters, and posted a 3.1 WAR! What happened? All of the sudden he comes to New York and can't pitch anymore?! Are you kidding me??? Sack up and grow a pair Burnett, this is the Damn Yankees!!!



(**browses at Burnett's Baseball-Reference page**)



....Nevermind all that. Apparently Burnett pitched for the Yankees last year too. My bad.

Felix has done a good job this year, but he's not in the same difficulty level of pitching this year as CC.


Major League Baseball has been around since 1869. During that span the world has witnessed things such as the invention of the automobile, airplane, radio, television, air conditioning, computer, telephone, Coca-Cola, Beatles, Jersey Shore, and--above all-- Facebook. The world has developed drastically in almost every way over the past 141 years. However, what has not developed is the ability of sportswriters (specifically Joseph Morgs) to ignore the ever-so-attractive "wins" category when evaluating pitchers. I'm fairly certain that even Snooki could understand the basic concept if it was written at a 3rd grade level on a spray tan can label.

I'm tired. Class is over. Time to devote the next couple hours to coming up with an idea that will allow me to--much like Mark Zuckerberg did after inventing Facebook--drop out of school and become a billionaire.