Reggie Miller
05-13-2006, 12:09 AM
I was reading a commentary on the 2005 White Sox season at:
http://johnnymostilsrazor.blogspot.com/
http://johnnymostilsrazor.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_johnnymostilsrazor_archive.html
At any rate, the author of this blog had a fantastic point which I will paraphrase. Most teams are searching in vain for "consistency," which is usually an illusion. Team games with long seasons actually consist of individual performances complete with prolonged slumps and explosions. In other words, the pitcher with season averages of 6.0 IP and 4.50 ERA didn't actually give up 3 ER on every start. Some nights he was really effective and cruised for 2 runs in 8 IP; some nights he blew up and coughed up 5 early.
The author writes:
"My hypothesis is you actually WANT pitchers who blow up once a month (we’ll call him Freddy Mercury) but otherwise dominate instead of one who is consistent (we’ll call him Steady Eddie Average), because the first class of pitcher will actually win more often despite having identical total and average statistics. Guys who blow up once a month are easier to find than guys who consistently put up mediocre numbers because most baseball teams are actually LOOKING for the pitcher who is consistently average and get frustrated with the Mercury types."
Basically, the 2005 White Sox won with several players that other teams had written off as "reclamation projects." (Not all, but no high-price free agents, either.) Their management put them in positions to suceed, and the team caught lightning in a bottle. That team had above-average starters that went very deep into games, while posting about 3.5 ERA, and scored around 5 runs on average. Not a team for the centuries, but good enough to sweep the Astros. The Sox got blown out from time to time, but those runs don't "carry over."
At any rate, I wondered "is this the new face of pro sports?" How many players in the NBA can really, consistently, post 25 points and 12 rebounds a night? Or could in the correct "system?" Not too many, and the ones I could think of all make over $12 million/year. "Consistency" is an awfully expensive commodity in any sport.
At any rate, there are a lot of basketball fans here, and I am interested in your opinions. Would such an approach even work in the NBA? What would a team like that even look like? Would it look more like the Spurs, or more like the Knicks? (The Knicks don't get the premise, which is spend less $$ on individual players.) Again, the idea is that you simply go for depth (possibly even "platooning" or having a couple of sixth men that could start on other teams), leave some cap space for flexibility, and go to whoever can carry the team on any given night. I can't think of a good NBA team that didn't have at least one true All-Star.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I CAN think of several bad NBA teams that tried this.
http://johnnymostilsrazor.blogspot.com/
http://johnnymostilsrazor.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_johnnymostilsrazor_archive.html
At any rate, the author of this blog had a fantastic point which I will paraphrase. Most teams are searching in vain for "consistency," which is usually an illusion. Team games with long seasons actually consist of individual performances complete with prolonged slumps and explosions. In other words, the pitcher with season averages of 6.0 IP and 4.50 ERA didn't actually give up 3 ER on every start. Some nights he was really effective and cruised for 2 runs in 8 IP; some nights he blew up and coughed up 5 early.
The author writes:
"My hypothesis is you actually WANT pitchers who blow up once a month (we’ll call him Freddy Mercury) but otherwise dominate instead of one who is consistent (we’ll call him Steady Eddie Average), because the first class of pitcher will actually win more often despite having identical total and average statistics. Guys who blow up once a month are easier to find than guys who consistently put up mediocre numbers because most baseball teams are actually LOOKING for the pitcher who is consistently average and get frustrated with the Mercury types."
Basically, the 2005 White Sox won with several players that other teams had written off as "reclamation projects." (Not all, but no high-price free agents, either.) Their management put them in positions to suceed, and the team caught lightning in a bottle. That team had above-average starters that went very deep into games, while posting about 3.5 ERA, and scored around 5 runs on average. Not a team for the centuries, but good enough to sweep the Astros. The Sox got blown out from time to time, but those runs don't "carry over."
At any rate, I wondered "is this the new face of pro sports?" How many players in the NBA can really, consistently, post 25 points and 12 rebounds a night? Or could in the correct "system?" Not too many, and the ones I could think of all make over $12 million/year. "Consistency" is an awfully expensive commodity in any sport.
At any rate, there are a lot of basketball fans here, and I am interested in your opinions. Would such an approach even work in the NBA? What would a team like that even look like? Would it look more like the Spurs, or more like the Knicks? (The Knicks don't get the premise, which is spend less $$ on individual players.) Again, the idea is that you simply go for depth (possibly even "platooning" or having a couple of sixth men that could start on other teams), leave some cap space for flexibility, and go to whoever can carry the team on any given night. I can't think of a good NBA team that didn't have at least one true All-Star.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I CAN think of several bad NBA teams that tried this.