Lewin was awesome

Busby and Grieve combo make it to where I cant stay awake those late night west coast games

Nolan's lasting contribution to the organization - the old fuddy duddy broadcast. Why have someone that can sharpen the broadcast up with a little wit and a few pop culture references when you can just have a matched set of oldtimer former players.

Colby Lewis' ERA

2015: 70th out of 78 qualified starting pitchers
2014: 87th out of 88 qualified starting pitchers
2013: Did not pitch.
2012: Unqualified.
2011: 73rd out of 88 qualified starting pitchers


Sign him again for a few million, fine. Why is that "great news", however?

Because he was a 17 game winner, an innings eater, and a leader in the clubhouse. There's more to pitching than ERA.

Colby gets whatever he wants in my book for what he did in Game 6 of the 2010 ALCS. Still in my mind the Greatest Night in Rangers History!

Sensitive Sallies in here these days. I'll stress the "sign him for a few million, fine" part.

($6 million includes no hometown discount or deal for a guy of Colby's performance. Plenty of guys on the market that will go or have gone for about that much, or less.)

Of his 17 wins, the Rangers scored 10+ runs 7 times. Of his 17 wins, the Rangers scored 4 or fewer runs just 5 times. The Rangers did not win a single game in which Colby did not get the decision; they were 17-16 in his 33 starts. Of course, he had the most losses, 14, in the American League in 2014.

There is more to pitching than ERA, indeed. His strikeouts per 9 innings have been trending down from 8.8 in 2010 to 6.2 this past season. 6.2 was 30th out 36 qualified AL pitchers. WHIP is about the best thing he can offer, and he tempers that as he routinely gives up as many home runs as any pitcher in the AL. He had the worst BAA in the AL in 2014 by 17 points, in 2015, it was 26th out 36 qualified pitchers.

He of course eats up innings except of course in games and seasons when he doesn't. And even the mere idea of "eating up innings" is probably a leftover from yesteryear---good teams try not to let guys with Colby's stats "eat up innings." Ryan Dempster with the Red Sox in 2013 is probably the last guy on a Pennant-winning club with Colby Lewis-like numbers to be allowed to start all season. Even Tim Lincecum found himself sent to the bullpen in 2014 with the Giants.2015 Royals had 1 pitcher over 163 innings. 2013 Cardinals had only 3 guys with more than 19 starts.

That the 2010 playoffs got cited just goes to heart of the Colby Lewis issue.

Anyways, again, I'll stress the "sign him for a few million, its fine" part of the post.

I agree with all of the above post. He's a good guy to have as your 6th starter/long relief guy but it's hard to get excited about him being in the rotation.

1 year deal for a starter that gave you 200 innings, a 1 WAR and 19 quality starts?

For a #5 guy?

Yeah, I'm perfectly happy about that...


14 starts where he gave you 6IP/2ER or better.

Heres where I hope Colby slides in... Yu stays off his arm during Spring Training and Colby goes into rotation... Bring Yu into rotaion end of May and Colby goes to pen.

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1 year deal for a starter that gave you 200 innings, a 1 WAR and 19 quality starts?

For a #5 guy?

Yeah, I'm perfectly happy about that...


14 starts where he gave you 6IP/2ER or better.

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There is nothing about 0.98 WAR over 200 innings that is exciting, or even good, or average, or below average. It is tied with Raisel Iglesias and J.J. Hoover for the 189th best WAR among pitchers MLB. That's enough for every team to have 6.4 pitchers with a 1.0 WAR or better.

And it took him 204.2 innings to do it? Its just plain awful.

Blue Jays had 5 starters at 1.3 or higher, and a 6th at 0.9.
Yankees had 5 starters at 1.7 or higher, a 6th at 1.0.
Twins had 7 starters at 1.4 or higher.
Indians had 6 starters at 1.5 or higher.

Astros had 5 starters at 1.0 or higher. #5 was Mike Fiers who they traded for late in the season and only pitched 68 innings. He had a 2.1 WAR for the season. (They had 5 guys with a 1.4 WAR or higher during the full season)

The two teams with a winning record in AL where CJ's 1.0 WAR matches up are the:

Angels, who had 4 guys with a 1.2 WAR or higher, and that strangely didn't include Jered Weaver.

Royals, perhaps even stranger, who had 4 guys at a 1.5 WAR or higher (only Edinson Volquez took more than 163 innings to do it) and piece-mealed the 5th spot with several guys whose collective WAR adds up to 0.9. (And yes, I know that isn't exactly how WAR works).


Nick Martinez had a 62% QS percentage to Colby's 61%, and in 10 of Nick's 21 starts he went at least 6 innings with less than 2 earned runs compared to 14 of 33 for Colby. (And had a 1.0 WAR, as well). Is Martinez even going to get to start games next season once Darvish is back from injury?


Sign Colby? Fine. Just didn't get the excitement. He's been pitching like a spot starter or worse.

Anyways, I hope he's better next year because the Rangers will need it. Carry on.

Doesn't excite you much, but here you are writing a thesis on the matter. Most fans are just happy to see one of the last remaining guys from the pennant teams to re-sign with the good guys. That's exciting to me enough.

I'll concede on the WAR comment, but I disagree with a "spot starter".

Guy gave you 19 quality starts.

That makes him absolutely a bonafide #5 guy.

I think he had 20 quality starts, which tied him for 22nd in all of baseball. His WAR is squirrelly partly because of his style. He does get hit, and since his stuff is smoke and mirrors, the occassional shelling he takes when he's off hurts his war. But quality starts from the bottom of your rotation wins games and keeps you in pennant races. 20 quality starts is nothing to scoff at. And in this day and age, $6 million for a starting pitcher isn't much at all.

Lookin forward to seein Yu again this year!

Back to the broadcast...

Scully IS 88, so a little dementia is a high probability. At this point, it is a fine line between allowing a HoF broadcaster finish his career... keeping him from embarrassing himself, and removing him from the role and watching him die within 3 or 4 months.

I love Busby. He identifies things that allow me to know I'm a more educated baseball fan as the season and seasons grow on. I've listened to Busby for years on the radio. Along with Nadel, he compacts a tremendous amount of information in very short statements. For radio... he describes what is going on to the extent I visualize it.

Lewin was necessary for some really terrible teams. He kept it light... entertaining and would often forget there was even a baseball game going on. It was more entertaining than enlightening. Since I'm not Pulp Fiction or movie buff... I probably missed 20% of his references. I didn't mind him, but he appealed more to the casual baseball fan, than a long-time fan.

TAG provides historical information about the Rangers. If you've been a Rangers fan for over 10 years, he'll give you insight into what what really happening or some perspective. Not a fan of cookie talk, but I think that was more about developing long-time relationships with fans.

Knoxie is as annoying as hell, but I can't help watching him. Even after the games. I love when they get all the fans to chime in about the game. Seeing the same fans (like the one woman who is loud but a great fan) is always exciting. It reinforces the idea that there are other rabid Rangers fans (like us) out there.

Broadcasting is a funny thing.

According to the Stats on ESPN, Colby actually had 20 QS.

You can make whatever sabermetrics comparison to Fiers, Martinez, or whomever...

Here is some perspective... his 20 QS puts him tied for 8th in the AL

Keuchel - 27
Quintan - 25
Price/Richards - 24
Sale - 23
Gray - 22
McHugh - 21
8th (20 QS):
RA ****ey ($12M)
Colby
King Felix ($24M)
Chen ($4.7M)

So... while his ERA may be a little higher for the season, he has kept you in as many games to win as the top SPs in the AL.

And you get him for almost nothing.

One of the commentaries (DMN/Radio... don't recall) indicated he is likely your #2, behind Hamels.

Perez (24) is still recovering from TJ surgery and had 14 GS in 2015.
Darvish should be coming back early to mid-season.
Holland (10 GS in 2015) has been inconsistent.
Chi Chi (10 GS in 2015) is still unproven at 23.

Colby needs to get us to Darvish's return. At which point either he or Chi Chi could be bumped.

Hamels
Colby
Perez
Holland
Chi Chi

Is a pretty decent rotation to open the season. Add Darvish to that, if he is back and you have a very, very good rotation.

There was radio talk that interest in Gallardo has not been to the level his agent would have expected. I think they said Bobby Witt is his agent. He could do a one-year dealy like Cruz, to boost interest. The QOffer has had many back away. They speculated the Rangers could be a likely destination, since they wouldn't have to give up a pick. They said $9M might be a good balance... However, the Rangers may prefer the pick, instead.

The downside everyone is aware of ... is that he consistently went about 1 IP less than you want a SP to go. I think he averaged going 5.1 IP. I know that puts more burden on your BP, however, if you have a rotation of guys going 6.2+, and you are putting up Runs... you can afford a guy going less than 6IP from one rotation spot.

Quality starts finds most of its usefulness in percentages, at which point Colby Lewis is tied for 31st in the AL.

(Give anyone enough starts and they'll move up a list of total quality starts)

Take one quality start away and Colby moves down to tied for 41st in the AL in QS percentage. He got that extra QS and credit to him, but the point is there is that it is a crowded statistic.

(I believe 4 guys in that mix didn't have at least 10 starts if you would like to take them out in support of Colby)

It is about all Colby really has going for him, but it is a marginally useful statistic in the first place. Might as well look at wins and losses if you're looking for an additional stat to try to figure out how a guy is doing, it'll take into account your ballpark, your team, etc. unlike quality starts. And I get it. 17-16 with Colby starting, and like I said, sign him, fine. Just didn't get the excitement.

I wouldn't agree that its completely worthless, but more on the marginal usefulness of quality starts as a statistic here:

"Is Quality Starts a useful stat? (not really)" from Baseball Reference
MLB Is a "Quality Start" the Most Overrated Stat in Baseball? from Bleacher Report

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I love Busby. He identifies things that allow me to know I'm a more educated baseball fan as the season and seasons grow on. I've listened to Busby for years on the radio. Along with Nadel, he compacts a tremendous amount of information in very short statements. For radio... he describes what is going on to the extent I visualize it.

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Quite frankly, I think Lewin had as much insight as Busby. While Busby knows what he's talking about, he's another TAG in many ways. Lewin knows baseball, he knows sports, he knows statistics and he gave another perspective on the game that older guys don't have. Busby tries to get in on the new stuff, but Lewin has it down and I really believe it when I hear Lewin works as hard as anyone in the business.

Radio /=/ Television. There is a lot of filling you have to do on TV versus radio, you of course don't have to take the time to explain things in such detail the viewer can "visualize it." Busby's filler alongside TAG is just is a yawn to me.

Just my take.

My apologies if I missed discussion of it, but the Rangers signed AJ Griffin to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training.

He's an interesting player, in 2012 and 2013 putting together:

3.60 ERA in 281.2 IP (41 starts) with a 2.1 and 2.3 WAR, respectively, 1.126 WHIP. 7.5 K/9 innings. Had a problem with home runs but otherwise consistently solid numbers.

He missed 2014 with Tommy John surgery and then made a few minor league outings in 2015, but could never really get right.

A no-risk, no expectation but possible decent reward kind of guy, kind of in the same vein as Andruw Jones from a few years back. (Hopefully he would be used a little better than Jones was.)

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Quality starts finds most of its usefulness in percentages, at which point Colby Lewis is tied for 31st in the AL.

(Give anyone enough starts and they'll move up a list of total quality starts)

Take one quality start away and Colby moves down to tied for 41st in the AL in QS percentage. He got that extra QS and credit to him, but the point is there is that it is a crowded statistic.

(I believe 4 guys in that mix didn't have at least 10 starts if you would like to take them out in support of Colby)

It is about all Colby really has going for him, but it is a marginally useful statistic in the first place. Might as well look at wins and losses if you're looking for an additional stat to try to figure out how a guy is doing, it'll take into account your ballpark, your team, etc. unlike quality starts. And I get it. 17-16 with Colby starting, and like I said, sign him, fine. Just didn't get the excitement.

I wouldn't agree that its completely worthless, but more on the marginal usefulness of quality starts as a statistic here:

"Is Quality Starts a useful stat? (not really)" from Baseball Reference
MLB Is a "Quality Start" the Most Overrated Stat in Baseball? from Bleacher Report

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You may very well be the only person I know that would put Rich Hill above Colby Lewis because 1) He has a CG and 2) Because his QS% is higher.

You remain on my Star Trek... Dungeons & Dragons... Billy Beane Sabremetrics gurus camp.

Because someone thinks the stat is useless on it's own doesn't mean it doesn't have value and doesn't give you insight.

The fact a pitcher like Colby Lewis has many would indicate maybe it isn't as easy to obtain. QS is an indicator not a sole predictor. Would I rather have Nick Martinez or Rich Hill with a higher QS%... when they don't pitch well enough to get 33 GS... or a guy like Colby who has 33 GS... and in 20 of them, he kept his team close enough to win.

Only 14 AL pitchers had 2+ CG in 2015... Colby was one of them.

He had two TERRIBLE games... Cle - 2.2 IP / 9 ER and 4 IP / 10 ER against LAAA.

That's 6.2 IP / 19 ER. Take those 2 GS out of his 204.2 / 106 ER / 4.66 ERA and you'll get:

198 IP / 87 ER and you have a 3.95 ERA. That'd put him at 24th in the AL.

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I love Busby. He identifies things that allow me to know I'm a more educated baseball fan as the season and seasons grow on. I've listened to Busby for years on the radio. Along with Nadel, he compacts a tremendous amount of information in very short statements. For radio... he describes what is going on to the extent I visualize it.

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Quite frankly, I think Lewin had as much insight as Busby. While Busby knows what he's talking about, he's another TAG in many ways. Lewin knows baseball, he knows sports, he knows statistics and he gave another perspective on the game that older guys don't have. Busby tries to get in on the new stuff, but Lewin has it down and I really believe it when I hear Lewin works as hard as anyone in the business.

Radio /=/ Television. There is a lot of filling you have to do on TV versus radio, you of course don't have to take the time to explain things in such detail the viewer can "visualize it." Busby's filler alongside TAG is just is a yawn to me.

Just my take.

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The fact you think Lewin knows baseball really stands on it's own and makes the case for the D&D Star Trek sabremetric.

The fact you think Lewin gives as much insight as Busby is a strong indicator that baseball to you is about Fantasy Sports and you don't really understand or appreciate the intricacies.

Someone who has never played baseball and rarely watches it probably thinks Lewin is a genius regarding baseball, but you as the listener are no better about baseball for it.

If I'm coaching or teaching or analyzing a player and their mechanics... I'm going with Busby.

Just my take on it.

And that's why you employ an analyst, not two analysts that both happen to be old stodgy clones with the personality of my big toe. Lewin was PLENTY knolwedgeable for the p-by-p role and could hold a very intelligent conversation about the game with anyone. Lack of knowledge was not a shortcoming by any means when it came to quality of the broadcast. The analyst is there for the deep insight while the p-by-p needs to be intelligent enough to keep up, ask good auestions, interject sith some of his own quality insights - not know enough to coach the pitching staff. Lewin was and is very good at that. I think that keads to a much superior broadcast as compared to 2 good old boy former players that think they know better than everyone else.

As far as the Busby vs Lewin knowledge comparison goes, I think another way of saying it is that while Busby may know more from having played 30-40'years ago, I don't think that necessarily translates to an increase in the broadcast quality. It's not like he's always dishing out nuggets of insight that most never thought about.

Woah there, cowboy. You're putting a lot of words in my mouth I never said.

I had to look up who Rich Hill was. Like I said, feel free to take a guy who only started 4 games out of the equation. I explicitly said I don't think QS is worthless.

I don't like Star Trek. Or Dungeons and Dragons, well, I've never considered playing it. Maybe I'd like it. What?And FWIW, quality starts was made up by a newspaper writer in the mid 1980s, just a few years before Billy Beane broke into the MLB front office profession.


There is nothing to suggest Colby "pitched well enough" to be 1 start off the MLB lead (Chris Archer, 34 starts, how many folks know off the top of their head which team he pitched for?). Out of the pitchers who did that, he had the worst ERA by .64 points. That's a huge divide.

Do you believe Alfredo Simon was a good pitcher because he got 31 starts? He had a 5.05 ERA and a 39% quality start percentage. Do you believe Jeff Samardjia was a good pitcher because he got 32 starts? He had a 4.96 ERA and a 47 QS%.

Surely you do not. They were both pretty terrible but were owed money, couldn't be sent to the minors, and were in rotations with lots of injuries. Sound familiar?


I'm sure if you take 2 terrible games from any pitcher's resume and they look quite a bit better than they did before.

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The fact you think Lewin knows baseball really stands on it's own and makes the case for the D&D Star Trek sabremetric.

The fact you think Lewin gives as much insight as Busby is a strong indicator that baseball to you is about Fantasy Sports and you don't really understand or appreciate the intricacies.

Someone who has never played baseball and rarely watches it probably thinks Lewin is a genius regarding baseball, but you as the listener are no better about baseball for it.

If I'm coaching or teaching or analyzing a player and their mechanics... I'm going with Busby.

Just my take on it.

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Again, what is with the misconstruing statements?

Played baseball all my life and my father coached it at the D-1 level. Grew up in athletic offices. But yes, its all just a big fantasy world to me and my family. None of us could ever throw a ball more than about 45 feet. Never knew anything about the mechanics. You're acting like a jackwagon.

What Danny said.

I never said Busby doesn't know his stuff. Just that Lewin had great insight, too, from a different perspective. It gave variety to color commentating and his play-by-play was exciting.

Busby and TAG together make me yawn. I can't help it, I'm sorry.

Any front office that decided to employ Dave Barnett full time and to then follow him with Busby is clearly on a mission to drain any and all energy and humor out of the broadcast. I think a lot of the stink goes back to TAG. He didn't like Lewin at all and I don't think he cared much for Barnett either. That Barnett ending was AWKWARD. The health episode he had was odd, but then he was ignored and eventualky quietly dumped. Once Busby slid over, it was like they wanted to pretend Barnett didn't exist anymore. I think TAG prefers his comfort zone of a former player from his era. It doesn't make for a good broadcast though.

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Quality starts finds most of its usefulness in percentages, at which point Colby Lewis is tied for 31st in the AL.

(Give anyone enough starts and they'll move up a list of total quality starts)

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Disagree. While he obvious doesn't deserve to be mentioned among DallasAg's list, I disagree that you could have given any guy that many starts and he would have produced something similar.

Colby got that many starts because he was producing enough. Other guys don't get 30+ starts because they don't produce enough in the start they do get.

"Give anyone enough starts"...

6IP/1ER
6IP/0ER
8IP/1ER
7IP/1ER
7IP/2ER
8IP/1ER
7IP/2ER
8IP/2ER
6IP/1ER
7IP/0ER
9IP/0ER


Now to be fair other guys aren't going to give you spot starts as bad as some of Colby's stinkers, but just looking at %'s doesn't tell you much.

Agree with TxAggie and Danny... Busby and TAG is a snoozefest.

Reality is, Lewin probably knows more about the history of the game (and the players) than Busby does. Guy is a student of the game.

Does Busby know more about the real-life experience? Sure... But during a broadcast you are rarely getting any real in-depth stuff... You're either getting softball questions and softball answers ("So Busby you were a pitcher, does pitching with an extra day of rest really help you?") or questions that vary from player to player so they don't really give you any good insight ("So Busby you were a pitcher, did you like pitching in a close game compared to a blowout?").

It's filler... It's like when Mark Mclemore is in the booth. I love Mac, but he isn't giving you any insight that you haven't heard a million times before.

Like I said, I just think how many starts a guy gets is not a direct reflection of their "production." It just isn't. Its a reflection of contracts, individual and overall roster health, roster quality, etc. Its a bunch of things. I no world would I want Colby Lewis tied for the most starts on your roster and in no world do I think Colby's being 1 behind Chris Archer for the most starts in all of baseball reflects that Colby Lewis was one of the better pitchers in baseball. It says a lot to me that Colby only got one relief appearance in 5 playoff games.

Just pulling a guy off the list as an example: Jaime Garcia: 15 quality starts. But I would absolutely, absolutely take him over Colby Lewis. 75% quality starts and the Cardinals were 13-7 with him pitching (compared to 17-16 with the Rangers and Lewis).

Unless you have a really good QS% over a significant sample size, I think its just a muddled and pretty flawed statistic. Just my take. I'll stop arguing about it now.

On a related note, I'm pretty curious to see how that all shakes out...the four guys that Bannister was apparently more comfortable with in the playoffs are back, with Yu Darvish on the horizon plus Chi Chi Gonzalez and Nick Martinez...should be really interesting.

It is much different to do it for a few months vs all season. We've seen several pitchers get by for a month or two but then crash.

Consider what we thought the 2015 pitching staff would look like as of December 2014 vs how it actually ended up looking in the first half. That is partly why you keep an arm like Colby around.

Hope everyone survived the wrath of Tornadoes and storms. Be safe out there fellas.

^ Same

Had a nervy drive during the storms from Garland to Arlington but made it safe. Hope everyone else avoided the bad stuff, too.

I live near Sunnyvale so we had a close call with the Tornado that blew through mesquite, garland and Rowlett. Sirens went off about 5 different times. The wife and I spent most the night in the tub. Just glad we're safe and the house went untouched.