Cliff Lee

[slotdirt]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

If you aren't bright enough to understand that the ace of a staff is going to face the teams in his division more than the teams in other divisions and why that happens, I can't help you. If you can't understand that this will seriously impact that pitcher's stats, I can't help you.

Lets look at Halladays starts last year:

s. ARI 1.00 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 9.0 6 1 1 0 0 9 .188
vs. ATL 1.44 3 0 0 0 3 3 2 25.0 17 4 4 2 4 17 .198
vs. BOS 9.53 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 5.2 8 7 6 1 2 1 .320
vs. CHC 7.50 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 6.0 7 6 5 2 0 3 .292
vs. CIN 2.12 0 1 0 0 2 2 1 17.0 18 4 4 2 1 19 .273
vs. COL 1.26 1 0 0 0 2 2 0 14.1 15 3 2 0 3 13 .273
vs. FLA 1.66 4 1 0 0 5 5 1 38.0 29 7 7 3 2 41 .210
vs. HOU 1.69 1 1 0 0 2 2 1 16.0 13 4 3 2 0 14 .224
vs. LAD 3.86 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 7.0 10 3 3 1 1 4 .370
vs. MIL 5.14 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 7.0 7 4 4 4 2 6 .250
vs. MIN 3.38 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 8.0 11 4 3 2 0 8 .344
vs. NYM 2.56 4 0 0 0 4 4 1 31.2 24 9 9 1 2 28 .207
vs. NYY 9.00 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 6.0 8 6 6 3 2 5 .320
vs. PIT 2.00 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 9.0 9 2 2 0 1 6 .250
vs. SDG 2.57 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 7.0 10 2 2 0 1 7 .333
vs. SFO 6.43 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 7.0 10 5 5 1 0 5 .333
vs. STL 1.29 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 7.0 7 2 1 0 3 9 .250
vs. TOR 0.00 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 7.0 6 0 0 0 1 4 .231
vs. WAS 0.39 3 0 0 0 3 3 1 23.0 16 1 1 0 5 20 .198


Notice a pattern there? Halladay started more than two times against only 4 teams. THEY WERE ALL IN HIS DIVISION.

Of course any given pitcher has a higher likelihood to pitch against division rivals in an unbalanced schedule. The question is whether that obvious point is statistically relevant, something you clearly have failed to grasp when discussing a sport that relies more on statistics than any other sport on the planet.