mattmitchl44 wrote: ↑07 May 2026 14:49 pm
When you are dealing with statistical probabilities, there is never 100% certainty that a particular outcome will happen.
But when everybody has to go back and point to exactly one example, Greg Maddux, (or maybe two if some people want to throw in John Tudor) you get that the probability that McGreevy will be the second coming of Greg Maddux (or anything close) is vanishingly small.
And again I would point out that for his era, Maddux in his prime was a slightly above average K/9 pitcher.
If McGreevy improves - e.g., makes his K/9 significantly higher - then of course the expectation changes.
If we go back in time, many of the great pitchers from the 1960s and 1970s, Hunter, Marichal, Palmer etc. were low strike out pitchers. Heck, even Gibson wasn't a high strikeout pitcher by the standards pitchers are held to today. The main point being that it is an example greater than 1. Its just that Maddux was so good at it for so long, he is the one everyone remembers.
Even getting back to the Miles Mikolas comp, which probably is not too far off the mark, his statistics were quite good when he walked very few people. Mikolas was already 29 years old when he joined the Cards and he also got hurt. So he was only good a couple of seasons. He is probably an OK comp for McGreevy. But, it should be for the seasons Mikolas was good, which I think everyone would take.
The interesting thing about McGreevy is everyone views him as a soft thrower relatively speaking. Back in the 1960s and 1970s who would have been considered a very hard throwing RH pitcher. The game has changed a lot...
Your point reminds me a lot of the "Dakota Hudson CAN be the only player in MLB history to significantly outperform his FIP over his career" argument... which 2 years after people were making that argument, he was out of baseball because us FIP guys were right.
Btw Dakota Hudson's career ERA is 4.21 and his FIP 4.77... and the only reasons they never converged completely is becasue a) no team would give him a chance to pitch past age 29 (because they recognized that a 4.77 FIP bodes very poorly for his ability) and b) because his FIP kept getting worse the longer he pitched, jacking up his career number.
mattmitchl44 wrote: ↑07 May 2026 14:49 pm
When you are dealing with statistical probabilities, there is never 100% certainty that a particular outcome will happen.
But when everybody has to go back and point to exactly one example, Greg Maddux, (or maybe two if some people want to throw in John Tudor) you get that the probability that McGreevy will be the second coming of Greg Maddux (or anything close) is vanishingly small.
And again I would point out that for his era, Maddux in his prime was a slightly above average K/9 pitcher.
If McGreevy improves - e.g., makes his K/9 significantly higher - then of course the expectation changes.
If we go back in time, many of the great pitchers from the 1960s and 1970s, Hunter, Marichal, Palmer etc. were low strike out pitchers. Heck, even Gibson wasn't a high strikeout pitcher by the standards pitchers are held to today. The main point being that it is an example greater than 1. Its just that Maddux was so good at it for so long, he is the one everyone remembers.
Even getting back to the Miles Mikolas comp, which probably is not too far off the mark, his statistics were quite good when he walked very few people. Mikolas was already 29 years old when he joined the Cards and he also got hurt. So he was only good a couple of seasons. He is probably an OK comp for McGreevy. But, it should be for the seasons Mikolas was good, which I think everyone would take.
The interesting thing about McGreevy is everyone views him as a soft thrower relatively speaking. Back in the 1960s and 1970s who would have been considered a very hard throwing RH pitcher. The game has changed a lot...
Your point reminds me a lot of the "Dakota Hudson CAN be the only player in MLB history to significantly outperform his FIP over his career" argument... which 2 years after people were making that argument, he was out of baseball because us FIP guys were right.
Btw Dakota Hudson's career ERA is 4.21 and his FIP 4.77... and the only reasons they never converged completely is becasue a) no team would give him a chance to pitch past age 29 (because they recognized that a 4.77 FIP bodes very poorly for his ability) and b) because his FIP kept getting worse the longer he pitched, jacking up his career number.
From 2018-2020, Hudson pitched 241 innings and had a 3.17 ERA and 4.74 FIP.
From 2021-2024, Hudson pitched 318 innings and had a 5.00 ERA and 4.80 FIP.
C4L will tell us that that means that, if he were allowed to pitch another 250-300 innings, there is like a 50% chance those innings would be like his 2018-2020 innings instead of his 2021-2024 innings.
In the "swing for the fences/exit velocity/launch angle" era with ABS monitoring the umpires perhaps a pitch to contact pitcher with excellent control is more valuable than the hard throwers.
Bloom might want to rethink his strategy of hard throwers with high walks.
ScotchMIrish wrote: ↑08 May 2026 08:18 am
In the "swing for the fences/exit velocity/launch angle" era with ABS monitoring the umpires perhaps a pitch to contact pitcher with excellent control is more valuable than the hard throwers.
Bloom might want to rethink his strategy of hard throwers with high walks.
ScotchMIrish wrote: ↑08 May 2026 08:18 am
In the "swing for the fences/exit velocity/launch angle" era with ABS monitoring the umpires perhaps a pitch to contact pitcher with excellent control is more valuable than the hard throwers.
Bloom might want to rethink his strategy of hard throwers with high walks.
ScotchMIrish wrote: ↑08 May 2026 08:18 am
In the "swing for the fences/exit velocity/launch angle" era with ABS monitoring the umpires perhaps a pitch to contact pitcher with excellent control is more valuable than the hard throwers.
Bloom might want to rethink his strategy of hard throwers with high walks.
What about hard throwers with low walks.
Fajardo.
Yeah I wish that they had gotten another Robberse type instead.
jcgmoi wrote: ↑06 May 2026 14:46 pm
Ah, the trusty Bob Gibson defense. Did you know Gibson had a 1.12 ERA once?
Year ERA BABIP
1968 1.12 230
1968 2.18 270
1968 3.12 299
But MattMitch would discount his great seasons as unsustainable. Who the flip cares if someone's stats are unsustainable? The stats still count regardless of how long one can sustain them.
Because the stat for McGreevy which is unsustainable (BABIP), when he stops being able to sustain it, is going to directly lead to his other stats - ERA, WHIP, etc. - increasing markedly.
Again - the question was "what is he?" And to reference the OP, he's a Mikolas-like pitcher who is on a heater through 40 IP because of an unsustainable BABIP.
You are making an arbitrary comparison with Mikolas purely because he only K'd about 6/9 and doesn't throw the ball 98. I don't buy that. I believe that McGreevy is more consistent with his command and control. A better pitcher.
And I've noted that I think McGreevy can be marginally better than Mikolas over the long run.
Over his seven seasons in St. Louis, Mikolas had a 4.16 ERA, he was a solid #4 SP on average. If McGreevy is a 4.00-4.15 ERA SP over a 7-10 year run with the Cardinals, IMO, that will be a success for him and the team.
IMO, with his current peripherals, it's just unrealistic to think he's going to be a 3.00-3.50 ERA pitcher over a large sample size of innings.
And I don't think anyone has tried to say he pitches like Hudson did. The comparison was that CT has latched onto what McGreevy had done over ~40 IP this season the way it latched onto what Hudson did over a couple of hundred innings - get performance (ERA) significantly out of line with supporting metrics - and has started to believe that outlier performance is sustainable.
I've not mentioned Hudson with you. He had poor control and that was a detriment. Maddux had impecable control and that's why i'm inviting a different comparison to your one of Mikolas. I think McGreevy is more like Maddux than Mikolas. He is smart like Maddux and commands his arsenal like Maddux. McGreevy has a wider repetoir than Mikolas and does, IMO, a better job mixing them. I'm sure that McGreevy will struggle at times and that will define his success potential. I could live with McGreevy as a 4, but, I believe he's a 3.2-3.5 and a #3.
jcgmoi wrote: ↑06 May 2026 14:46 pm
Ah, the trusty Bob Gibson defense. Did you know Gibson had a 1.12 ERA once?
Year ERA BABIP
1968 1.12 230
1968 2.18 270
1968 3.12 299
But MattMitch would discount his great seasons as unsustainable. Who the flip cares if someone's stats are unsustainable? The stats still count regardless of how long one can sustain them.
Because the stat for McGreevy which is unsustainable (BABIP), when he stops being able to sustain it, is going to directly lead to his other stats - ERA, WHIP, etc. - increasing markedly.
Again - the question was "what is he?" And to reference the OP, he's a Mikolas-like pitcher who is on a heater through 40 IP because of an unsustainable BABIP.
You are making an arbitrary comparison with Mikolas purely because he only K'd about 6/9 and doesn't throw the ball 98. I don't buy that. I believe that McGreevy is more consistent with his command and control. A better pitcher.
And I've noted that I think McGreevy can be marginally better than Mikolas over the long run.
Over his seven seasons in St. Louis, Mikolas had a 4.16 ERA, he was a solid #4 SP on average. If McGreevy is a 4.00-4.15 ERA SP over a 7-10 year run with the Cardinals, IMO, that will be a success for him and the team.
IMO, with his current peripherals, it's just unrealistic to think he's going to be a 3.00-3.50 ERA pitcher over a large sample size of innings.
And I don't think anyone has tried to say he pitches like Hudson did. The comparison was that CT has latched onto what McGreevy had done over ~40 IP this season the way it latched onto what Hudson did over a couple of hundred innings - get performance (ERA) significantly out of line with supporting metrics - and has started to believe that outlier performance is sustainable.
I've not mentioned Hudson with you. He had poor control and that was a detriment. Maddux had impecable control and that's why i'm inviting a different comparison to your one of Mikolas. I think McGreevy is more like Maddux than Mikolas. He is smart like Maddux and commands his arsenal like Maddux. McGreevy has a wider repetoir than Mikolas and does, IMO, a better job mixing them. I'm sure that McGreevy will struggle at times and that will define his success potential. I could live with McGreevy as a 4, but, I believe he's a 3.2-3.5 and a #3.
Maddux:
ERA: 3.16
FIP: 3.26
FIP-: 78
2025 McGreevy:
ERA: 4.42
FIP: 4.27
FIP-: 105
2026 McGreevy
ERA: 2.52
FIP: 4.18
FIP-: 104
Miles Mikolas:
ERA: 4.32
FIP: 4.24
FIP-: 104
The comparison to Maddux is inapt. Hard for any reasonably objective analysis to miss the outlier in the numbers, driven mainly by an unsustainably low .209 BABIP-against in a small sample.
Last edited by NYCardsFan on 08 May 2026 13:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
McGreevy - long term - is going to be a 4+ era guy. Again, no issue with McGreevy. I want him on my team. Very very few pitchers outperform their FIP for more than a season or so.
McGreevy - long term - is going to be a 4+ era guy. Again, no issue with McGreevy. I want him on my team. Very very few pitchers outperform their FIP for more than a season or so.
McGreevy/Lib will be a perfectly cromulent 4/5 in the rotation for the next 4-5 years. You'd hope you'd get your 2/3 from Doyle/Mathews/Franklin... then you still need an ace (Yhoiker Fajardo?).
McGreevy - long term - is going to be a 4+ era guy. Again, no issue with McGreevy. I want him on my team. Very very few pitchers outperform their FIP for more than a season or so.
McGreevy/Lib will be a perfectly cromulent 4/5 in the rotation for the next 4-5 years. You'd hope you'd get your 2/3 from Doyle/Mathews/Franklin... then you still need an ace (Yhoiker Fajardo?).
Agree Lib and McGreevy are mid to back end rotation guys. Matthews has a high floor but a pretty low ceiling, so I’m not counting on him as a one or two. Doyle could be, but I doubt he is in the majors until late 2027 and probably not pitching like an ace until at least 2028. I admittedly don’t know much about Franklin but from what I’ve read he’s probably boom or bust. So even with those guys the team still needs at least one front line starter.
McGreevy - long term - is going to be a 4+ era guy. Again, no issue with McGreevy. I want him on my team. Very very few pitchers outperform their FIP for more than a season or so.
McGreevy career numbers:
AAA FIP 3.91
Majors FIP 4.00
Hudson career numbers:
AAA FIP 4.76
Majors FIP 4.77
So yet again, not sure why this became a comparison
jcgmoi wrote: ↑06 May 2026 14:46 pm
Ah, the trusty Bob Gibson defense. Did you know Gibson had a 1.12 ERA once?
Year ERA BABIP
1968 1.12 230
1968 2.18 270
1968 3.12 299
But MattMitch would discount his great seasons as unsustainable. Who the flip cares if someone's stats are unsustainable? The stats still count regardless of how long one can sustain them.
Because the stat for McGreevy which is unsustainable (BABIP), when he stops being able to sustain it, is going to directly lead to his other stats - ERA, WHIP, etc. - increasing markedly.
Again - the question was "what is he?" And to reference the OP, he's a Mikolas-like pitcher who is on a heater through 40 IP because of an unsustainable BABIP.
You are making an arbitrary comparison with Mikolas purely because he only K'd about 6/9 and doesn't throw the ball 98. I don't buy that. I believe that McGreevy is more consistent with his command and control. A better pitcher.
And I've noted that I think McGreevy can be marginally better than Mikolas over the long run.
Over his seven seasons in St. Louis, Mikolas had a 4.16 ERA, he was a solid #4 SP on average. If McGreevy is a 4.00-4.15 ERA SP over a 7-10 year run with the Cardinals, IMO, that will be a success for him and the team.
IMO, with his current peripherals, it's just unrealistic to think he's going to be a 3.00-3.50 ERA pitcher over a large sample size of innings.
And I don't think anyone has tried to say he pitches like Hudson did. The comparison was that CT has latched onto what McGreevy had done over ~40 IP this season the way it latched onto what Hudson did over a couple of hundred innings - get performance (ERA) significantly out of line with supporting metrics - and has started to believe that outlier performance is sustainable.
I've not mentioned Hudson with you. He had poor control and that was a detriment. Maddux had impecable control and that's why i'm inviting a different comparison to your one of Mikolas. I think McGreevy is more like Maddux than Mikolas. He is smart like Maddux and commands his arsenal like Maddux. McGreevy has a wider repetoir than Mikolas and does, IMO, a better job mixing them. I'm sure that McGreevy will struggle at times and that will define his success potential. I could live with McGreevy as a 4, but, I believe he's a 3.2-3.5 and a #3.
Maddux:
ERA: 3.16
FIP: 3.26
FIP-: 78
2025 McGreevy:
ERA: 4.42
FIP: 4.27
FIP-: 105
2026 McGreevy
ERA: 2.52
FIP: 4.18
FIP-: 104
Miles Mikolas:
ERA: 4.32
FIP: 4.24
FIP-: 104
The comparison to Maddux is inapt. Hard for any reasonably objective analysis to miss the outlier in the numbers, driven mainly by an unsustainably low .209 BABIP-against in a small sample.
Congrats, you know how to use stats to prove whatever point you want to. So let's look at the first 3 years of each pitcher for a more reasonable comparison:
1st year: Maddux:
ERA: 5.52
FIP: 3.90
ERA+: 74
2d year: Maddux
ERA: 5.61
FIP: 4.5
ERA+: 76
3d year: Maddux
ERA: 3.18
FIP: 3.41
ERA+: 114
**************************************************************************
So far the comp works just fine; sometimes in favor of McGreevy. But, let's see how the years bear up. I still think that Maddux is a much better comp.
McGreevy - long term - is going to be a 4+ era guy. Again, no issue with McGreevy. I want him on my team. Very very few pitchers outperform their FIP for more than a season or so.
McGreevy career numbers:
AAA FIP 3.91
Majors FIP 4.00
Hudson career numbers:
AAA FIP 4.76
Majors FIP 4.77
So yet again, not sure why this became a comparison
I don’t think those posters were attempting to make a direct comparison between the players themselves—the comparison was between their respective (FIP - ERA) metrics / tracking errors over single-season or smaller samples. In other words, (FIP - ERA) vs. (FIP - ERA), not FIP vs. FIP or ERA vs. ERA.
McGreevy - long term - is going to be a 4+ era guy. Again, no issue with McGreevy. I want him on my team. Very very few pitchers outperform their FIP for more than a season or so.
McGreevy career numbers:
AAA FIP 3.91
Majors FIP 4.00
Hudson career numbers:
AAA FIP 4.76
Majors FIP 4.77
So yet again, not sure why this became a comparison
I don’t think those posters were attempting to make a direct comparison between the players themselves—the comparison was between their respective (FIP - ERA) metrics / tracking errors over single-season or smaller samples. In other words, (FIP - ERA) vs. (FIP - ERA), not FIP vs. FIP or ERA vs. ERA.
Thanks for applying a little common sense. This is correct
