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    Why You Can't Clone Koufax
    Why You Can't Clone Koufax
    Why You Can't Clone Koufax
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    Why You Can't Clone Koufax

    By Arnold Silveri

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    About this ebook

    Why You Can’t Clone Koufax is a book that relies on traditional statistical categories--rather than sabermetrics--to make our case. At the same time, however, we make no excuses or alibis for any events that may have occurred during a player’s career. In our book we compared Sandy Koufax to many of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. Our numerous comparisons are replete with irrefutable facts and figures to support our contention.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateJan 5, 2015
    ISBN9781483547824
    Why You Can't Clone Koufax
    Author

    Arnold Silveri

    Arnold Silveri attended New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, New York. He worked as a laborer and Postal clerk. His main occupation, however, was as a computer operator. While stationed in Korea--from July 1956 to October 1957--he served in the 24th Infantry Division He is the author of four books: “Baseball’s Best: From A to Z”; “It Ain’t Shakespeare, But . . .” ; “Turning the Corner On Life” and “Why You Can’t Clone Koufax.” He currently resides in Staten Island, New York with his two wonderful daughters and four grandsons.

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      Book preview

      Why You Can't Clone Koufax - Arnold Silveri

      Koufax

      One night, while scanning a baseball website, I inadvertently linked to a blogger’s article. The blogger began by saying, Sandy Koufax was not the greatest pitcher in baseball history. Secondly, he opined, Koufax wasn’t even the best pitcher during his best (final) five years from 1962-1966. Furthermore, citing sabermetrics, this Johnny-come-lately baseball blogger actually said, Koufax was overrated. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, as long as that opinion is based on objective statistical facts and figures.

      It is our contention, however, that the formulas devised and utilized by the proponents of sabermetrics are too complicated, convoluted and offer little tangible evidence to support--and explain--their conclusions. Henceforth, we intend to raise a number of questions and challenges about the methods utilized by the sabermetricians. We simply believe that their analysis is flawed--subjective--and incorrect.

      To begin with, nobody here is contending that Sandy Koufax was better than Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Grover Cleveland Alexander. This elite group--from the dead-ball era--all had long, incredible, distinguished careers. Obviously, for a variety of reasons, it would be unfair, illogical and infeasible to attempt such a comparison.

      First of all, Koufax had a relatively short twelve-year career compared to the much longer careers of the aforementioned greats from the dead-ball era. It’s a matter of conjecture, of course, how many more career victories, complete games, shutouts, ERA titles, strikeout titles and no-hitters Koufax would have accumulated if he hadn’t been forced to retire prematurely and pitched for another eight or ten years? It is not our intention, however, to engage in some kind of if, and, or but--coulda, woulda, shoulda debate.

      Interestingly enough, the thought of a five-year comparison raised the following question: Who would the true believers of sabermetrics favor in such a comparison? Surely, in their decision, they would have to take into account all the differences between these two periods of time. Here are several examples to support our argument: the dead-ball vs. the live-ball; the smaller glove vs. the larger glove; the uncorked bat vs. the corked bat; the legal spitball vs. the illegal spitball; natural grass vs. artificial turf; the day game vs. the night game (or even a day game following a night game), the shorter season .vs the longer season, and in the mode of transportation, i.e. traveling by train vs. traveling by Jet plane.

      Even more important, however, are the differences in baseball’s scoring rules. Earned Run Averages were not accurately kept during that era. Another difference is the number of balls used in a game played today compared to the number used in a game back then. During the dead-ball era, they used the same dirty dead-ball for the entire game. Obviously, using the same dirty dead-ball for the entire game made it more difficult for the batter to see the ball. Eventually, they used more than one. Besides, even when a batter hit the dead-ball, how far was it going to go? Not very far, judging by the minimal amount of home runs hit during that period. There are probably some other differences between the two eras, but you get the general idea.

      With all the differences we’ve listed, a comparison among these five pitchers might be impossible to achieve. However, if such a comparison were possible, Koufax would be the pitcher with stats good enough to challenge the greats of the dead-ball era. Despite what the blogger concluded, one thing is for sure, Sandy Koufax is not overrated. In fact, he would be a great pitcher in any era of baseball. It appears that the writer of this blog went out of his way to criticize and downgrade the five greatest years of Koufax’s career. Sorry, but no objective baseball fan would ever agree with such a ridiculous, biased argument and opinion.

      Be that as it may, it’s time for us to counter the argument made by the Koufax critic. Let us begin with the first claim made by the proponent of sabermetrics. He began by claiming that Koufax had a home field advantage when pitching in Dodger Stadium. In his subjective statement, he said, Some fly balls that were caught at or near the wall in Dodger Stadium would have been home runs in other parks.

      First question, how does he know that? Next, just how many fly balls were actually involved in his sabermetric study? One might wonder, of course, did that same so-called advantage apply to Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres, Claude Osteen, Don Sutton or anyone else who pitched in Dodger Stadium?

      We realize, of course, that Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, Bob Gibson, Curt Simmons, Jim Maloney, Jim Bunning, Chris Short, Jack Sanford and others did not pitch anywhere near the amount of games that Koufax had pitched in Dodger Stadium. From 1962-1966, Koufax started 87 games in Dodger Stadium. According to the game logs of those years, Marichal started twelve games and Gibson started ten games at Dodger Stadium.

      Next, the blogger claimed that Koufax pitched much better at home than on the road. Gee, what a revelation. It’s no big secret that many pitchers pitch better at home than on the road. Again, did the sabermetric blogger apply the same standard to all other pitchers? If it was such an advantage, why didn’t Drysdale et al match Koufax’s ERA at Dodger Stadium?

      There are, of course, several important (relevant) facts for the blogger to consider: First of all, Sandy Koufax was not a fly-ball pitcher, he was a strikeout pitcher. Over the five-year period (1962-1966), he averaged 9.4 SO 9/IP. Secondly, when you add the number of outs recorded as a result

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