This is getting insane. He just finished off a CG SO. Through 11 starts, his ERA is down to 0.78. His WHIP is 0.899. His record is 10-1. In his only loss, he gave up 1 ER in 7 IP. I don't know how many of you are familiar with ERA+. I only started paying attention to it recently. It's ERA adjusted to the player's ballpark. Pedro Martinez had the best single-season ERA+ in the modern era in 2000 when he posted a 291. That was the second best of all-time behind a guy in 1880 who had an ERA+ of 295. Bob Gibson's ERA+ was 258 in his magical season. Lincecum's ERA+ in his 2 Cy seasons were 169 and 177 and those are incredible numbers. Jimenez' ERA+ before today's gem was 512! I know it's only a partial season but this is very special stuff.
@ MIL, vs SD, @ ATL, @ WAS, vs ARI, @ SD, @ LAD, vs WAS, @ HOU, vs ARI, @ SF And, yes, today's game was vs Lincecum.
Yea, forgot about Greinke's insane start. He had that 0.00 ERA going for several games. While he had to face AL lineups, he also pitches in a signficantly more pitcher-friendly home park and 8 of his first 11 starts were at home. They were both amazing starts. I'm not sure whose would be considered better after 11 games. Jimenez has better numbers pitching in a more hitter-friendly park but Greinke faced tougher lineups. Either way, they are/were both amazing starts to a season.
Greinke's opponents last season in the albeit tougher league... @ CHW, CLE, @ TEX, DET, TOR, CHW, @ LAA, BAL, CLE, DET, CHW Greinke's ERA after 11 games was 1.10 and his K/BB was 78/12. His record was 8-1 which is very good considering the offense he had backing him up. I think it's debatable as to who's first 11 games were better. The true test will be whether or not Jimenez continues at this pace because Greinke didn't get a whole lot worse over the course of the season in 2009.
Interesting note: http://baseballmusings.com/?p=52238 I didn't realize that Olivo caught for Greinke last season. Greinke's numbers are down this season while Jimenez' are obviously up. Olivo was with KC in 2008 as well but Buck caught more games that season. I'm not sure who worked with Greinke more that year. There may be no real correlation but it's still an interesting situation.
There's a link within the link from my previous post to the original article from a KC newspaper. I just got finished reading it. Pretty interesting. Fluke or not, Olivo has been behind the plate for 2 of the best starts to a season for a pitcher in the modern era of baseball and it occurred in consecutive years with 2 different pitchers.
They were talking on the SVP show on ESPN radio today about Jimenez and I think some perspective is needed about what Bob Gibson did in 1968. At this point in Bob Gibson's season, he had an era of 1.66. He proceeded to pitch 5 CONSECUTIVE SHUTOUTS. Gibson started 34 games that season. Figure every game is 9 innings. 34 x 9 = 306 innings. Gibson pitched 304.2 innings that season. He went 10+ 3 times. He pitched 12 innings against the Astros and then followed it up with 11 innings against the Mets. He pitched 19 consecutive games of at least 9 innings. I realize times were different...but to look at the game by game numbers just blows you away. Jimenez is having a fantastic start to the season. The reason his era+ is so high is because they're adjusting for Coors Field. At some point this season, the field will adjust to him. There is no way he finishes anywhere near Gibson's 1.12. If he does, while pitching 1/2 his games @ Coors, it should go down as one of the best individual seasons of all time.
One day his children shall take big, meaty ****s all over the foreheads of the descendants Matt Guokas, for truly... Guokus is a silly, silly name.
The reason his ERA+ is so high isn't because of Coors Field, at least not in theory, unless you're arguing that his numbers this season weren't at all influenced by pitcing in an extremely hitter-friendly park (even in the post-humidor era). I don't know how anyone could make that determination without watching every single pitch he threw at home. The idea behind ERA+, and OPS+ for that matter, is to eliminate as much of the park factor as possible and to create a better number to use when comparing pitchers and hitters. Unless you a) disagree with the methodology used to calculate ERA+ or b) think that he was not hurt in the least bit by pitching at Coors despite the liklihood of that not being the case, then the reason his ERA+ is so high is because he is pitching so extremely well. In theory, that is a more accurate reflection of a pitcher's relative performance than pure ERA.
Also, while I totally hear your point about the amazing things that Gibson did in his epic 1968 season, it's tough to compare pitchers between that era and this one for multiple reasons. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned pitchers that weren't from the modern era in the first post. The better way to go, in my opinion, is to ask the questions... How much better is Jimenez doing than other pitchers this season and in recent years? How much better was Gibson than other pitchers in 1968 and other seasons before they lowered the mound? A lot of pitchers pitched CGs regularly back then and threw in the neighborhood of 300 innings per season. Likewise, very few pitchers today throw more than a few CGs at most in a season. The fact that Jimenez has already done it twice is like doing it probably 5 or 6 times up to this point back in Gibson's era.
Interestingly, while we have major sample size problems, his home ERA is more than twice his road ERA, which is an even more miniscule 0.52 right now.
When you mentioned that road ERA, it reminded me of when Clemens went like halfway through that season with us with a microscopic road ERA. I had to look it up to make sure: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?n1=clemero02&t=p&year=2005#pitching_gamelogs He didn't give up an ER on the road until his 6th road start and 16th start of the season. Amazingly, he didn't even win the Cy Young that season despite finishing with a 1.87 ERA and a 1.008 WHIP. Neither Carpenter or Willis had numbers that good yet they both finished ahead of Clemens in Cy voting. They both had 20+ wins and Clemens only got 13 due to our craptastic offense. What a ridiculous reason not to get recognized as the best pitcher in the NL that season.
We were shutout 9 times. He had 3 straight starts that we lost 1-0. In my lifetime, I can only recall Pedro Martinez being that dominant.
Yeah, that was pretty ridiculous. On the flipside, Clemens benefitted from that W-L thing another year where he was nowhere close to the best pitcher in the league and won a Cy-Young with the Yankees.
