re: Settle a Bet - Baseball related

Hitting!

I tend to agree with pitching, but I'm not going to say it always beats good hitting like some in here. Look at the '75 Reds. They were amazing in hitting.

Well I'm the coach... I know how to call a game.... I'll take hitting. Any dumbass can get up there and throw it right down the middle and the hitter will only get a hit 3 out of 10 times... But you do have to throw strikes..... Watch BP... You'd be surprised by how many balls will not be "hits"

I'll buck the trend - Hitting.

Pitching is only 50% of run prevention. So if my hitters learn to play solid D, I can win. And win a lot. Someone mentioned Rice, so I'll counter with LS friggin' U. We've had fairly pedestrian pitching for an elite program, but we've been able to win due to offense.

Or, if you want a pro example, the Yankees have almost always been a far better hitters than pitchers. That's worked out ok for them. their best pitcher ever is Whitey Ford who is a Hall of Famer, but he's never mentioned as one of the very best ever, nor should he be.

Great pitching beats great hitting? Maybe. But great hitting absolutely destroys good pitching.

Not really. If you only count Yankee production, Ford did far more for the Yankees than Clemens. I also don't consider Wade Boggs a Devil Ray.

Definately pitching.

No doubt. I was just wondering if you would have included Clemens because of his career resume and the fact that he was a Yankee for 5+ years.

quote:

---

great pitching always beats out great hitting

---

yogi berra called a team meeting once and said this

he weakened the case by then turning to his hitters and saying "and vice versa"

quote:

---

If a team has great pitching 1-5, which is really rare (even the Phillies don't have that), they are very difficult to beat.

---

Of course. If you excel in one phase of the game, you'll be okay. I used great hitting v. good pitching due to all of the people defaulting to choosing pitching over hitting.

I'm not really adding much to the thread but I'll point out a couple obvious things

1) where do you play? coors field a mile into the sky or old dimensions busch stadium next to the mississippi?

because I don't think there are any pitchers who can dominate at coors field... and at the other extreme you could get away with pitchers who make the hitters put the ball in play at Busch

2) how many players of each? One great hitter? Can be near irrelevant at times. One great pitcher might get you three wins in a seven game series.

If we get three great hitters or three great pitchers I still take three great pitchers... if we get 7 of each I might reverse course and take the hitters... you just can't pitch around that many guys