Posted by Rob McQuown on Friday, July 31, 2009 at 8:17 pm

What happened to youthful excitement about sports?

Sure, emoting all over a presumably objective analytical piece is annoying.  But why watch sports if you aren’t sill able to get that rush of excitement about your home team?

Or maybe the people who called sports radio here in Chicago have never seen Jake Peavy pitch?

In the wake of the Jake Peavy for prospects deal, I turned on the sports radio station which carries the White Sox games.  Every call but one was negative, and the one supportive call was measured and cautious. The two afternoon radio hosts were more excited than the callers, and their role is usually that of mocking the over-emoting that typically goes on, as it’s often funny.

Then, another radio host was one.  He’s the White Sox post-game guy, and sounded like he was going to cry.  “This helps improve our 5th starter,” he deadpanned.  Really dead.   I think at some level, he really views Jake Peavy as the 5th starter.

JAKE PEAVY!

Come on, I’m a Cubs fan, and I’m excited about seeing this guy in Chicago.  He’d won an ERA title, a strikeout title, and a Cy Young award by the time he was 26.  What?  2?  2 what?  OHHHH, make that TWO ERA titles, and TWO Strikeout titles… along with that Cy Young… all by age 26.

Maybe these are all sophisticated fans, who know that Petco is where hitters go to die, and Peavy was just preying on their ineptitude?  Goodness knows, I’ve beaten the drum about how underrated their hitters were for years and years, and I’m a firm believer in ballpark effect.  Further, I believe a smart, competitive athlete is going to leverage everything he can to help him, so for Jake to be much better at home just makes sense to me.  But let’s look at the H/A splits:

Home: 779 K, 212 BB, 51 HR in 728.1 IP, 2.83 ERA

Road: 569 K, 223 BB, 84 HR in 614.1 IP, 3.84 ERA

Coors Field:  36 K, 24 BB, 8 HR in 51.0 IP, 4.59 ERA

Chase Field: 81 K, 34 BB, 17 HR in 78.0 IP, 5.77 ERA

Non-thin-air Road:452 K, 165 BB, 59 HR, 485.1 IP, 3.45 ERA

 ==> For those who don’t like math, that’s a 9.0 K/9 rate,against a 2.9 BB/9 rate.  Road rates (even including the rough parks) are 8.3 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9.  Oh, and he’s getting better, with a 10.1 K/9 rate in 2009!!!

For the record, the typical Home/Away split in the NL is 0.50 ERA (4.47 to 3.97 in 2009).  Clearly, Peavy has had some problems in Chase Field and Coors Field, but there are no thin air parks in the White Sox division, and only a few games per year in Texas.  And any Petco pitcher is going to obviously have a larger-than-typical Home/Road split.  But, if you compare the non-thin-air stats (3.45 ERA) to the average road ERA in the NL, Peavy has been a full run better than average (3.45 to 4.47).  That’s a Pythagorean win% of .627.  The average road win% is .447, so Peavy is .180 better than an average pitcher on the road, a fantastic advantage.

Anyway, that’s an example of using “analysis” behind a fanboi attitude.  Easy to slop emotions into “analysis” that way, but I can’t contain myself.  Nor can I understand how White Sox fans aren’t just giddy.

It’s hard to not be excited about seeing this guy pitch.  Right here in Chicago.  I have no idea why more White Sox fans aren’t more amped up.  Seriously.  They must be defective.  Which doesn’t make any sense, since their GM has brought them a Championship recently… you’d think they’d trust the guy, and Kenny Williams is clearly elated.  How sad when the GM has to be a cheerleader for the fan base.  Come on folks, it’s Jake Peavy!  Go watch some video clips of him!