Oh Bill James!

Bill James has his own website which is ironically named Bill James Online. Actually, that isn't even ironic. Being that James is one of the most witty authors I have ever come across, I decided to spend the $3 a month the website costs. Interesting note, if the site cost an annual, one time fee of $36 I probably wouldn't have joined, and regretfully I haven't take the full advantage of this website that it offers.

That aside, James offers up an excellent point in a recent column.

Ten-Second Column

By Bill James

I had an idea for a new statistic: GTC. Got to Closer. The stat had a half-life of about twenty seconds. My idea was that, while Complete Games are virtually extinct, we could count something close to complete games by counting how often the starting pitcher got the ball to the closer. Have to define what’s a “closer”, but. .. we can deal with that. But then I checked how many of these there actually were. Full schedule of games on Sunday (June 8), no complete games. You know how many starting pitchers got the ball to the closer? Zero. Oh, well. .

I probably shouldn't have posted the entire article, but I figured most wouldn't have access to it. That assumption is based on the fact that Bill James Online has, surprisingly, only 1500 readers. In any event, here is the permanent link.