Baseball - Football Question

[Crash Course]

Is it safe to say that starting pitching is to baseball the same as a running game is to football?

[Crash Course]

By this I mean, that good SP help you have an effective bullpen - because you don't need a lot in the pen if your SP go deep in the game, and the pen is rested (and not over used). Also, it helps your offense, because they are not required to score 8 runs a game to win. And, in football, a good running attack helps open up the passing game because the defense of the other team is worried about stopping the run. And, it helps your defense stay strong because you eat up the clock running and they do not have to be on the field a lot. This make sense?

[mainsr]

Uh, no, IMO. There is pretty much no analogy that I see working between baseball and football. Football is pretty completely a team sport. You put a bad runner behind a good line and he'll likely do better than a good runner behind a bad line. But Randy Johnson is great, whether it's the 2001 Diamondbacks or the 2004 version.

[nyy26wc]

The football version of sabermetricians say that the running game doesn't produce wins, wins produce good running stats. According to them, passing teams are much more successful and then running stats get inflated by running down the clock after you have the lead.

That's the theory. I don't follow football enough these days to know whether that's true.

[Crash Course]

Very interesting!

[Crash Course]

The football version of sabermetricians

BTW, those are "safer metrics." :D

[mainsr]

The football version of sabermetricians say that the running game doesn't produce wins, wins produce good running stats. According to them, passing teams are much more successful and then running stats get inflated by running down the clock after you have the lead.

You know, I've always thought that. You see stats about the Super Bowl winner always having more running yards than the loser, yet both teams come out flingin'. It's the one that puts up the 3-TD lead before the insult-to-sentient-creatures halftime show that pounds it out in the second half.

[Crash Course]

Little off topic, but..........

like baseball park factors are important, you have to look at the same in football. Playing home games outside in NJ is different than in a dome in another city, and perhaps running is more important to the bad weather teams? Just a thought.

[mainsr]

We Minnesotans always figured that the Vikes lost a huge advantage when they went to the dome. Warm-weather teams used to come to the Twin Cities in December and freeze their butts off.