Twins fever is running rampant now in Minnesota. The home baseball club is leading their division and riding a wave of popularity with a new stadium and a home-town hero (Joe Mauer – a fellow graduate of my high school in Saint Paul). Over dinner this week with a colleague and a master statistician in town for a visit the talk turned to the Twins and who now should be considered their ace pitcher – Carl Pavano or Francisco Liriano. Although appreciative of Pavano’s consistently good performance over the entire year, I felt that Liriano has come on stronger in the second half of the season. Having reached a stalemate, the three of us agreed that the data might tell the story.
I found everything I needed to make my case for Liriano at ESPN’s statistics site for Major League Baseball. Here is the pitching “split” for the second half of the MLB season so far for Liriano vs Pavano; respectively:
- Win-Loss: 7-0 vs 6-4
- WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched): 1.27 vs 1.32
- ERA (earned run average): 2.22 vs 3.41
Pavano is good, but Liriano is my pick as the current ace of the Minnesota Twins pitching staff. Why argue with words? Let the data speak.