Blangraphs

The marquee matchup of the series begins now! Joe Blanton against upstart Madison Bumgarner of California Rally Raggers.
Update:  Blanton "Must Be Very Fine" to be successful tonight.  Via FOX

via rototimes: If the Phillies take the first three games of the NLCS, then Joe will "almost certainly" start game 4.  That's right, Manuel may draw three aces first, but it will be up to the B of diamonds to close it out! Tentatively mark your calendars for a Bay Area matchup against Tim Lincecum, in a revenge game for Blanton, who was edged out of the 2009 Cy Young by the young San Francisco pitcher.

Just a few notes on the first blangraph.

This blog is for everyone who loves baseball, would like to understand the game intelligently instead of listening to old falsehoods and cherished misunderstandings that plague baseball analysis.  This is for the people who tire of praise of pitchers who do passable jobs on great baseball teams, while unlucky but truly skilled players toil in obscurity.  Most of all, it's time for a living legend of the game to get his due.  It's time to see how well-considered statistics and thoughtful observation can show that Joe Blanton is the greatest pitcher of his time.

This graph shows the Philadelphia Phillies' wins since 1994.  Something turned them around in 2001.  Maybe it was Bowa, or maturation of their farm system.  For the next six years, the Phillies would be an up-and-down and solidly good team.  This was unquestionably a welcome change for fans who were used to all-around bumbling on all fronts in the years since the 1993 World Series run, and yet Phillies fans surely felt like this not-quite-great team was just a twisted new way of delivering disappointment.  Whatever the nouvelle vague Phillies had, they didn't have that special spark that it requires to light up the towering, unquenchable inferno that sends a team all the way through the World Series to a parade on Broad Street.  That would come in 2008.



There is irrefutable proof that Blanton lit the aforementioned fire.  Since coming to the team in 2008, Blanton has a winning percentage over .650 including the playoffs.  That's about on par with the Cy Young seasons of Warren Spahn and Tom Seaver.  His playoff home run put him up one on Clemens, Rogers and other modern greats by showcasing his incomparable ability to win games with the bat as well as the arm and glove, and legs I guess.

Even in his darker days with the Athletics, he won 14 games despite giving up 240 hits, the most in the league.  Who else could deaden the effect of hits and spin his intangible winningness on such dire circumstances?