Statistics Don’t Reveal True Bottom Line

Orel Hershiser, who bought a home in Vero Beach to escape the pace attendant to fame in Los Angeles, got a little lonely this winter.

The populace, he discovered, doesn’t work up the foam for one who wins 15 games that it does for one who wins 23.

It is a grim predicament, suggesting a discussion we had one time with a soccer coach from the Soviet Union. He was told that when a football coach in America had a bad season, fans appeared with placards reading, “Put the Lid on Sid.”

“What happens to a losing coach in the USSR?” the visitor was asked.

“Usually,” he answered, “fans show their support by coming to his house with food and wine.”

Not too many toasted Orel’s beauty at the end of last season, indicating to Hershiser an ignorance of the pitching art by those who watch and those who review.

“If you study my record in 1988, when I won 23,” he says, “and you study it in 1989, when I won 15, you are going to find that I pitched better in 1989.”

Clearly, this was a rationale worth exploring.

“If you won eight fewer games in ‘89,” he is asked, “how did you pitch better than in ‘88?”

He explains: “In 1988, I had an earned-run average of 2.26. That was helped by a streak of 59 scoreless innings, beginning in late August and continuing into September.

“In 1989, without that scoreless streak, I finished with an ERA of 2.31. Do you know what this means? It means that I pitched with greater consistency throughout the season than I did the previous year. And one thing else--in my 15 losses last year, our team scored a total of 17 runs. I want you to think about the superficialities connected with awards and with fame.”

He is asked: “Did the Dodgers recognize what happened?”

Replies Hershiser: “I’m not sure, but it doesn’t matter. My contract is locked in for 1990 and ’91. And since I have no incentive clauses, my record is incidental.”

For winning 23 in 1988, Hershiser was voted, unanimously, the National League Cy Young Award. Sports Illustrated named him sportsman of the year, The Sporting News selected him as player of the year, and the Associated Press chose him male athlete of the year.

The crown jewel would follow when Pacific Dining Car picked him Dodger of the Year, enabling him, you presume, to eat on the $51.50 a day the major league allows players for nourishment.

“We used to eat on $3.50 a day,” his manager, Tom Lasorda, reminds him.

Answers Hershiser: “That’s more than you need today. When the check comes, you’re on the phone.”

Because statistics often are misleading, Hershiser joined other players fighting vigorously a recent management proposal that a scale be established whereby entertainers would be paid on the basis of performance.

“That concept sounds good,” Hershiser says, “but since it’s based entirely on stats, it is unfair to pitchers. Statistics tell the story more accurately of players at other positions. But pitchers? I lost a game one day, 2-1. The next day, our pitcher won, 3-2. In pay-for-performance, would I deserve to be penalized when my team scored one run for me--and three for the pitcher the next day?”

He has other reasons for rejecting pay-for-performance.

“It would make the manager the most hated man in baseball,” Hershiser says. “Runners are on base, and he lifts the next batter for a pinch-hitter, depriving the guy who is lifted the opportunity to bat in runs.

“Well, the way players are paid today, a hitter missing eight RBIs over a season can blow $200,000.”

Among football quarterbacks, pay-for-performance, predicated on statistics, is a delicate issue, too.

“My only regret,” Jim Plunkett once confided, “is that I didn’t play for a team favoring the dump-off pass. You throw those little three-yarders and your team loses, and no one blames the quarterback. ‘It wasn’t Plunkett’s fault,’ the writers would report. ‘He showed a completion record of 62.3%.’

“But when you’re throwing for real yardage, and finish with 49%, you’re just another guy.”

An engaging feature about Hershiser is that he never has missed a turn in the five years he has labored for the Dodgers as a starter. Could he start every fourth day, instead of fifth?

“All of us could if we were mentally conditioned to it,” he answers. “Bad mechanics break down arms, not a few extra starts.”

Cy Young, for whom the award was named, won 511 games, indicating, in his time, that no excessive study was given pitchers’ arms, or heads.