The Importance of Experience

I feel like I must defend my honor.

According to Senor Leach, I am an experience hugger….and I guess that I am, but only to a point.

For example, Livan Hernandez had more experience than any other pitcher on the Twins staff. He was also considerably worse than any other pitcher on the Twins staff. Given the choice of who I would pitch in any given game, I would take any other Twins pitcher over him (and probably most of the maintenance crew, too) because he simply is no good. And no amount of exprience will overcome that fact.

That is not to say that experience doesn't matter. For the past few years one could make an argument that Mariano Rivera and Joe Nathan have been pretty equally matched in the talent and ability department. And if one made that argument, they would see that the numbers bore that out:

Rivera:
2007 - 71.3 IP, 74 SO, 12 BB, 3.15 ERA, 142 ERA+, 1.121 WHIP
2008 - 70.7 IP, 77 SO, 6 BB, 1.40 ERA, 317 ERA+, 0.665 WHIP

Nathan:
2007 – 71.7 IP, 77 SO, 19 BB, 1.88 ERA, 230 ERA+, 1.019 WHIP
2008 – 67.7 IP, 74 SO, 18 BB, 1.33 ERA, 305 ERA+, 0.901 WHIP

The numbers being what they are – basically equal – is there any doubt that you would go with Rivera as your closer in a big game? And the reason for this (get ready for the big reveal…wait for it…sorry, having trouble setting up the Greek columns I borrowed from Britney…oh, fuck it here goes): experience.

Mariano Rivera has been there before and proven his physical and mental ability time and again and, when choosing between two guys who are otherwise equal, why wouldn’t you go with the guy who has the experience?

Experience is, in no way, something that can overcome talent (see again Hernandez, Livan). But when the margins of difference between two players are small, it is the sort of tiebreaker between that two that can be awfully meaningful.

Aaaaand boom goes the dynamite.