Stupid subscription. Can someone do a very brief outline of the rest of the article? Not a cut and paste, just a short summary.

Good writing and great insight. But why did Matt get personal and call other writers out by name?

I’ve been puzzling about all this myself, and I keep coming back to the impression that there isn’t any inherent conflict between the “Swartz” and “Salisbury” arguments.

I think both sides are being distracted to some degree by memories of 2008. The statistically unsophisticated observer asks: “Why did Hamels get so much worse in 2009? What should he have done differently?” And of course, the statistics actually show that he didn’t get “so much worse,” as he was lucky in 2008 and unlucky in 2009, etc. And so, the more sabermetrically minded observer responds, “He did nothing wrong. He was just as good as he was in 2008, so therefore he doesn’t need to do anything differently in the future.”

But wait – does that really follow? If Hamels was lucky in 2008, as we all agree he was, then that means he wasn’t necessarily all that impressive in 2008, even though he seemed to be dominant. And so, the fact that he was able to repeat his 2008 performance to a T doesn’t necessarily mean his performance was satisfactory. From an objective standpoint, giving up 3 3/4 or so runs per nine innings is decent but unspectacular. If he’s capable of doing better – if he’s capable of making his normal performance spectacular so that his “unlucky” performance seems acceptable as well – then he should do better. And improving secondary pitches or working on stamina could very well help him do just that – Salisbury’s guess is as good as mine or anyone else’s. Most pitchers do improve between the ages of 23 and 26, and volitional acts such as improving secondary pitches likely have something to do with that.

Put it this way. What if Hamels’ 2008 and 2009 seasons had both “looked” as good as they really were? For instance, what if, for two seasons in a row, he had performed as well as Ryan Dempster or Carlos Zambrano seemed to perform in 2009 (and he’d done nothing unusual in either of the two postseasons)?

Needless to say, his 2008 baseline wouldn’t seem as good, and thus his 2009 season wouldn’t seem as disappointing. But likewise, the fact that he was able to repeat his 2008 performance wouldn’t seem like such a great thing. Because, frankly, the 2008 performance wasn’t all that great, plus we fairly expect improvement from pitchers going from age 24 to age 25. Nobody would be all that emotionally agitated by the situation like they are now, but I think all of us would demand that Hamels improve his performance in 2010 and that demand would be perfectly reasonable.