I'm having trouble figuring out which of these pitchers is better. I always thought Pitcher A was superior but I learned on this board and from danny bernstein that W/L record is meaningless, so I'm starting to reconsider. Maybe Pitcher B is the better player.

Both guys threw about 1900 innings is their careers. In their primes they played on some of the same teams.

Pitcher A: 127-87, 3.85 ERA, 1.302 WHIP

Pitcher B: 86-119, 3.76 ERA, 1.263 WHIP

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Its not as simple as Wins and Losses. It never was and never will be.

ERA is still a good stat and run support does matter.

"Run support" doesn't exist. It's just the runs allowed by the pitcher(s) a guy is facing within the games he faced them. One man's "run support" is simply another man's ERA. To talk about "run support" is to ignore the fact that it is being created by opposing pitchers who are attempting to do exactly the same thing you are. And in the the vast majority of games played the average difference between any two opposing offenses is a fraction of a run, something it is impossible to score in a game.

So do you think Pitcher A and Pitcher B are about the same? Maybe Pitcher B is even better?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

No, run support does exist. And the bolded part is not true.

The 0.1 percent you talk about over 162 games is a lot bigger than it seems. You like to say that every baseball game is unique event right?

Well, on certain given nights, one pitcher is facing a great team and the other guy is dealing with Luis Valbuena.

I dont know how you discount that


No, Im not saying pitcher B is better. Im saying judging pitchers based on W-L is silly.


Felix Hernandez is 20th in wins

Chris Sale is 40th

The players thought Chris Sale's 5-8 was good enough for the All Star game. I guess they're wrong?

So, when Jered Weaver pitches against the Astros, I guess the opposing pitcher and him have the same task.

One of them has to deal with Trout, Pujols, and Hamilton

the other has to deal with Carter, Altuve, and Kraus


Same thing, right?

Every team has to be represented in the All-Star game. If I'm a left-handed batter, Sale is going to stick out for me based on how hard he is for me to hit personally. I don't believe that is pertinent to this discussion.

I'm saying that when a starting pitcher's career is over, there's nothing better to judge him by than his W/L record.

The bolded part is not true? How is that? Of course, the opposing pitcher(s) is/are trying to do the exact same thing as the fair-haired boy with the shitty record who you are defending with the specious concept of "lack of run support".

We have to agree that it is impossible to score a fraction of a run in a game, right? That being the case, within the space of a single game there is no difference between the vast majority of offenses, or very little at best. If the guy you are defending by decrying his "run support" were actually so great, why is it he can't pitch over a fraction of a run more often than he does?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Why don't we leave historically atrocious outliers out of the discussion and stick with the vast majority of starts a guy makes wherein his offense and the opposing one are relatively similar?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Playing 162 games makes a lot of things average out.

Doesnt change the fact that facing the Astros lineup and facing the Angels lineup are WILDLY different tasks.

Not close to the same thing

Guys like John Danks are the reason most teams score half a run more per game than the White Sox!!!

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Its not just outliers

The difference between team offenses is vast. The small percentage is due to a lot of games.

There is a difference in quality of offenses in most games. Sometimes due to talent, some due to injury, some due to sunday lineups.


Look, were never going to agree. I'll stick with WHIP and ERA.

I dont discount W-L, but ONLY look at W-L does not tell close to the whole story

That's irrelevant. Nobody is facing either of those teams enough to matter.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

But it really isn't. "Vast" is a relative concept. That's the beauty of baseball. The worst team ever still wins 60 games. Within the space of a single game the vast majority of offenses are very similar. You can't tell if Babe Ruth is better than Luis Valbuena over five at-bats.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Okay, so I'm putting you down for Pitcher B.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Every pitcher in baseball history would disagree with that

No, put me down for not judging pitchers off of three stats.'

There are a myriad of factors. Where did the pitchers pitch? What era?

This is a weird thing you're doing here.

Probably not Jake Peavy.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

It's not weird at all. You fully understand the point I'm trying to make. Both guys pitched in the 80s and 90s. What other factors do you need?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I think its kinda weird. Is this a game?

Why not just list ALL the stats?

Like did one guy tail off horribly his last 5 years?

You really think that Jose DeLeon is better than Black Jack?

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It's a game of sorts, I suppose. Just because it's fashionable to make dumb statements like "W/L record is meaningless" doesn't make such a thing a fact. Joel Horlen wasn't a better pitcher than Catfish Hunter. Anyone who followed their careers understands that. A reexamination of statistics can't change it. And Pitcher A and Pitcher B aren't close. But many fans theses days who have grown up with the idea that "a pitcher's job is to limit baserunners" are going to find it difficult to argue with the brute fact that Pitcher A was so much better than Pitcher B that it's a ridiculous conversation.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Of course not.

But I guess the 5 straight 5+ ERA's at the end of BlackJack's career affected the numbers.


If you took their 5 best years, the ERA and WHIP would show

But now we're manipulating the stats to reach the conclusions we want. It was what it was. Most guys put up shitty numbers at the end. If they were putting up good numbers, it wouldn't end.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

That's terrific


Do you think Jack McDowell was still way better than De Leon specifically in his last 5 seasons?

B

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

A Cy Young award doesnt tip the scales a bit?

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Not really

One guy was dominant for a stretch the other guy plugged along being average.

When I think of Jack McDowell, I dont think of the shitty pitcher at the end of his career

All I take from this whole thing is McDowell was REALLY bad at the end and it fucked up his numbers enough that he looks worse than he was.

The never ending fountain of bad JORR baseball thoughts....

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I think I can look at their career W/L records and understand exactly who each guy was with nothing else needed.

This can become a circular argument very easily. Javy Vazquez is a good example of that. In Montreal he was a .500 pitcher with strong peripherals. I'm sure you remember when he went to the Yankees, he was going to win Cy Youngs, 20 win seasons were a fait accompli. Of course, that never happened. The stats guy argument is that he didn't pitch as well in New York as he had in Montreal as evidenced by a higher ERA and WHIP. My argument is that he can only pitch well enough to be a .500 pitcher. Sure he can be better over short stretches, but he's really just an average guy. His K/BB ratios may lead one to believe otherwise. But it's the other stats that are incidental, not the W/L record.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

You know what a bad baseball thought is? That Jose DeLeon was better than Jack McDowell. That Joel Horlen was better than Catfish Hunter. That pitchers are unaffected by events happening within the games they pitch. Those are bad baseball thoughts.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

McDowell is better than De Leon


He was just so bad in the last five years that the numbers look closer than they should