Whoa, whoa, whoa Chief(s)... let's forget this whole Win thing here.

If we're gonna get rid of an individual pitching stat, let's get rid of the Save. I think that's a cause we can all get behind.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

That's a fair point but it isn't always that simple. In baseball you can have a great start and still lose or get a ND or have a terrible start and still win because of things you can't control.


Pitcher A: Gave up 2 ER or less in 13 of 17 starts 2.43 ERA
Pitcher B: Gave up 2 ER or less in 9 of 18 starts 3.92 ERA
Pitcher C: Gave up 2 ER or less in 10 of 18 starts 3.67 ERA
Pitcher D: Gave up 2 ER or less in 10 of 16 starts 2.78 ERA

Which 2 pitchers do you think have twice as many losses and half as many wins as the other 2 pitchers? Which 2 pitchers would you want to pitch Game 7 in the WS?

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GO BEARS!!!

As usual, I completely disagree with JORR but find the argument entertaining.

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Okay, I’m going to give you some of my views regarding baseball, particularly starting pitching and its importance. I want to start by saying I’m not the slightest bit interested in what “everybody” has to say on the topic. I’ve come to my conclusions over time and it didn’t happen lightly. My outlook is informed by my understanding of the competitive nature of human beings, something most people have and something all elite athletes must have to a certain degree. And I’m not evangelizing either. I know most of you will still disagree with me after reading this. That’s fine. I know mine isn’t a viewpoint that is currently in fashion.

I’ve had this argument many times- in person and on the Internet. I know all the examples I regularly use by heart (e.g. McDowell vs. DeLeon, Hunter vs. Horlen) and I don’t need to look them up on Baseball Reference. In other words, I’m not just popping off like Frank does. When someone repeats a statement they’ve read over and over again because it’s fashionable and it sounds good, I’m going to call them out if it’s wrong. Like “a pitcher’s job is to prevent runs”. Obviously incorrect as evidenced by the rare occasions when a run has been walked in on purpose and the much more common occurrences when a pitcher is completely indifferent to a meaningless potential run on the bases. “Oh, but it sounded so good when Keith Law said it. I guess now I’ll have to actually think about it.”

And I feel bad that Chris Sale, who I think is a very good pitcher having a not so good season, is being used as an example. His 5-8 record is a miniscule sample of what is hopefully a large body of work. It’s really symptomatic of the larger struggles of his team this season. That said, it isn’t good. And I think at a minimum we should expect that a team’s “best” pitcher produce a higher winning percentage than that of his team overall.

I’m sure a lot of you have played the game most people call “fast pitch” where you use a rubber ball and paint the strikezone on a wall. In the neighborhood in Evanston where I grew up we called that game “Strikeout”. And that’s how I see baseball in general. The pitcher is the center of the baseball universe and he is trying to strike the batter out, or in other cases make him hit the ball where he, the pitcher, would like it to go. Everything starts with the pitcher delivering the baseball.

I remember in 1983 when Britt Burns went nine scoreless innings before giving up that homer. There wasn’t some celebration of how great his performance was. The question was how he could make that bad pitch to a fucking bum like Tito Landrum. And that’s the way it should be. We’ve lowered our expectations and now give a guy kudos for going six innings and allowing three runs.

Ultimately, each game is a competition. Both starters are aware of the stakes. They know they need to allow less runs than the other guy. And not allowing the other team to score first is critical. Teams that score first have a giant winning percentage. And each game is an entity unto itself. If you lose enough of them to a wide variety of guys, how good can you really be?

Yeah, once in awhile a guy will have an unlucky season. I think that’s the case with Sale this year. And I certainly don’t blame a starter for leaving the game with a two run lead after 7-1/3 when the bums in the bullpen blow his game. But that’s where we separate the good from the great. A great guy might get two more outs more often than not and limit the relievers to two instead of three. You have to consider who is covering the outs when you leave the game. That effectively becomes part of your ERA.

Most games turn on one or two crucial at-bats. Can you make the pitches then? And you’ll see the guys with losing records manage to make a bad pitch at a bad time. They have a knack for it. A starter’s W/L record tells you a lot about him. It gives you a basic idea about how many innings he pitched, how long he lasted in games, and whether he pitcher better than the guys he faced on the days he faced them. I don’t really understand how anyone could argue about that.

The rise of the relievers and the LaRussa philosophy of having pitchers dedicated to certain innings that has become so pervasive has obviously diminished the value of the W/L record. Fifteen wins is the new twenty. But it seems like we may be headed back to a more balanced game and starters are staying in longer than they have in recent history which will make the record more pertinent.

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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

You're making it sound too simple when it really isn't. There are a lot of factors that are out of some pitchers control. Looking at W's and L's is really lazy.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I appreciate the insight I've gotten from the JORR - Apologist debate that's emerged in the last pages of the thread. In response to JORR and W/L, I don't see how you can in confidence hold a pitcher to the W/L record when there are so many variables involved that are simply out of his control.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

What about the fact that a collection of various bums has put together a better resume within the same games Sale has pitched? Does that support it? He's not having a fantastic season. If he were, he wouldn't have a 5-8 record.

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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

Chris Sale has half the number of wins and nearly 3X's the number of losses. That is why you cannot just look at those 2 stats.

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GO BEARS!!!

I know you're taking fire from every direction (enjoying it too) but I would love for you to address my question.

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A lot of things are out of every player's control. The starting pitchers have a greater effect on the game than any other player.

To me, saying a guy with a .385 winning percentage is having a great year would be no different than breaking down a .200 hitter's at-bats and seeing that he smoked the ball on screaming line drives that happened to be caught and saying he's having a great year. Shit happens the way it happens, a man's best efforts be damned.

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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

Is that a compliment or an indictment?

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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

There's not enough information there to answer that. There are all kinds of factors involved.

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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

A giant leap my friend. Don't make me hate W/L as much as I hate WAR.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

JORR, haven't you also argued that it's not fair to judge basketball players based on the number of championships they've won because there are so many factors out of their control?

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JORR, I love you man. Your argument-style is very, uh, fluid.

No posters retort or point is ever what you were talking about , it was never what you meant, it never matters, nothing is ever about the topic at hand...after which comes the U-Turn or the ever so subtle redirection.

It's like I'm watching old footage of The Rumble in the Jungle. You're just chillin' on the ropes, taking the heavy shots as your opponents wear themselves out, get tired....get very confused as to where they are and what they're arguing about.....and you wait....wait....a smattering of jabs here, a solid 3 punch combo there....waiting.....waiting.....waiting until your foe collapses from exhaustion.

You got talent, young man.

It's an educated guess based on the stats you see. It's similar to the way you started this thread.

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I like the counter-example, but it's still flawed as I see it. A hitter's line-drives may have netted multiple bases and/or RBIs had they not been caught, but he is still held responsible for placing the ball where he placed it. He was in control.

A pitcher is completely blameless if his team's offense cannot score two runs in a game they'll eventually lose 0-1. Scoring runs was never in his control, at least in the modern AL.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Maybe not The Rumble in the Jungle.....perhaps Ali-Frazier I

Or if an error is responsible for the only run or if you leave the game with a 1 run lead but have 2 men on base and your replacement gives up a 3 run homer.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

A basketball player isn't a starting pitcher. A better comparison would be a quarterback. I think it's fair to judge quarterbacks based on their championships.

_________________
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'm pretty sure my position is quite clear.

_________________
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 there aren't all these examples of guys losing 2/3 of their games 1-0. It just doesn't happen. if you can find a guy like that we can discuss him.

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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

Well, I'll take the guy with the lowest ERA then. It's a better predictor of future performance. But we're talking about past performance and losing 2/3 of one's games isn't good and can't be spun into being good.

I've noticed that ERA is talked about a lot more since the advent of the 5 x 5 roto league. I blame Dan Okrent.

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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

When your offense scores a combined 22 runs in 12 of your starts (in the case of Strasburg) it is going to be hard to win those games even if you're only giving up 2 runs a game.

Chris Tillman was pitcher B and he has 11W and 3L
Lance Lynn was pitcher C and he has 10W and 3L

Strasburg was pitcher A and Sale pitcher D. By any other measurement they're having better seasons than Tillman and Lynn. We would all take them over Tillman and Lynn. That's why I don't think you can make it that simple.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

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Put down the bourbon leash.

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ERA has always been big since I started watching in 87

I agree with some of what you say about pitchers controlling the game and competing to give up more runs but just not all the way


We have two extremes here

W-L is meaningless vs. W-L is the most important stat

As is most often the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle


There is something to be said for consistently matching or besting the other starter

But to say the difference in offense is razor thin just isn't true. There are so many factors that can affect the day to day offense (days off, pitchers batting, 30 teams = worse offenses)

The 0.1 is huge. Its just stretched out over a lot of games

Good thread everybody

He answered my question Frank said he never answered too but I'm not gonna say anything

My bad. No Bourbon tonight. That might be the problem.

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Well, why don't you two make out!?

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