I bet you're wearing pants too.

Sad...

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Yep. I'm growing old.

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Why don't we just get outs, cuz that's a pitcher's damn job

2 Hanleys.

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I invented that damn system and I'll take as many Hanleys as I damn well please


Damn

2 Bernsteins.

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It wasn't really a yes or no thing to me... there are many ways to interpret information. New things are being found all the time. I think JORR objects with the idea of radio guys beating down mopes with numbers-- personally, i just consider anything Bernstein does to be part of his schtick and move on.

Look at this pitchers 2 year stretch for an oddity:

Year 1: Leads the league with a 2.18 ERA despite a 5-9 record. Now you could make the case he was a bum, (his team finished with 76 wins in 5th place), yet his 1.18 WHIP, 161 ERA+ and 3.7 WAR over 165.1 IP probably tell you he's a decent pitcher.

Year 2: Finishes 4th in the Cy Young voting with a sparkling 18-9 record, a 2.91 ERA and 3.5 WAR over 234.2 IP for a 2nd place club.

I don't think people ever really looked at him as a "winning" or "losing" pitcher, mostly a decent pitcher who had some hard luck.

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JORR, 90+ pitchers in baseball have more wins than Sale. How many would you take on your team before him? At this very moment.


Edit, number was way off.

Sure, I agree that 1-0 losses do not happen all the time, but I assume you wouldn't attach much seriousness in hanging a loss on a pitcher who lost a 1-0 decision. Or would you?

I guess this comes down to your criteria for a "quality start." To me, it seems like you're overstating the centrality of a pitcher to any given game. A pitcher is in control of what type of offense his nine opponents generate or fail to generate, but that control obviously does not extend to the type of offense his own teammates are able to generate. An opponent's final run score may reflect the pitcher's performance, but the final game score, on which the W-L record is based, does not.

Your earlier example of pitchers deliberately conceding a run to the opposition is well taken, but that still does not undermine the overarching objective of any pitcher: facilitating three outs per every inning he starts while facing the lowest amount of batters as possible. If you agree with that objective, and given the lack of control a pitcher has over the final game score, then I'm not sure how W-L record encapsulate the totality and quality of a pitcher's performance.

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2013 CSFMB ROY

As far as the 1-0 decision, I think it depends on the situation. If it's a crucial game and you're facing off with another good pitcher, you win it or you lose it. You gave up a single run if you lost it. I guess you can tell yourself you pitched very well relative to all the pitchers who have ever thrown a game, but you've thrown poorly relative to the one guy who actually counts.

Like any other statistic, you need a large enough sample. A single season isn't it. I don't think there is a pitcher who has spent a career playing with inferior offenses. People like to talk about Nolan Ryan as a guy who "played on bad teams". Except he didn't. And his own percentage was often worse than those of his teams. His 1987 season when he led the league in ERA with an 8-16 record was not good. The guys he was facing were producing a lower ERA in the games he faced them and the Astros didn't have a bad offense. It was limited by the park which isn't unrelated to Ryan's own low ERA.

I agree that a player can have an unlucky season as I believe is the case with Sale. But when a guy consistently puts up enough strong numbers while losing games, something is probably wrong with him.

Aaron Sele was far from a great pitcher but wherever he went his teams threw up giant scores when he pitched. Eventually, I'm not going to argue with it. I don't care why or how the guy is getting those runs behind him, but he is. I'll take the luck. I'm results oriented.

I think fantasy baseball is responsible to some degree for people worrying about things that don't really matter because they do matter to them. If you're leading your league in ratio (WHIP), you're going to put a premium on ratio. In the real world it's insignificant. We've gotten so deep into stats we want to judge teams on these different things like run differential which generally correlates, but not always. If run differential were important, teams would play the game differently. But contrary to popular belief, the object is not for the offense to score as much as possible and not for the pitcher to prevent as many runs as possible. It just isn't.

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The amount of wins they have has no relevance to me going forward. But I am confident that Jake Peavy will continue to post a better winning percentage than Matt Garza or John Danks wherever they land. I heard bernstein read an e-mail from one of his "good e-mailers" who said Garza will win 2 of 3 starts. He's never done that and he won't do that. Your team will be well shut of him.

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Magrane was pretty common. He had the one good year. He'd be like a lesser Bill Swift.

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I think WHIP and ERA is a good indicator of how well a pitcher is throwing and how successful he should be. Obviously Strasburg and Sale have been exceptions this season. Even you would agree it is damn near impossible to be successful when your offense score a total of 22 runs in 12 of your starts.

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Be well

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i don't want to sell Swift short. I'm trying to think of a better comparison. Magrane may be like Erik Hanson but still not as good.

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Sure it's hard. Both of those guys have winning records and I'd be very surprised if they don't finish their careers with strong winning percentages. The only thing would could likely stop that would be an injury that radically alters the way they pitch.

But they may end up having shitty years because of circumstances. And losing more than you win isn't a good year.

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Magrane hurt his arm and was never the same. Wasn't as dominant as Webb and not as long, but those sinker guys are always putting up weird seasons. I think part of the reason is if they get an ump who doesn't call the low strike, they could be screwed any given night.

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

You just won't let go of it JORR. I can't imagine if the season ended today you would vote for Lance Lynn over Strasburg for Cy Young because he had more wins. If so you've lost me completely.

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Yeah, that's something else we can't tell from the numbers. The umpire's strikezone is going to affect the scoring in the game. That's why you often see both teams scoring a lot or a little. The hitters' background is the same for both teams on a given day. These are all reasons why I think looking at pitchers within the games they actually pitched is better than just taking a number produced at various ballparks with certain umpires and particular weather and comparing it to a number produced under circumstances that are often vastly different. When two guys face each other all the conditions are the same except for the lineups they are facing which in most instances separated by less than a run per game, something that can't be scored. And how does one do that? With W/L record.

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if the season ended today I there are at least six or seven guys I'd consider for Cy Young over Strasburg that aren't Lance Lynn. But if you're saying Strasburg is having a better season than Lynn, I have to disagree.

You want to attack the advantage that Lynn has in creating a W/L record by having a better scoring team behind him while ignoring the advantage that Strasburg has in creating a low ERA and WHIP by playing in a vast park where balls go to die.

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A big park only keeps home runs in it. He's clearly not pitching there every outing. In fact he's had 8 games on the road and got a total of 11 runs of support in 5 of them. Keep in mind I don't know how many of these runs were scored while he was in the game. In every category Strasburg is having a better season. Your argument is the same as the WAR people. You're just blindly following another stat.

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Ok, this was really important to me. You're at least admitting wins have nothing to do with how good a pitcher is, just how we should look at what he has accomplished compared to the rest of the pitchers. That's a start. I still disagree with how much weight you give wins in general, but it's not as bad as I thought.

What are you trying to say here? He's on a 4-game winning streak.

I thought you liked Garza and said he's a guy who could win 17-18 games

Sounds like the e-mailer was saying he's a .666 pitcher

Yeah, he can and he probably will for someone one season. You just don't know when it will be and it may be when it doesn't matter. I think he's another Vazquez or Edwin Jackson. I guess you might take your chances with him over a guy like John Danks because of his overwhelming stuff.

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That's not exactly right. There isn't a good starting pitcher- career in the books- who has a shitty winning percentage.

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It's not "just another stat". It's the reason they play the games.

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You haven't addressed this, Bryan. If we're making a truly scientific comparison don't we want the variables to be as similar as possible? Yeah, Chris Sale has a tougher job stopping the Indians than Justin Masterson does in stopping the White Sox, but we can't just ignore the fact that their ERAs were formed facing different batters in different parks. Masterson has faced Detroit twice and Boston twice and Baltimore once and you think it's fair to compare his ERA to Sale who has gone against Oakland a couple times and Houston?

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With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Oh, I thought he was referring to playoffs. That's a terrible thought. The most elite pitchers of baseball have a tough time earning a .666 winning percentage over a decent sample. Garza has no chance.