Jamie Moyer is obviously the 35th best pitcher in history.

_________________

Based on what?

_________________
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

Based on how much money he spent attending games.

_________________

I'm assuming he's 35th all-time in career wins. That sounds about right. It doesn't really mean anything other than that he pitched a long ass time. He's probably about 35th in all-time losses too.

_________________
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

Do I have to make the argument against myself too? Here's a hint: try Vic Raschi.

_________________
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

So what the hell are we arguing about?

37th. But he's in the top 100 in WAR, so he's got that going for him.

We're just talking baseball. I don't think any of us really needs to predict anything. But that's where fantasy comes in. Future potential is more highly valued than past results.

_________________
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

Then why in God's name are you so hung up on the past results of a 5-8 record for Chris Sale?

_________________

After reading this whole thread, I believe that W/L is an important statistic to look at. I did not believe that before reading the thread.

I'm not really going to be able to take anyone from the "W/L is meaningless" crowd very seriously anymore.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

There's only one person who comes close to thinking that.

_________________

There's plenty. IMU and Bucky Chris both said they have no use for it. Half the Score staff feels that way. I've heard other talking heads and internet pundits express a similar opinion.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I thought you just meant here.

Chris is who I was speaking of.

I thought IMU said it's not the best way to judge a pitcher's performance but it wasn't useless.

_________________

I'm not gonna go read the thread all over again but I'm pretty sure IMU said something along the lines of he had no use at all for the W/L stat. I apologize if I'm wrong.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I'm fairly close to the "useless" crowd. Although there is something impressive about a dude that puts up 4-5 20 game winning seasons. The old fart in me appreciates that.

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

I think what happens is guys tend to get into extremes and absolutes. Every piece of information potentially has use, depending on what you are looking for. Just looking at one piece of info and holding it up as gospel is the issue.

Counting stats like Wins, HR, IP, etc, have use because they tell us what happened. Should a guy be an All Star? HOF, MVP, etc. WAR is also a counting stat.

Rate stats like WHIP, ERA, OPS+ etc., may have more predictive value.. but that assumes we can isolate the variables that may influence these rates (park factors, run support, etc) and that just isn't always possible.

I may not be able to agree with all the points of an IMU or JORR, but the message boards tend to paint guys as caricatures. I look at all the methodologies of baseball study, the ones one doesn't agree with are easily discarded.

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

Important in what respect?

_________________
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

Exactly, what does it help? As admitted by JORR, it has no value looking forward. And looking back, there are a lot of better stats to identify how a pitcher has performed.

I'm not willing to say it has ZERO value, but I'm struggling to see when I would personally bring W-L to the table in a baseball discussion (outside of with JORR ).

In evaluating how good a pitcher has performed. I'm not saying its the most important stat. I probably know less about baseball than everyone in this thread. But JORR made a very convincing case that its foolish to dismiss it as meaningless or even "almost" meaningless.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Well I'd challenge you in the knowing less about baseball category, but I still don't buy how a statistic that depends on so many variables beyond a pitcher's control can be used to evaluate said pitcher. W/L indicates how the entire team performed, not just the pitcher. At best I think it's a starting point that you need to deconstruct once you get serious about evaluating a pitcher's performance.

_________________
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

You cannot automatically assume that a pitcher with a sub .500 record has had a bad year. Chris Sale is 5-8 right now, and if you were to say that he has "not had a very good year" you would be dead wrong.

I will say that most of the time a pitcher who is 5-8 probably has not pitched very well, but I certainly wouldn't call his year good or bad so definitively without looking at his stats a little further.

_________________

You and Hank have the same disease, you should get that checked out.

_________________
2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

It all boils down to how much effect you think the starting pitcher has on the game. I tend to agree with JORR's point of view in regards to their responsibility and level of control. Even though their are a ton of variables outside their control, they still overall have way more control over the game than any other player.


I think the best point made during this entire thread was JORR's acknowledging that the perception of starting pitchers has changed since he grew up watching. If a pitcher is regularly going 8+ innings, then it makes sense to consider W/L the most important statistic. If they are averaging less than 6 IP a game it becomes a lot less clear. Like he said though, I think it still clearly had value.

Bryan's obvious point of looking at all possible stats + watching the games = best potential knowledge of game is one that should pretty much be agreed upon by all.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Right, but didn't Sale say something to the effect of him feeling great but having a bad stretch? I'm not saying he has been bad this year, but as with anything the sample sizes matter. Half a season is not definitive of a career, or even a whole season.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Yea, this is the key. Whatever you think you can pull about the pitcher from his W/L record seems to much less important than the other basic pitching stats.

FF, I've not once talked about Sale's career, and I've only talked about what he has done already so far this season. Its been nothing short of spectacular, record notwithstanding. Its just as stupid and silly for somebody to say, "He's 5-8, he has not had a good year" as it is for somebody else to say, "W-L doesn't matter." There are other factors and other stats that paint more of a complete picture.

_________________

I think JORR overstates the level of control a pitcher has on a game. The game is between two teams, and is larger than one pitcher vs the nine batters on an opposing team. If runs given up are as important as runs scored to the outcome of a game, I don't see how the pitcher, who can only control runs given up, exerts control over the entire runs scored vs runs given up dynamic that characterizes the game.

_________________
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

I just feel knowing how many times the guy was outpitched is important. Maybe that's my baseball ignorance.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Bingo

Well for one huge obvious reason this doesn't reconcile with W/L, bullpens blow leads. So would you say he got outpitched in a game his BP lost his lead?