Whether you agree or disagree with him, you can't say JORR is all over the place. I don't think he could've been more clear on his position. If you didn't understand it, that's on you.

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Calling me dumb or stupid is one way to go about this. Another would be to give his stance for him. I asked for a statement and he rambled on and on about a hypothetical situation and added in more questions.

If he has the time for that, he should be able to spit out a "Wins and losses is the most important stat to consider when comparing pitchers." Or "wins and losses" should be the biggest factor in determining a pitcher's salary."

The thing is, you don't get to determine what other people do or don't decide to say. If you can't understand my position, I'm not losing any sleep over it.

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I think I understand one of the 10 positions you've taken.

You don't like fantasy baseball.

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I'm not determining anything. I asked you to make a statement. I get bits and pieces of what you are saying, and even agree with parts of it. But I don't get your overall point. There has to be a thesis. I'm not sure why you're afraid to say it.

No. Fantasy baseball is fun. I just don't think you're a general manager because you drafted Mike Trout with the first pick for the Hoffman Estate Hot Hatches franchise in the Northwest Douche League.

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I knew I was still reading this thread for a reason...

I traded a late round pick for him and kept him the year before he got called up. #Genius

Jorr I know you're responding to shots from every corner, but what did you think of my beanbag hypothetical from earlier today. I am trying to suggest that W/L is flawed because a pitching duel encapsulates performance against disparate challenges that are then unfairly compared against each other in weighing the better of the two (ie awarding a "win").

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Okay. I don't think W/L record is the only stat for judging a starting pitcher, but I think it's the single most important one, given a reasonable sample of starts. Especially for fans as opposed to MLB professionals who are trying to weigh costs against future performace.

There seems to be some thought among fans these days that performance can be detached from the game in which it occurred, as if Ben Sheets performance in losing 2-1 can be magically transported to a different game in which he receives more "run support" to win 5-2. This is evidenced by IMU's authoritative statement that Ben Sheets, who never won more than 13 big league games in a season for any team at any time, would have absolutely recorded 22 wins had he for the 2004 Angels. I find such thought to be patently absurd.

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I apologize for my failure to respond as I meant to do so this morning and got caught up with some other guys here.

I think you analogy is perfectly reasonable. And on occasion there are pitchers who are on teams so offensively bad that over 33 starts it is definitely going to cost them more than normal. That would be Hernandez in his Cy Young season. But I would point out that he was still able to post a winning record and the fact that the Seattle ballpark has an extreme pitcher's bias is responsbile, at least to some degree, for the low offensive output of the Mariners. As well as for some of Hernandez's gaudy numbers which aren't unrelated to the park where he pitches half his games.

As I've pointed out time and time again, the difference between the two offenses in the vast majority of games is only a fraction of a run. AS RPB likes to point out that can be a lot. Over 162 games, yes. But within the space of a single game it is something that cannot even be measured since a fraction of a run cannot be scored. And inevitably, in coversations regarding the "unlucky" pitcher who lacked "run support", we're talking about a guy who is supposed to be elite, not some mediocre joe. So I would simply ask if a guy is so great and he is facing another pictchr who is less great why is it so often so difficult for him to pitch over that fraction of a run? Does the opposing pitcher just happen to throw his best game when he faces the poor guy? That seems to defy logic, although I suppose it's possible. So I would start by looking elsewhere for the answer. Perhaps the pitcher in question isn't quite so great as some other numbers might suggest and the fact that a large cross-section of various pitchers is consistently putting up numbers better or equal to those of our hero suggest something else might be in play, e.g. pitcher friendly umpires, bad hitter's backgrounds, etc.

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Pitchers pitch against the other team's hitters. The goal is for them to get the other team's hitters out as much as possible, and for those hitters to score as few runs as possible.

That is it. That is their goal.

It makes sense to use statistics that represent how the pitchers fare in that goal.

Winning a ball game is something a team does together. It makes no sense to judge a pitcher on wins and losses unless you're going to use that attribute for every player on a team. Oh wait, they already do that. It is called Team Wins and Team Losses.

Wins and losses for ALL PITCHERS means far less now than it ever has. Pitchers average 6 innings a start. There are too many factors a pitcher cannot control that lead to wins and losses.

A general manager worth his salt is going to understand that wins and losses do not translate from team to team, or ballpark to ballpark. A pitcher's ERA, of his career, is much more likely an accurate indicator of determining success going forward.

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That is false and I will take Chris Sale's word for that over yours. It is impossible to "prevent runs". Nobody has ever done it. That would be an absurdly unrealistic goal. All pitchers allow runs. Allowing less runs than the opposing pitcher(s) is a reasonable goal.



You seem to be confusing the wins and losses of the team with the W/L statistic for a pitcher. Would it make you feel better if we called it something else? How about his BRick/IMU record? Cy Young had 511 career BRicks and only 316 career IMUs.



True, but I think we're beginning to see the starters stretch back out longer again. That may not be the case, but it makes sense if scoring is down. We'll see if there are more complete games and if starters average more innings this year than they did last season.



This is the worst thing you've said. It's the exact opposite of the truth. Wins and losses are the only thing that translates from park to park. Felix Hernandez is going to have a higher era if he signs with the Rockies. Bartolo Colon wins wherever he goes.

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I didn't know you were such a fan of adjusted ERA+.

Looks like you're a SABR guy after all!

Good thing we have advanced metrics just like this one you've mentioned that general managers currently use to determine pitcher's skill.

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Which part is false? That pitchers pitch against the other team's hitters? Or that pitchers should aim to get the other team's hitter out as much, while allowing as few runs as possible?

I'm probably the only guy who posts here who has ever been to an actual SABR meeting.

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The part that's false is that a pitcher's job is to "prevent baserunners". The mere fact that an intentional walk is ever issued should put immediate lie to that stupidity. And if the pitcher's job is to "prevent runs", then why would a team ever concede a run by playing at double play depth? A pitcher's job is to allow less runs than the pitcher(s) he is facing on a given day. Pitchers pitch the games they're in. Not some theoretical game where their offense is scoring 6 or 7 runs.

That isn't to suggest anyone purposely "pitches to the score", but the approach is definitely going to be different- whether consciously or unconsciously- depending upon what the score is. Let me pose this question: If there was no scoreboard in the park and the pitcher was kept in a cone of silence while his team was up to bat and had no idea of the score of the game, do you think his results would be exactly the same?

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Pitchers pitch against the batters on the other team. Samardzija has done that better than Chris Sale through the beginning of this season.

Case closed.

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Those two examples you gave do absolutely nothing to support your argument.

You intentionally walk someone because you think you think you have a better chance of getting the next guy out and/or he's going to drive in fewer runs.

You concede a run to get the double play because you are trying to limit amount of scoring the other team can do.

I'm not even going to address your hypothetical situation, since you've been championing the cause that you can't take a pitcher's performance from one game and transplant it into another.

Basewars are coming.

He didn't say "prevent baserunners". There's nothing false about what IMU said.

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Just this past Friday Perez of the Rangers prevented any runs being scored against the White Sox.

hmmm - having a hard time seeing this progressive new argument that a pitchers job is anything OTHER than getting the other team's hitters out as much as possible, and preventing them from scoring runs as much as possible. is there really an argument against that? what else would they be doing out there? of course no pitcher can ever be completely successful preventing runs from scoring, but isn't that always the goal? if i were a professional pitcher i know my goals would be to prevent base-runners and prevent runs from scoring as much as possible.

I'm well aware why teams are willing to trade a run for a double play. But that isn't run prevention as a goal. You seem to be saying a pitcher's job is to prevent runs except when it isn't. In some cases a pitcher's job is to allow a run in pursuit of the actual goal, which is winning the ballgame. It's why teams are often indifferent to a baserunner late in a game. That run doesn't mean anything. Winning by one is the same as winning by ten. It seems a lot of you dislike that concept and would prefer to award championships based on run differential.

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Of course guys have pitched shutouts. But the idea that a pitcher's job is to prevent runs is just wrong. I've seen an intentional walk with the bases loaded. That was allowing a run on purpose. A pitcher's job is to allow less runs than the opposing pitcher(s). Is that really a crazy idea?

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Have you ever seen an intentional walk? Have you ever seen a pitcher "pitch around" a hitter?

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Right...not run prevention.

Isn't that normally done to take the bat out of the hand of a more dangerous hitter for a less dangerous hitter in order to prevent runs for being scored?

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