Whoo hoo! They won a game! They win one today, thats two in a tow. Win one tomorrow, thats called a winning streak. It has happened before.

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Then by that logic John Burkett was was a better pitcher than Maddux that year, and that John Danks, Brett Cecil, and Carl fucking Pavano were better pitchers than Felix Hernandez in 2010.

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The sample is too small. Was John Paciorek the greatest hitter of all-time? I guess one could argue he was. But if you're suggesting that John Burkett was a bum, you're wrong there too.

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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

An entire season of play is too small a sample size to tell which pitcher pitched best in a particular year?

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It's too small to say who was a better pitcher. It's 32 or 33 starts. A W/L record isn't going to shake out over that span. How small do you want to narrow it down? You must agree that John Paciorek is the greatest three at-bat man ever, right?

Let me ask you this, who is the great starting pitcher who was unlucky enough to have a poor record over the course of his career? I want you to find me just one. That unlucky soul must exist, right?

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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

Over the course of his career Cy Young won 511 games, Bob Gibson only won 251. Everyone knows Bob Gibson is a better pitcher even though he won half as many games. Why is that?

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Everyone doesn't "know" that. It isn't even true. Bob Gibson's legend has grown so much after his retirement it's almost silly. In his own time he was never considered a better pitcher than Juan Marichal or Warren Spahn or Tom Seaver. Besides that, Gibson had a .590 winning percentage. Try again.

_________________
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

Sphan and Seaver may be better but Gibson won more games than Marichal. How could he not be better than him? If Marichal is better than Gibson what made him better than Gibson?

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Marichal had a better career winning percentage and a lower ERA. So did Whitey Ford.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

It sounds like we have to look at more than a W/L record to tell how good a pitcher is. Whitey Ford has the 3rd best career win% is he the 3rd best pitcher in MLB history?

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And yet, you can't show me the good pitcher with a less than good W/L record.

RE: Ford: Conventional wisdom says no, but I'd certainly put Whitey up there. What don't you like about any of his numbers? For left-handers, you've got Grove, Johnson, Spahn and I'd say Ford is next. You can make an argument for Koufax, but he's a special guy, an oddity with a short career.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Over the course of 10 years W/L % is a pretty good measure of a pitcher's worth. Over one season, not so much.

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

I'm not saying W/L records tell us nothing, I'm saying that the information it provides tells little about how and why and what makes one pitcher better than another. Is Whitey Ford a better pitcher than Greg Maddux? Looking at his career win% would seem to suggest that, but Maddux has 100 more wins than Ford. How do we determine who is the better pitcher now?

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I don't really look at the game that way. There's no reason we should have to definitively determine whether Whitey Ford is better than Greg Maddux. And the truth is, we can't. Stuff like that is just fun to argue about and there is no real right or wrong answer.

Obviously, there are many statistics we can look at and there are new ones every day. But if we could only look at one stat for a starting pitcher, career W/L record tells you more than any other single statistic.

If I give you 3.19 ERA, what does that mean? There's no context. It seems good. What if the guy pitched in the 60s? It's still okay, but probably not as good as you thought. It really isn't telling you much at all. It could be Nolan Ryan or it could be Pete Richert. But if I tell you the same guy was 134-84, it tells you a whole lot more. You know he was a starter who was highly effective. You can figure he pitched 1700-1900 innings.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

3.19 means he was usually going to give you a quality start. going 10-0 with a 5.19 ERA means you are very lucky.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Jimmy is a baseball savant! Cubs should've hired him.

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

In the 60s 3.19 meant you were Jon Garland.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
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With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

You'd be Jim Lonborg -- Cy Young!!

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

Bobby Bolin had a 2.89 in 1966. I demand his retroactive Cy Young!

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I'm not sure that's the case. Look at Whitey Ford again. Great pitcher, Hall of Fame pitcher. Does he have the same career W/L record if he plays his entire career for the Washington Senators? His W/L record necessarily depends on the team he plays for. A statistic like WHIP tells you a lot more about how a pitcher performs individually as it doesn't rely as heavily (if at all) on the performance of other members of the pitcher's team.

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What he would have done if... is nothing more than conjecture. We can only look at what he did. Yes, he played for the Yankees, but did you know that the Yankees often held his start in order for him to face the opposing team's best pitcher?

A statistic like WHIP tells you how many men a pitcher allows to reach base. There may be a general correlation between that and a successful pitcher, but there are many starting pitchers who are more successful than others who allow less baserunners. In fact, baserunners are allowed by design quite often.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Does this mean that they win more?

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Whitey Ford, beyotches! The man was money.

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1923-1927-1928-1932-1936-1937-1938-1939
1941-1943-1947-1949-1950-1951-1952-1953
1956-1958-1961-1962-1977-1978-1996-1998
1999-2000-2009
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XXI - XXV - XLII - XLVI

It means they usually allow less runs than the opposing pitcher(s) in the actual games they pitch.

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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

Francona pitched to Abreu again. Good call.

Holy holy, if Abreu played in the NL he'd be knocking on the door of a triple crown. There's still a month left to catch Jose Altuve!

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Nope. His homers barely get over the wall. He'd have like 15 HRs on teh NL /Kirkwood

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Next year he will have minimum 7 less homers. I'm assuming he plays 162

Well, he does seem to be evolving into a more well rounded hitter. If he leads the league in OPS again then a few less homers would be just fine.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I agree.