Noted non-winning pitcher Jose Quintana has meekly given up the first run in 14 of his 24 starts. This lack of TWTW has caused him to go 4-7 in those games. When he cares enough to not put the Sox behind first with his lackluster pitching, he's 5-2.

Sure, scoring first may correlate with winning (I've read that it does, but read other articles that debunk this)

but that doesn't necessarily mean that the winning is caused by scoring first.

No shit. Winning is caused by scoring more runs than the other team over the course of the entire game.

Why do you feel the need to complicate simple concepts? Does it make you feel smarter than others?

Who would win more games? Hypothetical Jay Cutler, or Hypothetical Jose Quintana?

No shit. Winning is caused by scoring more runs than the other team over the course of the entire game.

Why do you feel the need to complicate simple concepts? Does it make you feel smarter than others?

There is not a damned thing wrong with people who are bull shitters.

I hope Quintana converts to Islam and changes his name to some version of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. We might finally then get a thread that goes more pages than the Julie DiCaro thread.

Considering the fact that the team that scores first wins at more than a 60% clip that must have been quite a "debunking".

No shit. Winning is caused by scoring more runs than the other team over the course of the entire game.

Why do you feel the need to complicate simple concepts?

Lots of things seem to correlate, but don't when you start to analyze the regression. To wit:





The insinuation by KDiddit in his post was that Quintana allowing the other team to score first somehow caused a losing record, while the Sox scoring first afforded him a winning record. Was that not his implied premise?

No the insinuation was Quintana keeping the opponent from scoring the first run affords him a winning record.

Aren't better offenses likely to score more runs than worse offenses, increasing the likelihood that the better offense will score first? Sure, scoring first may correlate with winning (I've read that it does, but read other articles that debunk this), but that doesn't necessarily mean that the winning is caused by scoring first. Scoring first may be caused by simply being better at scoring runs, and from that flows scoring first, as well as winning.

If I compete against you at flipping coins, say we both want to land heads as many times as possible in a given number of flips, but your coin is able to land heads 50% of the time, while mine 40%, you are inherently more likely to "score" before I do in any number of flips, simply by virtue of being better at landing heads than I. Now, because we know coin flips are independent events, your scoring first does not impact my ability to score more than you any more than you landing heads back-to-back before my next flip does. Yes, you scoring first correlates with you winning, but it isn't because of some magic property of the chronology of scoring, it's because you are more likely to score than I am in any given flip.

Ok, so your premise is the Sox scoring first, or Quintana allowing the first run, is causal of either a winning or losing record. Thanks.

In most games the other starter holds the Sox further below their scoring average than Quintana holds the other team under its average.

You attempted to convert that to a percentage because you knew it favored Quintana as the Sox score less than most teams they face

and, as we both know, a team cannot score a fraction of a run.

..how else are you going to display something as "below" or "a fraction of" something else? When working with runs instead of percentages, the numbers still show Quintana holding teams further below their average when than do teams holding the Sox below theirs. A percentage merely gives clearer context.

If "Poor Quintana" lost the game and he held his opponent to less than 3 runs that means the other guy allowed one or zero, right? So in the majority of cases when the difference in average run scoring of the two teams is less than one full run, didn't the other guy hold the Sox further under their average? How could it be any other way? The opponent held the Sox approximately either three or four runs under their average while Quintana held the other team to either two or three runs and a fraction under theirs. You know why you used the percentages.

"QOPP R/9" is "Quintana Opponents' Runs per 9 Innings", and "ROPP R/G" is "Real Opponents Runs per Game". The bottom in bold is an average of all teams (not including the inter-league split at the top), and as you can see, Quintana is able to limit opponent scoring to about 65% of their averages when extrapolated out to 9 innings. Without extrapolation, Quintana holds opponents to an average that is 47% of their regular marks.

The White Sox average 3.39 R/9 when Quintana is on the hill, and their average is 3.99 R/G. So, all told, the opposing pitchers are limiting White Sox output to 85% of their average.

The problem is that the Sox' offense is so bad, that even limiting it's run-scoring rate by 85% makes leaving the game after 5, 6, or 7 innings and change with a lead an even more daunting task if you give up even a single run. And that is why "Wins" is such an awful metric.

Since he became a full-time starter, Quintana has limited opponent scoring to a rate of 3.64 runs per 9. In that same time frame, Quintana is 7th-worst among qualified starters with an average RS/9 of 3.81. Since 2012, the average AL R/G mark has been 4.37, and the Sox have averaged 4.04 R/G.

Quintana has held "the League" (because I'm not going through and calculating a R/G average for only Quintana's opponents in the last 5 years, the AL's 5-year average will get us close enough) to an average of 83% of their scoring, the Sox have been held to 94% of theirs when Quintana is on the hill.

When you remove the 2012 season, the differences become even more glaring. Quintana holds "the League" to 3.56 R/9, or 81% of their scoring, and the Sox average 3.89 R/G, or are held to 96% of their average scoring by Quintana's collective opponents.

Since 2013, Quintana is 28th in the MLB among all qualified starters in limiting run scoring rate (R/9), but is 82nd in W/L%. To say that has more to do with how he "competes" than with how poorly his offense has performed for multiple years is beyond silly.

Why are you comparing runs given up in a start to team runs per game? Unless every starting pitcher goes the distance, this seems like an asinine comparison.

My figures for Quintana were using his prorated scoring rate per game, so as to compare better with actual runs scored per game, because to do so otherwise is to compare 6 innings of offensive chances to an average derived over 9 inning games.

I understand what you did. I just think you did it because it makes Quintana look better that way. A pitcher can't take a loss if he exits the game with the lead (unless of course he has a man/men on base). In the games Quintana loses there is usually another guy pitching better than he does and that takes into consideration the fraction of a run more that the other guy's team averages as compared to the White Sox.

The issue being discussed there was whether Quintana was better at limiting the offensive output of opponents than opponents were at limiting the Sox.

The title of Keith Law's book: Smart Baseball: Why Pitching Wins Are for Losers, Batting Average is for Suckers, and Saves Don't Mean S***

I'm pre-ordering this bad boy. It's gonna be a fun read.

He resigned.

It's more fun to be a victim

There will never be an effective vaccine. I'll never get one anyway.

Sox up 3-0

I would bet Quintana gives up at least 3 today.

It's more fun to be a victim

There will never be an effective vaccine. I'll never get one anyway.

There's 2.

Honestly the more I watch this guy pitch the more I think JoeOrr has it right.

Many that is true, but an incomplete statement.

Oh no. 2 runs given up. That's insane for a starting pitcher to give up two runs. He should be sent to AAA.