I'm not sure those four pitchers exist unless those aren't big league numbers. Every one of those guys is over a strikeout per inning. I haven't done the actual math but it appears that a couple of them are right at 10 K/9. I'm pretty sure there are only about five guys in history who have those kind of numbers.

I don't know who these four guys are, but anyone who can strike out more than a batter an inning is elite. In looking at those numbers, that's what I'd focus on. None of those guys is anything like Quintana. If they actually exist, I can tell you they are guys with extreme stuff, not guys who have to rely on being perfect at hitting a spot, especially the third time through the order.

_________________
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

Guys A and C can't be elite though, look at that awful winning percentage for each of them. You can't have it both ways. Quintana can't be a non-competitive loser because he has a bad W-L% but Guys A and C are elite competitors despite their bad W-L%.

So what is the explanation for why an elite guy, with extreme stuff only has a crummy winning percentage, as is the case with Guy A and Guy C. While similar guys who are elite, and with similar stuff has such a good winning percentage. Is the explanation that Guys A and C are non-competitors like a Quintana despite their good stuff, while Guys B and D are true competitors and grind out the victories?

I think these are fictional guys, so I couldn't really tell you. But first, I wouldn't say any of them have a "crummy" winning percentage. A and C are .500 pitchers. With the "stuff" they obviously possess, they've probably been a bit disappointing. Maybe they have high walk rates.

My criticisms of Quintana only exist within a paradigm wherein someone is suggesting he's a truly elite pitcher, a legitimate Cy Young contender, a top ten pitcher in the game. I don't think he is a "bad" pitcher by any means. But I would be much more reluctant to trade the four guys on your list as they strike out over a batter per inning each, and thus have more upside than a pitcher like Quintana who is incapable of such feats and whose usually pinpoint control often fails him in a game's most critical moments.

_________________
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

I'm with JORR on this. I don't think these guys are real. It's really unfortunate too.

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!

The guys are real, very real.

Guy A = Nolan Ryan ages 28-31
Guy B = Nolan Ryan ages 24-27
Guy C = Nolan Ryan ages 36-40
Guy D = Nolan Ryan ages 41-44

So yeah, the numbers are real, and that's why the numbers are similar. But that's the point I was making, you can take a small sample size, even from an elite pitcher and due to an outlier situation, his W-L% might not be what you think it should be. That doesn't mean he's not a competitor, or a quitter, or a loser or whatever JORR wants to call Quintana. All that it means is that in a game like baseball where there are a lot of seasons and players that have past by the transom, you'll run into statistical oddities and outliers. Instead of just acknowledging that outliers occur, moreso over small or smaller sample sizes, JORR wants to have some narrative about Quintana being non-competitive or a "loser" or something.

Nolan Ryan is arguably one of the most competitive pitchers in baseball history if you like narratives. I don't think he was any more or less competitive when he was Guy A and Guy C as opposed to when he was Guy B or Guy D. He was the same red-ass his whole career who didn't give and inch and brought it every day. So what then is the explanation for why he had such a poor winning percentage in certain periods and a much better winning percentage in other periods? A sizeable part of that answer probably has to do with the fact that there are certain things that factor into a starting pitcher being assigned a W or a L that Nolan Ryan has no control over. I'm not saying he has NO control over the W or L assignment, I don't think anyone is saying that. But there are things that greatly impact the W and L assignment that Ryan has no control over. And given a small sample size you could have a statistical quirk where a bunch of events that Ryan has little control over bunch together in a time frame to adversely and unfairly impact his W-L%.

Maybe Guy A and Guy C's usually strikeout stuff often failed them in the game's most critical moments.

Did Guy B or Guy D ever bet $250 on something he literally had no chance at winning?

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The idea that a starting pitcher has "no control" over his W/L record is simply wrong. You used the most freakish pitcher in the history of the game as an example and I pretty much described him without having any idea who he was. When you look at Ryan, he was often disappointing. All you've really done by breaking things out that way is illustrate that Ryan finally learned how to pitch when he was in his 40s.

_________________
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

I don't know how strikeout stuff fails. It's a huge advantage to be able to blow a batter away when you're in a jam. The strikeout covers a lot of sins. That isn't to say that a starter can't have great success without having that finishing pitch. Many have. They're usually lefthanded.

This sort of leads me into thinking about the DH. I'm an AL fan and I don't particularly want to see a feeble pitcher bat, but it radically alters the game when that pitcher's spot is coming up at the bottom. It allows the NL starter much more of a luxury to work around a batter. I don't think it's a game with more strategy, but it's definitely a different strategy. It's nice to have at least two automatic outs a game if you're a starting pitcher. Of course, the guy your facing usually has them too in the form of you. And in today's game when you're often playing with 13 pitchers you only have four bats on the bench. One is a backup catcher and one is usually a defensive infielder. That's two legit pinch hitters. Maybe.

_________________
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

Are you suggesting a player's ability remains static throughout his career?

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I don't think that's actually the case. His own winning percentage was often worse than that of his team. He was the hardest guy ever to hit. That's his claim to fame. We can argue if his career should have been better than what it was when you consider all his advantages.

_________________
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

No, of course not.

Are you suggesting that Nolan Ryan just decided some years to be competitive and go for the win, and in other years he wasn't competitive and didn't go for the win. All of the other numbers are remarkably similar except for the wins.

Ryan was unquestionably a better pitcher at the end of his career and his records illustrate that.

_________________
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

You're right, a guy who on countless occasions probably threw upwards of 180 pitches in a game, and who after tearing his elbow ligament wanted to make sure it was torn and fired one more pitch at 98 MPH just to make sure, yep his arm hurts, isn't competitive.

HAHAHHA. You're a nobody with a keyboard questioning the competitiveness of Nolan Ryan. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

I've said this before, but it bears repeating you are either entirely to familiar or completely unfamiliar with circular logic.

Now you're gonna get rude. I'll tell you what, since neither of us ever pitched in the big leagues, maybe we shouldn't discuss the subject at all.

_________________
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

Are you angry that your ploy didn't work so now you have to start being insulting?

_________________
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

No, of course not and it would be very difficult to pull that suggestion from my question.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Not suggesting we can't discuss the subject, just asking you to look at the facts. We can just look at K's objectively and pretty much decide that Ryan was an ultimate competitor type of guy. He was a guy who worked for the strikeout above all else. He didn't care about walks, didn't care about pitch count, he just wanted to K a guy. It's basically the definition of being an ultimate competitor, not wanting to depend on anyone other then yourself to get the guy at the plate out. It's an incredibly taxing way to pitch and has to take an unbelievable amount of competitiveness to pitch with that mindset and approach for 27 years.

Certain thins are just self evident. A guy with a career like Nolan Ryan, hell any guy with a 27 year MLB career is just a premier competitor.

HAHAHAHAH

Here are the first words on Nolan Ryan's HOF plaque "A fierce competitor..."

No shit, you can't make this up. HAHAHAHAHAHAH

JORR peddles more bullshit in these forums than any 4 people combined. When I think of JORR and his endless cavalcade of bullshit I think of the Bill James quote:

"Bullshit has tremendous advantages over knowledge. Bullshit can be created as needed, on demand, without limit. Anything that happens, you can make up an explanation for why it happened. ..."

I'm looking at the facts. You have been taught and had it so ingrained in you to not accept W/L record as a fact that has any meaning, your reflex is to dismiss it out of hand.

You keep using the term "competitor" in this discussion. I think Quintana and Ryan and every pitcher competes as well as they are able. The fact is, if you're getting an "L" next to your name somebody is pitching better than you are. If those somebodys do it more often than you do, how good could you really be?

You put those stats up there with those ridiculous strikeout numbers and what did I say? That the guy was a disappointment with regard to his records. You have a guy who is striking out 10+ a game and he is .500 there's something more at play there than a "lack of run support". There are flaws in that man's game.

_________________
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

You're losing this argument all by yourself.

_________________
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

JORR...I'm going to use some advanced vocabulary here and you let me know if you can define it...and use it easily in context.

Variable.

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Why don't you quote where I said that that I don't accept W/L as a fact that has any meaning. Take some time and look through my posts and quote where I said that. Use the quote function, it shouldn't be hard. Just quote where I said it isn't a fact, or it is meaningless or anything like that. Take as much time as you want but don't look to hard because I never said it.

That's your problem and the problem with your bullshit. You're arguing against something that I've never said. All I have consistently stated is that over a smaller sample size there are statistical oddities and outliers that occur. That's all i've said. There has been a lot of wake in MLB over the past 100+ years so you're going to have quirks in the facts. It happens, so instead of making up some bullshit narrative that is supported by no actual data or concrete evidence, how hard is it to just acknowledge that outliers do occur?

I'm arguing something you never said?? You're unbelievable. You invented this "competitor" strawman to bludgeon me with and got angry and insulting when it didn't work. I'm done discussing it with you because you can't do so in a civil manner. So I have to drop to your level: FUCK YOU!

_________________
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

There's already one guy being a jerkoff in this discussion, I know you may feel he was stealing your thunder, but I guarantee you'd be making an enormous mistake if you wanted to try to match your vocabulary against mine.

_________________
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 all four guys were the same guy? What a horrible point.

_________________
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!

Great, now One Post is going to have to be a jerk to you.

I doubt he will. He hates JORR because JORR took an easy $250 from One Post in the battle for AL-NL supremacy.

_________________
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!