3 best stats to judge a pitcher on.

[steveringo]

So not only are you too stupid to bother understanding how stats like WAR work, but you don't even know how pitchers wins and losses work?

I'm pretty sure that was a joke post....

 

[DragonfromTO]

I'm pretty sure that was a joke post....

I've gotta disagree with you there steveringo, I don't think it was a joke at all.

 

[hokiehi21]

FIP

 

[navamind]

I'm pretty sure that was a joke post....

Read his posts. He isn't joking.

(unless it's all just a shtick, but I think he's 100% serious.)

 

[steveringo]

I've gotta disagree with you there steveringo, I don't think it was a joke at all.

Read his posts. He isn't joking.

(unless it's all just a shtick, but I think he's 100% serious.)

Ever have one of those moments when you get really sad?

In a certain light, some things look absolutely hillarious. Then, you turn it a bit and realize how sad it is....

Hopefully people use sites like these to learn...

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Honestly, it depends on what we are measuring for when we talk about wins... If we are talking about talent, and who would you rather have on your team then i would agree wins are not an important stat at all... but if we are measuring how a players season or career was then it is an important stat... not the most important of course, but it is important...

 

[Lemon Harang Pie]

Honestly, it depends on what we are measuring for when we talk about wins... If we are talking about talent, and who would you rather have on your team then i would agree wins are not an important stat at all... but if we are measuring how a players season or career was then it is an important
stat... not the most important of course, but it is important...

It seems to me that if wins are a bad way to determine who you want on your team then wins would be an equally bad way to determine who had the better season. It's just a statistic that's far too reliant on things outside of the pitcher's control to be useful. You don't have to watch too many baseball games to realize getting a "W" might not mean that the pitcher had a particularly good game. With that said, I have no idea why people continue to push it as a statistic.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

It seems to me that if wins are a bad way to determine who you want on your team then wins would be an equally bad way to determine who had the better season. It's just a statistic that's far too reliant on things outside of the pitcher's control to be useful. You don't have to watch too many baseball games to realize getting a "W" might not mean that the pitcher had a particularly good game. With that said, I have no idea why people continue to push it as a statistic.

No, a win does not necessarily say you pitched well... But it is a statistic none the less... anyone who knows anything about statistics will tell you that you can not make an analysis with only one stat... The accumulation of stats tells you the story... The Win loss record or percentage- or however you want to include the wins into the analysis still tells a story worth telling...

If we take 2 similar pitchers in ERA, WHIP and innings(which i think we all agree are the 3 best stats-even if you take the advanced versions of them) but one pitcher has 20 wins and the other has 10 wins, who had the better season?? I would choose the 20 win player...

 

[MilkSpiller22]

I also consider QS a better stat than Wins... I love the QS stat, even though i am one of the only ones that actually like it... It is one of the only stats that measure consistency... and i think that is a huge factor... I rank QS, really QS% as the 4th most important pitching statistic, solely because of consistency...

 

[Lemon Harang Pie]

No, a win does not necessarily say you pitched well... But it is a statistic none the less... anyone who knows anything about statistics will tell you that you can not make an analysis with only one stat... The accumulation of stats tells you the story... The Win loss record or percentage- or however you want to include the wins into the analysis still tells a story worth telling...

If we take 2 similar pitchers in ERA, WHIP and innings(which i think we all agree are the 3 best stats-even if you take the advanced versions of them) but one pitcher has 20 wins and the other has 10 wins, who had the better season?? I would choose the 20 win player...

Sure but counting how many times a pitcher farts on the mound is a statistic too and I would say that's exactly as useful as wins in evaluating a pitcher.

I don't know why you would take the 20 game pitcher in your example. It sounds like what you really like is the other pitchers' teammates.

 

[steveringo]

If we take 2 similar pitchers in ERA, WHIP and innings(which i think we all agree are the 3 best stats-even if you take the advanced versions of them) but one pitcher has 20 wins and the other has 10 wins, who had the better season?? I would choose the 20 win player...

Certainly, the pitcher with 20 wins had a better season - but as your stats would indicate, it had nothing to do with his pitching. His team just happened to win more games than the the other guy's team.

This is what these posts are trying to illustrate. Judging a pitcher by wins and/or losses has little to do with his pitching ability.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Sure but counting how many times a pitcher farts on the mound is a statistic too and I would say that's exactly as useful as wins in evaluating a pitcher.

I don't know why you would take the 20 game pitcher in your example. If all else is the same then it's almost certain that the difference in wins accounts for run support or relief pitching that has absolutely nothing to do with what the pitcher actually did.

Absolutely not... there is something to winning a game... i agree that run support is a the biggest factor, but in close games we see all the time that some pitchers make that pitch to win or make that pitch to lose... it says a lot of a pitcher to get a win in close games... and the majority of games for the majority of pitchers are close games...

The top 40 pitchers in ERA averaged only 20 more runs in support than what they let up... that shows that the top 40 in ERA pitched more close games than not close...

 

[steveringo]

I also consider QS a better stat than Wins... I love the QS stat, even though i am one of the only ones that actually like it... It is one of the only stats that measure consistency... and i think that is a huge factor... I rank QS, really QS% as the 4th most important pitching statistic, solely because of consistency...

QS is obviously better than WL, as it measures a pitcher's ability. It may be useful over a career to detemine consistancy, but as many other threads have indicated, it includes rather mediocre perfomances.

 

[navamind]

Keep pretending it's "the will to win" and it's not better run support/bullpen support.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

QS is obviously better than WL, as it measures a pitcher's ability. It may be useful over a career to detemine consistancy, but as many other threads have indicated, it includes rather mediocre perfomances.

not going to get into this again, but i am ok with the substandard qualifications of what is a QS... i dont think it hurts the statistic... As long as you look at the stat the correct way... As it is the only stat i know of that measures consistency...

 

[DragonfromTO]

Absolutely not... there is something to winning a game... i agree that run support is a the biggest factor, but in close games we see all the time that some pitchers make that pitch to win or make that pitch to lose... it says a lot of a pitcher to get a win in close games... and the majority of games for the majority of pitchers are close games...

The top 40 pitchers in ERA averaged only 20 more runs in support than what they let up... that shows that the top 40 in ERA pitched more close games than not close...

I think I already asked this somewhere, but if we "see this all the time" can you name some pitchers for us that have this skill, and some who don't?

 

[DragonfromTO]

No, a win does not necessarily say you pitched well... But it is a statistic none the less... anyone who knows anything about statistics will tell you that you can not make an analysis with only one stat... The accumulation of stats tells you the story... The Win loss record or percentage- or however you want to include the wins into the analysis still tells a story worth telling...

If we take 2 similar pitchers in ERA, WHIP and innings(which i think we all agree are the 3 best stats-even if you take the advanced versions of them) but one pitcher has 20 wins and the other has 10 wins, who had the better season?? I would choose the 20 win player...

I don't know that wins tell you anything about a pitcher that other statistics don't do a better job of telling you.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

I think I already asked this somewhere, but if we "see this all the time" can you name some pitchers for us that have this skill, and some who don't?

i just gave you that the top 40 in ERA averaged only 20 runs differential between Run support and runs allowed... that is showing that they play in more close games than not...

 

[DragonfromTO]

i just gave you that the top 40 in ERA averaged only 20 runs differential between Run support and runs allowed... that is showing that they play in more close games than not...

Which doesn't answer my question. If winning (and losing) close games is a skill (or lack thereof), we should be able to identify players that have this skill and consistently exhibit it. Who are those players?

 

[Lemon Harang Pie]

The top 40 pitchers in ERA averaged only 20 more runs in support than what they let up... that shows that the top 40 in ERA pitched more close games than not close...

I don't know how that really relates to the discussion but a quick look at wins and ERA shows nearly 25% of the top 40 in wins are not among the top 40 in ERA. A slightly more thorough look at the stats shows IP doesn't make that much of a difference either.