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Junkie
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Originally Posted by Mister Coaster
Quote all the ERA stats you want, it's the W-L record that counts.
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Russ Ortiz would like a minute of your time. He led MLB with 164 wins from 1999 - 2004 and he had just barely better than a league average ERA.
The biggest fallacy in all of sports: the idea that it is the W-L record that should be celebrated over the ERA. The pitcher has control over 3 the three true outcomes (TTO): K's, BB, and HR. Everything else is left up to the defense. Sure, they can throw pitches that induce groundballs or weak popupts but they can only control so much of that.
Here is a nice article from Stark:
Quote:
How often have you heard this question asked this season:
What's wrong with Johan Santana?
Uh, how about nothing?
Yeah, his win-loss record is "only" 7-6. Yeah, that's exactly the same record as Miguel Batista. Yeah, that's as many wins as Adam Eaton. But what we have here, friends, is another classic case of how numbers deceive us.
Johan Santana has won two AL Cy Young Awards -- in 2004 and last season.
Well, some numbers.
But especially these numbers -- wins and losses.
Why are we still looking at wins and losses first when we talk about starting pitchers? Don't we live these days in a more enlightened age than that?
In a world that now allows us to evaluate pitchers with so much more revealing information, why are we still hung up on the same numbers that defined pitchers in 1912?
"It all comes down to 120 years of thinking of the pitcher as the guy who wins the game," says Baseball Prospectus' always-incisive Joe Sheehan. "With the advent of bullpens and the higher offensive levels, the fact is that pitchers are more reliant on their offense to score than they used to be. ... So a pitcher's wins just don't correlate as a reliable indicator of pitcher performance the way they used to 80 or 100 years ago."
We couldn't agree more. And we have lots of ideal test cases this year to prove our point, too. So let's take a look at five pitchers whose (W-L) numbers are deceiving:
Johan Santana
Yeah, Santana is really having a crummy year, all right. He's second in the league in strikeouts, third in strikeout ratio, fourth in ERA and fifth in opponent batting average and on-base percentage.
His ERA (2.91) is a run lower than Jeremy Bonderman's (7-0, 3.92). And Santana beats Josh Beckett (10-1) in ERA, strikeout ratio, WHIP and opponent average. So how come The Great Johan is "only" 7-6? Well, the Twins have scored two runs or fewer while he was in the game eight times already. And that has translated to six quality starts that didn't add any "W's" to his record.
So this guy is having a "down" year only if you compare him to himself, not the rest of the pitching species. And we're not even sure if it's safe to say that. His ERA and strikeout rate are almost identical to where they were a year ago after 15 starts. And his opponent average after 15 starts (.218) is the lowest of his career at this stage.
"His velocity is down a little," says one scout. "He used to pitch at 93-94. Now he's more like 90-91. And he has had some trouble keeping his changeup down, which is why he's given up more home runs (14 already). But he's still the best pitcher in the league."
Matt Cain
Here's the question we should be asking about Matt Cain: Is he the best 2-7 pitcher in history? Hey, he just might be, as a matter of fact.
We couldn't find a single pitcher in the expansion era who had an ERA as good as Cain's (3.15), or a hits-per-nine-IP rate as good as Cain's (7.02 per nine IP) who wound up a season with a winning percentage as lousy as his is now (.222). But even 2-7 doesn't do justice to how crummy the Giants have played behind him. Their record when he starts is an incomprehensible 2-12.
So how do we explain this? Just about every way possible. He has lost two 1-0 games and a 2-0 game. The bullpen has blown three saves for him. And the offense has scored two runs or fewer in nine of his starts. It's been so ugly that he has allowed three hits or fewer five times -- and won one of them.
"To me, he's a lot like Justin Verlander," says one scout. "It's easy to think he could throw multiple no-hitters. That's how good his stuff is. And he's 2-7. Now that doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
Gil Meche
There are probably people out there looking at Gil Meche's 4-6 record in Kansas City and saying, "I told you so." But if those are the only numbers you're perusing, you're hereby assigned to go back and reread the first 11 paragraphs of this column.
Meche has had the third-worst run support in the American League. But let's break down that support (or lack thereof) another way. You've heard of quality starts, right? (That's the stat that measures how many times a pitcher gives his team a chance to win a game.) We're inventing a new stat -- the CUS (Criminally Unsupported Start) -- which measures games in which an offense gives its pitcher no chance to win.
Our definition of a CUS is a game in which a pitcher goes at least six innings, but his offense scores no more than one run while he's in the game. Believe it or not, it's happened to Meche eight times already. Only one other pitcher in baseball (Jon Garland, with six) has more than five CUS.
"That [record] describes what people thought Meche was going to be," says one scout. "But that's not what he's been. I didn't think he had it in him to be a No. 3 [starter], let alone a No. 1. But he's pitched like a No. 1."
Andy Pettitte
It ought to be impossible to be a Yankee with a sub-3.00 ERA (2.93) and just a 4-4 record. But that's exactly what Andy Pettitte was before he was forced by the schedule gods to pitch in Coors Field on Wednesday (where he gave up six runs in 6 2/3 innings in a 6-1 loss).
Pettitte has had three saves blown behind him. And he's had just enough shaky defense and up-and-down run support that Baseball Prospectus ranks him as the sixth-unluckiest pitcher in the American League (just ahead of Meche). The result is that Pettitte still hasn't won a game in which he has allowed more than one run. Hard to believe.
"He was one of their few bright spots during that bad period," says one scout. "He hasn't gotten enough credit for that."
Erik Bedard
Erik Bedard's breakout year has been lost amid the rubble of the Orioles' other issues. But this guy ought to be way better than a 4-4 pitcher.
He leads the major leagues in strikeouts (112 in 94 IP). And the even better news is that he's working on a streak of nine straight starts in which he has allowed three runs or fewer. The bad news is, he has won exactly one of those nine starts -- thanks to three blown saves and no more than four runs to work with in any of those games.
"He came up as a thrower, but he's morphed into a guy who can pitch," says one scout. "He's got well-above-average stuff every time I see him. And now he's getting ahead of the hitters, which gives him a chance to pitch. He keeps them in every game. They just keep finding ways not to win."
Ah, but they're not the only ones. Which means those five pitchers aren't the only pitchers in this mess. So we'd hate to overlook this list:
Other pitchers who could sue for nonsupport
Jeremy Guthrie, Orioles; Mark Buehrle, Javier Vazquez and Jon Garland, White Sox; Joe Kennedy, A's; Carlos Silva, Twins; Ted Lilly and Rich Hill, Cubs; Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny, Pirates; Chris Young, Padres; Jeff Francis, Rockies; Doug Davis and Livan Hernandez, Diamondbacks; Derek Lowe, Dodgers; and the perennial captain of this team, Roy Oswalt, Astros.
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