[howard38]

Originally Posted by novakjr

Win/Loss is one of he flukiest things ever. But sometimes, you can get a great guage on just how good a guy was when he's still raking in the wins for a bad team. You can also get a real feel for how well he's pitching in tight games..

I think that's one of the reasons that Cliff Lee's 2008 season was so special. Dude went 22-3 with a 2.54 era for a team that only won 81 games. Although, I will admit that that teams issue really wasn't offense, but rather a total lack of pitching beyond cliff.. One of the things with teams that aren't contending though, is that a pitcher may tend to lose focus or not care as much down the stretch, when the games are meaningless.

On the flipside, look at Kevin Millwood's 2005 season.. Led the AL in era at 2.86, but somehow only had a 9-11 record... Now just looking at that, you would naturally assume that he was just pitching for a terrible team... And you would have assumed wrong... That was for a 93 win team.. Meanwhile on that same team, Scott Elarton goes 11-9 with a 4.61 era. and Cliff Lee goes 18-5 with a 3.79 era(almost a run worse than Millwood).

Millwood is a great example of how overrated wins are. He went to Texas the next year and won sixteen games. He didn't suddenly become a better pitcher, in fact his ERA ballooned to 4.52 but he was on a slightly better hitting team and had much better luck.