Jacob deGrom most Ks in first 200 games

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

I don't much follow football, but this sounds like a "two wrong must make a right" argument.

Your argument in the first part of the above is a great argument for why teams should want good pitchers. I don't see it as a good argument for the stat "pitcher win".

Again, if you allow 1 run and lose, you did your job, someone else didn't and it was outside of your control. If you allowed 8 runs and your team scores 9, you "win", despite having done a terrible job.

No amount of poetry or intestinal fortitude on the behalf of the pitcher will change that.

Mike,

That is exactly why even the greatest pitchers don't win every game. Unlike some athletes that don't have to rely upon others to win, say someone like Usain Bolt. In his prime, as arguably the greatest sprinter of all time, Bolt never lost. But even the greatest pitcher of all-time can't control all the variables and factors and will end up losing a fair share of games. But because they are so great, they will have an overall larger influence on the games they pitch in and their outcomes. So in the end, despite all the other players, circumstances and just plain dumb luck, the greatest pitchers will invariably end up winning the most games over their seasons/careers.

It is dumbfounding how such logical and common sense knowledge and thinking seems to escape a vast multitude of the people who follow baseball and put their faith into advanced statistics. Regardless of all other players in the games, pitchers have the most direct impact and influence on how well their team does in every game they pitch in. So over time, statistically speaking, those pitchers should end up having the greatest impact of anyone on whether or not their team will win. And as such, the greater the pitcher, the more likely their impact will lead to their team winning. Ergo, the greater pitchers should over time and their seasons/careers, end up winning more games than those pitchers who are not as good. So in that regard, wins would seem to be an extremely important, if not the most important, statistic to help measure and define a pitcher's greatness.

That is how I look at it. If others want to think and believe differently, so be it.