Quote:
Originally Posted by G1911
If you read the transcript, you will note this stat was not my idea to use and not part of my argument. I get you want to dismiss ERA, WHIP, WAR, FIP, et al. in favor of using your indefinable art of analysis to rank people, but I'd suggest doing so suggests a lack of baseball acumen and math.
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There has been quite a movement in the 21st century to divorce pitching stats "that matter" from wins / team performance. I'm not a huge fan of that.
Yes, those pitching stats which make more sense in terms of how a pitcher contributes to wins or at least saving runs tell more of a story than some of the broader old ones, but this is the same crowd that wants to (mostly) forget about things like Nolan Ryan's massive (2700?) BB totals.
Yes, one can make the argument that it "doesn't matter" in context of his overall career ERA, which is still pretty darn respectable at 3.19 for nearly three solid decades of pitching. But these same people who want to call Ryan "the GOAT" - what if his ERA was 2.86 like his former teammate Tom Seaver, (or Jim Palmer, who had exactly the same figure). How many wins in addition to his 324 would Ryan have had then? How much above .500 more would his overall winning percentage be?