Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike D.
WAR adjusts for strength of opposition, league, team defense, and park factors, so it can be used to compare pitchers both within and across eras.
It tries to take things the pitcher can't control out of the equation, like who's pitching on the other side or how many runs the pitcher's team scores.
A pitcher who loses 2-1 did more to help their team win than one that wins 7-6 (assuming the same IP)...which is why pitching wins is an increasingly poor measure of performance.
The reason the Mets squandered so much of deGrom's prime is their offense...if your pitcher is giving up 2.5 earned runs per 9 IP, and you're not winning the majority of those games, that means you're scoring below 2.5 runs per game on the regular. That's lousy offense no matter who's pitching!
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So the answer is NO then, there really isn't an effective statistical measure that takes into account the offense behind a starting pitcher.
Statistics don't look at the offense you have behind you at all then it seems like. I would think that is a much greater factor behind a pitcher's success than defense. Most all MLB players are exceptional athletes to start with, and likely wouldn't ever be on a major league roster if their fielding pct. wasn't over .900 to start with. Plus you don't have opposing teams making pitcher and other player changes because of a particular player's defensive abilities. Doesn't surprise me if there really isn't a viable measure trying to take into account a starting pitcher's offense behind him. In fact, I would think that from a statistical standpoint for evaluating starting pitchers, you should be factoring in not only the offense behind you, but the offenses you are facing, and the starting pitchers you are facing as well.
As you said, statistics like WAR can at best only TRY to take out factors outside a pitcher's control, but really don't seem to succeed very well. And when trying to extend the meaning of such statistics to even attempt a meaningful comparison of pitchers from different eras.....now you're talking a pipe dream as the context and all the different variables between eras make it virtually (and probably literally) impossible to effectively account for all the factors that could ever be involved in such comparisons. And worst of all, there's no way to ever truly prove which pitcher across different eras was better, so all everyone ever ends up doing is arguing.
I understand that because of the variables and things out of a pitcher's control that it is argued that wins aren't that important of a statistic in regards to pitching, but when the whole, sole reason you play the game is to win, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that being able to win is not factored in a bit more. Especially for pitchers who somehow always seem to be able to help their teams win a lot. It is the beauty and the curse of statistics, they can help try to explain many things, but they can never fully explain anything either when it comes to comparing ballplayers, especially pitchers. Makes for lively debates, that is for sure.