O/T -- Bob Welch dead at 57

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Koufax32fan

I know that winning percentage is not a great indicator of the relative quality of pitchers, but did you know that Welch's winning percentage is higher than several hall of famers including Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton?

This is a good example of why I love baseball statistics, and why it's so often necessary to look a little deeper.

Career Winning percentage:

Bob Welch 0.5910364145658263
Bob Gibson 0.5905882352941176
Steve Carlton 0.5741710296684119

Complete games:

Welch 61
Gibson 255
Carlton 254

Bob Welch pitched for the Oakland Athletics from 1988 to 1994. Of his career 211 wins, 96 of those came as a member of the A's.

Denis Eckersley, arguably the greatest reliever in baseball history before Mariano Rivera, saved 275 games. Eckersley was the runner up in the 1988 Cy Young, and he won it in 1992.

I'm not taking anything away from Bob Welch, as he was certainly an outstanding pitcher. But when I look at the career winning percentages of the three pitchers named, I'm more impressed by Gibson and Carlton's accomplishments, because they threw so many complete games. Welch, on the other hand, could turn the ball over to the bullpen to save many of his wins.

I would agree, too, that wins, and winning percentage is not a great metric of a pitcher's performance, because so many different things factor into wins and losses. Point in case. The other night, Felix Hernandez threw 7 innings of shutout ball, striking out 15. Yet he got a no decision because his offense didn't score any runs for him.

Edit: I was certain that Welch was going to make it to 30 wins that summer. The A's had an incredible offense with Canseco, McGwire, Rickey Henderson, Dave Henderson, and Eckersley was unhittable with a 0.61 ERA.

Still, 27 wins is a hell of an accomplishment. I don't know if we'll ever see 30 wins again.

RIP, Bob.