Jacob deGrom most Ks in first 200 games

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by BobC

Mike,

You're probably younger then me so, good for you. LOL

But now I'm lost. You had originally said that wins is pretty much a useless stat, but then you're now saying you agree wins are important. How can something so important, also be useless at the exact same time? It makes no sense at all. Wins, and the number of them a pitcher has, are in and of themselves a statistic. Please explain to me how you separate the two, as I do not get it.

I can sort of understand given today's modern game, and how pitchers rarely complete the games they start anymore and often get pulled early, that wins to modern pitchers may not be all that important, and less indicative of their worth as a pitcher because of their roles as specialists. But to my thinking, when you go back to the times of pitchers like Spahn, Feller, and Johnson, those guys were expected to start and complete every game they took the mound for, and those wins they had were the direct result of their prowess and success as pitchers. Those wins, that statistic they had, showed how good and important they were to their teams and their fans.

And that is the problem. Those that believe so much in these advanced stats throw out the statement that wins for pitchers is not important as sort of an all-encompassing statement that is generally perceived as covering all pitchers, from all eras. And to me. that is very clearly not the case when it comes to older generation pitchers. And that perception, along with other modern biases in advanced pitcher stats, is then used by some to further downplay the importance and ability of older generation pitchers. To the point where some will try to tell you old school pitchers aren't even good enough to hold the jockstrap of someone like Hyun Jin-Ryu. And every time I hear something like that, I just start ROFLMFAO.

I think team wins are importantthat's the name of the game. But the "pitchers win" stat isn't very telling by itself, since a win is a team stat.

I'm not trying to use it to belittle pitchers from prior eras by saying pitcher wins isn't a good stat. It was an only "OK" stat back then in that it tended to correlate if you played on a decent team (if you pitched well, you won more games). Today they throw fewer innings, (and I know nobody would use the way the game has evolved to belittle modern pitchers). But either way, pitcher wins aren't a great stat.

A few folks posted examples of pitchers who pitched well but didn't get a lot of wins. The other side of that is you can pitch 9 innings, and lose 1-0. You get a loss. Same pitcher can follow up that start by giving up 8 runs in 5 innings, but if the bullpen shuts down the other team and your team scores 9, you "win".

In that situation, how can a "pitcher win" be considered any kind of reliable indicator of how good a pitcher is?

Unless you believe in the "Jack Morris, pitching to the score" crap that his HOF advocates used to talk about, a better measure is the things a pitcher can actually control.

So, things like ERA, WHIP, K's, HRs, are better indicators. Some of the advanced stats like FIP try to take away the defense playing behind a pitcher (another thing he can't control).

And the thing is, if you're looking at modern stats of pitchers from other eras, they fare really well, as it's measuring these things.

For example, the top two pitchers all time by WAR happen to ALSO be the top two pitchers by pitcher wins (Young and Johnson). But they got the wins because they were great, they weren't great because they won a lot of games. If Young had played for a terrible team and won 300 games instead of 500 (with everything else staying the same, stat-wise), it wouldn't have meant he was a worse pitcher.

Anyway, that's my thinking on it.