Jacob deGrom most Ks in first 200 games

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

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.

Mike,

I understand where you are coming from a little better, and do not disagree with your thinking. The thing is, there is no, one player that is totally responsible for a team winning or losing. It is a team game as you say. But an MLB pitcher is very much akin to an NFL quarterback, in that every single regular play in football starts with the ball in the quarterback's hands. Just like every single play in baseball starts with the ball in the pitcher's hands. And pretty much everything that happens then is a result of what the pitcher/quarterback does. And both are team games, and just like baseball, a quarterback does not have control over his defense, other players on the offense, special teams, and so on. But I've never heard anyone ever say that wins aren't an important stat for quarterbacks to show how good they are. Why is that, and why aren't both positions, pitcher and quarterback, apparently afforded similar responsibility and credit for team wins?

I think DeGrom is a great pitcher.......when he's healthy. But the problem is he isn't always healthy. And that's with him having the advantage of all the medical and technological advances and such that we have today. Were he to have been born and come to the majors back in the day of say Walter Johnson or Bob Feller, I seriously wonder if Degrom even makes it to a major league roster, or if he does, that he stays very long. Without the medical advances of today, he'd be asked and fully expected to pitch complete games, and as often and as long as other pitchers of that day. He gets by now primarily because of the limitations placed on his innings pitched, and pitches thrown. Used like that back then, and seeing how he can break down physically today, it seems pretty obvious to me that he would likely get injured from throwing like he does, and be quickly abandoned. A manager such as Connie Mack likely wouldn't keep someone like him on a roster back then if he couldn't rely on Degrom and he couldn't pitch deep into games, and pitch a lot of innings, without often coming up hurt or lame. Maybe some manager would keep him on a roster to fill in as a reliever for when his starting pitchers did tire later on in some games, but that may be it. And if he was used that way, and never really got a chance to win games, you probably wouldn't think or care much about him at all today.

Now take a Walter Johnson or Bob Feller and move them into today's game, where they didn't have to, and weren't expected to, pitch complete games and throw so many innings. Both of them could open up and not have to worry about pacing themselves so they could throw all those pitches and innings that they did. So how good would those two possibly be in today's game if they could go all out when they pitched? Scary to think how good those two guys were, and then realize that they probably paced themselves so they weren't pitching their best on every single pitch in every single game. Now let them pitch fewer innings, but go all out every single pitch. They had both exhibited phenomenal arm strength and durability in their long careers, so being able to pitch even harder over the fewer innings that would be asked of them doesn't seem like much of a stretch at all.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think of a great pitcher as one that would do well and likely excel and help his team to win games, more than lose them. And that a truly great, all-time pitcher, would have success pretty much regardless of what period they were pitching in, at least since the modern era began around the beginning of the prior century. And in looking at pitchers like Darvish and Degrom, and then Johnson and Feller, I've got to say that I think Johnson and Feller would have a much better and realistic chance of also being successful and star/HOF caliber pitchers in today's game than Degrom and Darvish would ever have if they were trying to pitch back in Feller and Johnson's day.

Once again, the only thing that really, truly matters in a baseball game is if your team wins. And the greatest pitchers had/have that intangible "it" ability or trait, that no statistician can really measure or quantify with any of their advanced stats, to help their team to win. The only stat you can really look at to show or prove a certain pitcher had that "it" factor, is their wins. Period!!! Statisticians can try to call it luck, or try to give credit to other players on the team, or the opposing team's lousy offense or defense, or whatever, but then how do they truly explain why it is that only a certain select few pitchers always seem to be the same ones winning more games than everyone else, year after year after year? They can't, so they simply downplay wins and now try to convince everyone that wins never really mattered.

As Lombardi once said, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing!"

And along with that is another famous, anonymous quote, and universal truth, "The greatest ability is availability!"

Those two statements never have, and never will change or become irrelevant. And nothing any advanced statistician can say or do will ever prove them otherwise!