That's still not an acceptable answer.

I've been thinking about a way to explain this better without pulling out the "you have to have played the game" card.
Say my team gives me a 3-0 lead. I go out for the seventh inning knowing the only way I can lose if I put guys on base. So I'm throwing strikes, and someone hits a solo homer. So what? I go back out for the eighth and I give up another solo homer. Again, so what? My closer finishes out the game and we win.  Maybe my line 8 6 2 2 0 5 doesn't look as good as a 6 4 0 0 0 4 line, but I've saved my bullpen two innings for another day.
I was trying to think of a guy who personifies this and the name I came up with is Catfish Hunter. If you look at his numbers, they're pretty ordinary for a Hall of Fame pitcher. But if you gave Hunter a lead, he'd hold onto it like his last breath.
Look at Gibby's line from Game 7 of the '64 World Series - 9 9 5 5 3 9. That's not even a quality start by today's standards. But was there another pitcher on the Cardinals - or any other team - that you would have wanted on the mound at that point in time?

"An exception to this is that a pitcher who starts a game cannot be credited with a win if he does not pitch at least five innings. If his team takes a lead it does not relinquish while that pitcher is in the game, the win is awarded to the relieving pitcher who, in the judgment of the scorer, pitched the most effectively."

A rule which probably applies once or twice a year to each team.
Let me turn it around on you and ask you for the umpteenth time why you're so dismissive of wins as a statistic? Is the point of taking the mound to win the game, or is it to impress Cy Young voters with your VORP?

Max wrote:

I think team wins is the single most impressive statistic that there is.  I don't think that pitcher wins are anywhere near as impressive.  And furthermore, I that the effectiveness of a pitcher is much better estimated with a variety of other statistics, particularly when considering moving that pitcher from one team to another.

If the Cards were interested in acquiring one of two pitchers, and one had pitched for the Yankees and the other for the Mariners, one of the last statistics I would be interested in was their W-L record.

Well, there are other factors involved like age, salary and what you'd have to give up, but if the Cardinals traded for Felix Hernandez instead of Sabathia, wouldn't one of the first questions inevitably be "I wonder how he'll hold up in the pressure of a pennant race?" With Sabathia, you already have a pretty good idea.

Max wrote:

The Cards got swept out of the playoffs in 2009.  If that were their only playoff experience, would we interpret those L's as meaning that our pitchers can't hold up under the pressure of the playoffs?

For obvious reasons, this question falls into the "If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle" category.

artie_fufkin wrote:

I've been thinking about a way to explain this better without pulling out the "you have to have played the game" card.
Say my team gives me a 3-0 lead. I go out for the seventh inning knowing the only way I can lose if I put guys on base. So I'm throwing strikes, and someone hits a solo homer. So what? I go back out for the eighth and I give up another solo homer. Again, so what? My closer finishes out the game and we win.  Maybe my line 8 6 2 2 0 5 doesn't look as good as a 6 4 0 0 0 4 line, but I've saved my bullpen two innings for another day.
I was trying to think of a guy who personifies this and the name I came up with is Catfish Hunter. If you look at his numbers, they're pretty ordinary for a Hall of Fame pitcher. But if you gave Hunter a lead, he'd hold onto it like his last breath.
Look at Gibby's line from Game 7 of the '64 World Series - 9 9 5 5 3 9. That's not even a quality start by today's standards. But was there another pitcher on the Cardinals - or any other team - that you would have wanted on the mound at that point in time?

You're arguing something completely different.

How guys like Neyer or James come up with ways to measure pitchers has nothing to do with why decisions are a crappy stat that tell you shit about how good a pitcher is.

A decision is tied directly to how a pitchers lineup/bullpen was that day and over 162 games. If you go 18-11 with a 4.70 ERA, you pitched on a team that obviously scored lots of runs. Until someone tells me how a pitcher influenced his lineup to go out there and score six runs every time he took the mound, I will continue thinking it's a piss poor way to judge Pitcher A against Pitcher B.

"A decision is tied directly to how a pitchers lineup/bullpen was that day and over 162 games"

It's certainly a consideration, but the biggest factor is how a pitcher performs that particular day. Why was Halladay among the league leaders in wins nearly every year he was with the Blue Jays? Did he have a great bullpen and good run support on those 4th place teams in Toronto? How come Josh Towers never won 20 with that juggernaut?

Max wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

Really? Let's look at the Cardinals win total from last season. Would you not maintain that Wainwright (20), Carpenter (16) and Garcia (13) were their three best pitchers, in that order?
Maybe that's just the Cards. How about the World Series champion Giants? - Lincecum (16), Cain (13) Sanchez (13) and Zito (9). Bumgarner won seven, in 18 starts. Pro-rate that to an entire season and that's 12-13 wins. His other numbers are consistent with Cain's and Sanchez's.

"Even on the same team we can see crazy things happen with Wins."  of course the effect will be more pronounced comparing W's of pitchers on different teams, but even so . . .

Cards 2002

Simontacchi 11-5
Williams 9-4

Cards 2003

Tomko 13-9
Morris 11-8
Haren 3-7

Cards 2004

Marquis 15-7
Carpenter 15-5

Come on, Max.
Carpenter was shut down due to a nerve problem in 2004 and missed the last month of the season and the playoffs. And Marquis was a pretty good pitcher that season. His ERA was only about a third of a run higher than Carpenter's.
Morris had six fewer starts than Tomko in 2003. Haren was a rookie who made 14 starts.
Woody made 17 starts in 2002. Simontacchi made 24.

Max wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

Max wrote:

"Even on the same team we can see crazy things happen with Wins."  of course the effect will be more pronounced comparing W's of pitchers on different teams, but even so . . .

Cards 2002

Simontacchi 11-5
Williams 9-4

Cards 2003

Tomko 13-9
Morris 11-8
Haren 3-7

Cards 2004

Marquis 15-7
Carpenter 15-5

Come on, Max.
Carpenter was shut down due to a nerve problem in 2004 and missed the last month of the season and the playoffs. And Marquis was a pretty good pitcher that season. His ERA was only about a third of a run higher than Carpenter's.
Morris had six fewer starts than Tomko in 2003. Haren was a rookie who made 14 starts.
Woody made 17 starts in 2002. Simontacchi made 24.

So, in other words, W's need a lot of explanation, as opposed to a really well-designed statistic that speaks for itself.

Two sentences on each set of stats is "a lot of explanation?" (I know the 2004 qualifier contains three sentences. But I could have easily combined the last two. Easily.)

He is also the leader in WAR.  If I am looking at the right data the leaders in WAR for pitchers are

Cliff Lee
Roy Halliday
Justin Verlander
Josh Jonhson
Ubaldo Jimenez
Felix Hernandez
Adam Wainwright

I'll be the first to admit I understand little about sabermetrics, but I have a question about WAR.

According to Baseball Reference, WAR stands for wins above replacement, and is defined as: "a single number that represents the number of wins added to a team above what a replacement player (think AAAA or AAA) would add.  This value includes defensive support and includes additional value for high leverage situations."

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/2010-value-pitching.shtml#players_value_pitching::11

The National League pitcher WAR rankings have Wainwright listed as have a 5.7 WAR.  Wainwright won 20 games last season.  Who is the replacement that would have won 14.3 games last year, and why wasn't he in the #5 spot in the rotation last season?

Max wrote:

APRTW wrote:

CY Young, the guy the award was named after is the all time leader in ........drumroll.....WINS.

We weren't talking about the Cy Young award, but even so, he is probably the career leader in a few things.  There is nothing in the Cy Young award itself that says it goes to the pitcher with the most wins.  If there were, there would be nothing to argue about on that score. 

Bottom line:

Team wins: two enthusiastic thumbs up!
Pitcher wins: thumbs down

Thanks for finally making sense and coming around to my way of thinking, Max. A guy on a team that finished with 61 wins has no business winning individual  awards.

Last edited by artie_fufkin (12/21/2010 6:07 pm)

Max wrote:

Can we please get back now to why JV is defending the indefensible?

Come on, Max; I haven't said ONE THING in support of Artie's position.