[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by randomlefty10

Maybe because most pitchers have the goal of winning the game, not keeping their ratio low or striking out a lot of hitters. Not that I think W-L is the end-all of tradition, but the sabermetrics seeming venimous view of W-L is just as dumb IMO.

You can definitely agree that pitchers are responsible for at most 40% of the outcome?

So W-L record is at most 40% accurate? And wouldn't that be a horrible index then?

And if sabermetricians prove some other measures with, say, 70% of accuracy, why wouldn't they hate people using W-L as opposed to the new measures they come up with?

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by TotalEnd98

It's not really venomous. It's an understanding that W-L is a largely team-dependant statistic and has very little predictive value and low correlation to talent. Sure, we know that a pitcher who won 350 games was probably brilliant, and one who won 35 was likely not. You can use W-L for that just fine. But if you're trying to tell the talent difference between two pitchers, one who's won 250 and one who's won 225, you better be looking at something other than those wins.

I have to disagree with this, too. On a year-to-year basis, W-L records are, yes, very dependent on a pitcher's run support. However, over the course of a career, those things seem to even out. The list of the best W-L records in baseball history is, generally speaking, also a list of the best players ever to play. There are exceptions (Whitey Ford, I guess, although he was a very good pitcher), but they're of the "this guy should have been .580 but he was .600 instead" variety. In fact, if I had to pick between career ERA and career W-L to figure out which pitchers were better, I'd take the latter any day of the week.

And ironically enough, Mussina's W-L record is something that statheads could use on the non-stathead crowd, because in truth it is very, very good.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

I have to disagree with this, too. On a year-to-year basis, W-L records are, yes, very dependent on a pitcher's run support. However, over the course of a career, those things seem to even out. The list of the best W-L records in baseball history is, generally speaking, also a list of the best players ever to play. There are exceptions (Whitey Ford, I guess, although he was a very good pitcher), but they're of the "this guy should have been .580 but he was .600 instead" variety. In fact, if I had to pick between career ERA and career W-L to figure out which pitchers were better, I'd take the latter any day of the week.

And ironically enough, Mussina's W-L record is something that statheads could use on the non-stathead crowd, because in truth it is very, very good.

However, when we are discussing individual players, it doesn't help how a stat is accurate for 80% of the players.

And the reason why statheads might not like using W-L records to support Mussina:

1. Consistency. You don't use some stats you hate simply because it supports your point.

2. Era. Pitchers got less starts and last less innings these days. Using win numbers is not fair for modern pitchers.

[Luis_Rivera]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

In fact, if I had to pick between career ERA and career W-L to figure out which pitchers were better, I'd take the latter any day of the week.

Well I wouldn't use either without looking at context of the era for ERA. After doing so, I think you'd be a fool to choose W-L record over that.

Originally Posted by randomlefty10

Maybe because most pitchers have the goal of winning the game, not keeping their ratio low or striking out a lot of hitters. Not that I think W-L is the end-all of tradition, but the sabermetrics seeming venimous view of W-L is just as dumb IMO.

Pitchers are only responsible for a portion of the game. How the hell could Pedro Martinez control his relievers imploding after leaving them with leads in the 2003 season that left him with just 14 wins? Or Randy Johnson, who was the best pitcher in the NL last year with a 16-14 record because he got negative run support?

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Luis_Rivera

Well I wouldn't use either without looking at context of the era for ERA. After doing so, I think you'd be a fool to choose W-L record over that.

But here's the deal... once you reach a certain point, there are very, very few pitchers whose W-L record does not accurately reflect their value. Except relief pitchers, of course. Even modern pitchers, once they get past 60 or 70 career decisions, present you with a pretty accurate picture of their worth. Not as accurate as WARP3 or ERP, of course, but, counterintuitively, better than ERA and more illuminating than ERA+ as well.

Pitchers are only responsible for a portion of the game. How the hell could Pedro Martinez control his relievers imploding after leaving them with leads in the 2003 season that left him with just 14 wins? Or Randy Johnson, who was the best pitcher in the NL last year with a 16-14 record because he got negative run support?

Pedro Martinez has the highest winning percentage of any active player. Randy Johnson IIRC is 5th, behind Pedro, Moose, Clemens, and 2 guys who have a lot of career left to lower that metric (Hudson and Mulder).Not the best of examples...

[Luis_Rivera]

Pedro Martinez has the highest winning percentage of any active player. Randy Johnson IIRC is 5th, behind Pedro, Moose, Clemens, and 2 guys who have a lot of career left to lower that metric (Hudson and Mulder).Not the best of examples...

I'm aware of Petey being #1 overall, trust me. I was just pointing to obvious examples over the last 2 seasons where W-L was not a good metric in response to randomlefty.

It wasn't in response to your career W-L record contention. I understand that over a long career that it generally balances off for most guys. However, there's so many external factors, that I don't particularly care for it. Not to mention the fact that it's what EVERYONE cites when talking about pitchers so I probably am more defensive than I should be when it comes to using it.

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Luis_Rivera

I'm aware of Petey being #1 overall, trust me. I was just pointing to obvious examples over the last 2 seasons where W-L was not a good metric in response to randomlefty.

It wasn't in response to your career W-L record contention. I understand that over a long career that it generally balances off for most guys. However, there's so many external factors, that I don't particularly care for it. Not to mention the fact that it's what EVERYONE cites when talking about pitchers so I probably am more defensive than I should be when it comes to using it.

That's cool... just realize that now that the stathead community is finally beginning to gain acceptance with baseball as a whole, there's less and less of a need to get defensive. And it generally balances out not just for most guys but for nearly everyone. I've yet to see a truly great pitcher with a career record under .500, for example. Or even a very good one. Maybe there's some 19th century guy who was brilliant for 3 seasons but played for a horrible team all that time (back in the days of the 1 and 2 man "rotation"), but they're very rare if they exist at all.

[Big Train]

I think a big part of the argument here is peak performance vs longevity and consistently being very good, is dominating the league for a few years and then getting injured or whatever and having a shorter carreer better than being among the top 10 for a very long time even if never rising to the level of best in the league.

I don't think anyone is arguing that we should just throw out other stats and only look at wins or that wins aren't influenced by run support and other factors but over a certain point a large number of wins do demonstrate a sustained level of greatness. Some Hall of Famers are never or very seldom thought of by anyone as the very best pitcher but they are consisitantly good enough for a long enough period of time to rack up a lot of wins, maybe that is helped by the team they play for but staying in a good team's rotation for a long time and racking up good win totals every year is a feat in itself.
Don Sutton comes to mind when I think of this category and Rafael Palmiero as a hitter who will surely get in now and if Mussina has 4 or 5 decent seasons left he will be in this category as well. If he retired today I don't think he would be a Hall of Fame pitcher but he's fairly close.


Of course as others have pointed out when you get over a certain number of wins other statistics will tend to fall into line as well, you don't see many 300 game winners with high ERAs or other bad stats.

There's an extreme on both sides, I don't think Jack Chesbro, Joe Wood or Roger Maris should be in the hall based on one great season and I don't think someone like Rube Marquard or Jesse Haines should be there who won a lot of games but not enough in my opinion to make up for the fact that a lot of their other stats are less than stellar.

Like a lot of things a balance between how good a player was at his best and how long he was able to sustain that level of performance or close to it.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

But here's the deal... once you reach a certain point, there are very, very few pitchers whose W-L record does not accurately reflect their value.

However, when was the issue ever about pitchers who've reached a certain point? I mean, you got a great spread of Hall of Fame starters with win numbers from 145-511 here. W-L is VERY useless to decide if someone like Don Drysdale or Jack Morris or Dennis Martinez or David Wells or Vida Blue should be in the Hall. So what's the use of it?

[Big Train]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

However, when was the issue ever about pitchers who've reached a certain point? I mean, you got a great spread of Hall of Fame starters with win numbers from 145-511 here. W-L is VERY useless to decide if someone like Don Drysdale or Jack Morris or Dennis Martinez or David Wells or Vida Blue should be in the Hall. So what's the use of it?

Well most of those guys are pretty similar in terms of wins and percentage so obviously it's not going to mean much. If one guy has 210 and the other guy has 190 that is a point in favor of the first guy but on it's own it can't prove the first guy should get in; The second guy may be the better pitcher although he has a higher burden in terms of other stats to prove it. If the win difference is 30 or 50 it means something more substansial but like any stat it's just one thing to be considered when evaluating players.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by Big Train

Well most of those guys are pretty similar in terms of wins and percentage so obviously it's not going to mean much. If one guy has 210 and the other guy has 190 that is a point in favor of the first guy but on it's own it can't prove the first guy should get in; The second guy may be the better pitcher although he has a higher burden in terms of other stats to prove it. If the win difference is 30 or 50 it means something more substansial but like any stat it's just one thing to be considered when evaluating players.

And the point is, there are already lots of advanced stats to do it with much much much higher accuracy without the need to ever consult the W-L records. So how can you blame the statheads for ditching a bike for a car?

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

However, when was the issue ever about pitchers who've reached a certain point? I mean, you got a great spread of Hall of Fame starters with win numbers from 145-511 here. W-L is VERY useless to decide if someone like Don Drysdale or Jack Morris or Dennis Martinez or David Wells or Vida Blue should be in the Hall. So what's the use of it?

The only use of it I see is to compare pitchers to see who was better over the course of their career. Obviously WARP3 does a better job, but one does not always have access to WARP3 and what is more, one does not always have the ability to explain it to the uninitiated.

As for Jack Morris or Dennis Martinez or David Wells or Vida Blue, none of those four players are getting in on their stats alone. I could make a case for each, but the numbers they put up would only be peripheral to them. If you wanted to compare them to Don Drysdale to see who's better, then you could use W-L as one of many ways. "Who's better" has, as I've been saying, little impact on HOF worthiness as defined by the voting habits of the BBWAA or the Veterans' Committee.

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

And the point is, there are already lots of advanced stats to do it with much much much higher accuracy without the need to ever consult the W-L records. So how can you blame the statheads for ditching a bike for a car?

Because you're dealing with a generation of people who have never driven a car and sometimes you have to show them the bike first.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

The only use of it I see is to compare pitchers to see who was better over the course of their career. Obviously WARP3 does a better job, but one does not always have access to WARP3 and what is more, one does not always have the ability to explain it to the uninitiated.

And don't you realize that's why statheads hate W-L numbers.

W-L numbers are like calculators, and advanced stats are like Excel.

If I don't have Excel, of course I'd have to settle for calculators. However, when we have both, listening someone keep talking about using calculators is really annoying when you can do a lot more powerful stuff with the easily-available Excel. It's not really statheads' fault that not everyone knows how to use Excel.

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

And don't you realize that's why statheads hate W-L numbers.

W-L numbers are like calculators, and advanced stats are like Excel.

If I don't have Excel, of course I'd have to settle for calculators. However, when we have both, listening someone keep talking about using calculators is really annoying when you can do a lot more powerful stuff with the easily-available Excel. It's not really statheads' fault that not everyone knows how to use Excel.

However, it is the fault of the statheads for assuming that people who are less educated are stupid rather than just, well, less educated. And that includes using Excel. To give a great example: I work at a company where I have to constantly crunch numbers to make sure everything adds up right for our customers. I am the only person I know who works there who uses a spreadsheet to do this. Is it because I'm inherently smarter than everyone else? No, it's because baseball stats have made me used to Excel, whereas for the vast majority of my co-workers, it's still easier to do stuff on the calculator.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

assuming that people who are less educated are stupid rather than just, well, less educated.

Who?

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

Who?

In this case, the folks whom you're trying to convince that Pedro or Mike Mussina is better than more "clutch" players like Curt Schilling or Nolan Ryan. Step one would be to point out the W-L percentages. Step 2 would be to reveal that there's an even better stat out there that basically figures out how many earned runs a player has prevented over time. Step 3, if your subject's eyes haven't glazed over already, is to tell them about the metric. You may need to repeat steps 2 and 3 at a later date. My point is, you're never going to get to that point if your step 1 is just to call them stupid and refuse to explain yourself.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

My point is, you're never going to get to that point if your step 1 is just to call them stupid and refuse to explain yourself.

I think it's just calling them uneducated and feeling too much of a bother to educate them.

Can't blame them, considering it's not their duty to educate, and you've seen how people resist knowledge.

[Dagrims]

For those voting "no" or "too close to call", did his last two seasons do anything to make you change your vote?

[1998 Yankees]

Originally Posted by Dagrims

For those voting "no" or "too close to call", did his last two seasons do anything to make you change your vote?

Darn, the poll is closed. I would have voted "no" because he's been a good pitcher but not great enough for the HoF. I note with satisfaction that OOTPB would agree with me; I believe the default is either 300 wins or 250 wins and a career ERA of under 3.50. He has neither. He's never won 20 in a season and never carried a team to a championship; perhaps if he had, we could bend the rules. Sorry, Mike, no ticket to Cooperstown unless you're a paying tourist like the rest of us.