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I count four 300 game winners (Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux) whose careers began after the last 30 game winning season. So perhaps it's not quite as unlikely.
Also from the article:
DB
I believe someone posted an article here one time about this after Early Wynn won his 300th.
Schlossberg's whole life is an open <strike>shirt</strike> book!
I've gotta stop reading Boswell.
Um, no.
He's not really in the conversation with Grove.
Yeah, there's a reason he wasn't called 'Lefty' Spahn.
True.
Pettitte, the worst pitcher of the bunch, needs 71, and is entering his age 38 season. For comparison, David Wells had 78 wins from age 38 on. Jamie Moyer, 127.
He may not have a great chance, maybe 5-10% if he wants to go for it, but to say he has no chance is just ignorant.
And Buehrle. I can easily see him racking up 12-16 wins per year for the next 15.
While he's a great pitcher with a great career, Halladay would still have to age remarkably well - he'd have to average 15 wins a year for the next decade (until he's 42). Santana would have to do the same for the next 12 years (also until he's 42).
CC, on the other hand, has to be considered about as good a candidate as possible, given that he only needs to average 15 a year for the next 11 years (until he's 39), and he's set up for the next 6 seasons on what will likely be a high-quality offensive team.
Didn't you RTFA?
Granted I didn't RTFA and don't want to waste the time doing so (and also because it doesn't seem to be mandatory before commenting here); but, seriously, better than fellow 300 game winner Lefty Grove??
Granted Grove may not have really wanted to take the ball every fourth day if he had to pitch against the Yankees.
Granted I didn't RTFA and don't want to waste the time doing so (and also because it doesn't seem to be mandatory before commenting here); but, seriously, better than fellow 300 game winner Lefty Grove??
Spahn had 218 more career starts than Grove. That's enough added value to make up for the rate stats difference, since Spahn's own rate stats were good enough to win the great majority of games.
Granted Grove may not have really wanted to take the ball every fourth day if he had to pitch against the Yankees.
Of course you might in fairness also say the same thing about Spahn and the Dodgers, who might as well have been in the Mexican League as far as Spahn was concerned.
I'd say Pettitte, Doc Halladay, CC & Johan all have a chance.
And Matt Wieters.
And Buehrle. I can easily see him racking up 12-16 wins per year for the next 15.
Isn't he retiring in a year or two?
That's the big question. Obviously other ballplayers say similar things and most are usually FOS, but Buehrle says it A LOT. Personally, I hope he doesn't, since he's on the starting staff of my all-time favorite team and thus I hope he pitches into his 40s. If he does keep pitching, then he's got to be one of the better active candidates for 300, along with CC.
When talking about "best of all time" I don't think incremental quantity can overcome a huge quality edge.
Grove was 300-141, .680 W%, 3940.2 IP, 148 ERA+
Spahn, 363-245, 5243.2 IP, 118 ERA+
Even if you cut out a bunch of Spahn's poorest seasons to get him down to his best 4000 IP, his ERA+ still doesn't get above 125.
Spahn's typical good season was a 125 ERA+. He only has two seasons over 130. Grove has eleven seasons over a 150 ERA+.
Grove would have to have pitched 1303 extra inning at an ERA+ of 73 to "match" Spahn
Nope, Spahn's extra IP did not have "added" value.
Doing Pythag with a 1.82 exponent, assuming average offense and assuming RA=ERA, I get an ERA+ of 118 working out to about a .575 winning percentage (93-69 over a 162-game season, 17-13 over, say, 30 pitcher decisions) and an ERA+ of 148 working out to 0.671 (109-53, 20-10).
If only because it looked like it would take him 50 years to get that last win.
Nor should baseball stop counting the statistic any time, sooner or later.
How many Remagen Bridges did Grove take? Don't give me any guff about sample sizes.
Answer me this:
Why don't we count as a win any game started by a pitcher whee his team won?
Why don't we count "leads" as in what a pitcher's record would have been if the game ended everytime he left?
5-4 game:
Starter A, gives up runs in 5 innings, leaves with a 5-4 lead, no further scoring, he gets the "win".
Starter B, give sup -0- runs in 4 2/3ip, leaves game with cramp, relievers give up 4 runs the remainder of the game- the guy who came in and got 1 out to end the fifth gets the win.
Starter C: pitches 7, leaves up 3-2, pen blows lead, reliever gives up 2, gets replaced by PH- who hits 2 run homer to restore lead- the relief pitcher who blew Starter C's "win", get the W.
and so on
It was a reasonable stat back when SPs completed upwards of 75% of all games- didn't account for run support (or defensive support)- but useful the way RBI is/was useful, under today's conditions? It's a junk stat.
Man... I can't believe there's no love for this comment. Hilarious.
Only one fewer than Spahn.
Because MLB's stats don't exist entirely so geeks like us can measure value. They exist for a host of reasons (they help tell a story, they connect us in some way to past players, they create attainable milestones in the eyes of players and fans alike, they produce trivia, etc.).
Getting rid of wins would be monumentally stupid. You would be potentially alienating up to 95 percent of your baseball-viewing audience who enjoy tracking wins and losses to please the 5 percent of us knuckleheads who get pissed off because "it tells us nothing about how well a guy pitched." That's about as dumb a decision as a sport can possibly make.
If we don't like it, if we don't think it truly measures value, we can (and do) ignore it.
I went to one of those Sox games. We were smuggling in booze and an usher ran over to my buddy and seemed to grab him. I figured we were in real trouble. But he just gave him a "Congratulations on 300 Early" pin, and said "go root for Early boys."
Early got 300 the next season with Cleveland.
And that one he took with his right-hand.
That's a fair point. On the other hand, it would help if the idiots could learn that it's a silly stat to use to evaluate pitchers, particularly for single seasons.
The more the idiots cite the stat without understanding what the stat measures, the more new idiots are created. But, no, I don't want to make the stat magically disappear; I'll settle for laughing at the idiots who think that the stat is more meaningful than it is.
Who, though, would be "getting rid of wins"? Broadcasters? Fans? Sportswriters? Bud Selig in a directive to broadcasting affiliates? MLB.com? Sean Forman? I can't figure out who you're speaking of.
The idiots can continue to make fools of themselves, but I'd like to see people who produce the tv broadcasts and such use it less, just like they seem to have gone away from RBIs in favor of OBP and SLG or even OPS.
I was initially responding to the comment "baseball won't be getting rid of wins anytime soon." I took that to mean if MLB stopped counting it as an official statistic (much like it did with GWRBI). So if you've got an issue with the premise, take it up with Mike.
Well, there's always nostalgia for guys like Mathewson, Cobb, Collins, Alexander, Speaker, Ruth, and Hornsby who were inseparable from the teams they came up with :)
Also, I agree with Ray, I can't see why people get anxious about Wins. Usually, pitchers who have a lot of Wins had a pretty good year, and pitchers who didn't, didn't – always with exceptions like Randy Johnson in 2006 or Nolan Ryan in 1987, which nobody gets seriously confused about. Wins are not useful in predicting whether a pitcher will be any good in the long run or even the next season, but good GMs and smart fans have known that forever.
Like the ones who think Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, and Roger Clemens were great pitchers? I know what you're going to say - they're not great because they won a lot of games - but it turns out it's pretty good shorthand for identifying standout pitchers. Certainly it breaks down in individual seasons when you have fluky 15-20 win seasons from mediocre pitchers, but in terms of career value it works pretty well. Not the 300 standard per se, but certainly high win totals over a career reliably indicate value.
Yeah, because if he had been the fourth or fifth starter in place of CMW or even Gaudin, the team would have suffered immeasurably.
I think the implication was that the Yankees probably wouldn't have signed one of Burnett or Pettitte if Mussina had decided to come back for another season.
I thought the implication was that Moose was just an unlucky bastard, and that if he were still on the Yanks, they would have been doomed to come up short.
So was it A, B, C or will you go off the board for the answer bond1?
Grove was surely better, but it would seem easier to post gaudy ERA+ numbers when the average ERA in your league/era at times reaches 5.00+ (AL, 1936, 5.30 park adjusted lgERA+, Grove age 36) instead of <3.50 (NL, 1957, 3.49 park adjusted lgERA+, Spahn age 36).
Agreed. You also have to apply that discount to the modern guys (Johnson, Maddux, Martinez, Clemens, etc.).
But the gap is so large, that the point still holds.
MLB's stats WERE created largely in an effort to measure value, and any stat created and used by MLB would (to a greater or lesser extent) would be used to create perceived milestones, trivia etc.
IMHO certain stats have, over time, come to have negative value because of the way they are used/abused and even worshiped (or vilified)- pitcher wins, especially considering how they are assigned or not assigned, how they are sop team related and HOW the MSM and fandome ignore or downplay those flaws has rendered it a junk stat in my mind- want a good argument for banning pitcher wins? Read a few Tommy in CT (aka Tommy the Troll) posts (especially the ones extolling Guidry)- those arguments are not so different from what you hear from the MSM and non-stathead fans everyday, they do nothing to advance the argument- and to its adherents wins are unassailable.
Funny; I just bought Season One of Barnaby Jones on dvd...
Isn't it more likely that he'd be there instead of Burnett, rather than instead of those two?
EDIT: Wow, really late. Coke to Ryan.
I don't disagree with any of this, but none of it contradicts the classification of wins as a junk stat.
We're not in a war JPFW. If you don't want to argue with lunkheads like Tommy, then don't. His idiocy doesn't really have any bearing on your enjoyment of the game, unless you let it.
If you don't like wins, don't use them. But advocating the sport abandon a longstanding stat because some people misuse that stat is absurd.
No, if Mussina had come back they would not have resigned Pettitte.
People say this frequently about ERA+, but I don't see the evidence for it. The two periods with the most gaudy ERA+ numbers are the extremely low offense deadball era and the high offense 1990s-2000s. The low offense 1960s also had many great ERA+ seasons: seven pitchers broke 150 in the modern-day nadir for offense of 1968 with Bob Gibson leading the way at 258.
Disagreed.
Randy's rate stats are lowered by 5 or 6 so-so seasons at the start of his career; Grove pretty much dominated from his second season as a pitcher (age 26). Randy's first full season was at age 25, but he didn't become RANDY JOHNSON until age 29.
The same type of nonsense happens with saves. I can't tell you how many times Joe Torre waited for **precisely** the moment in the 9th inning when the back of the bullpen turned a blowout into a Save Situation, at which point he immediately summoned Rivera to get a cheap save.
On an even broader level, the entire save rule leads managers to manage robotically around a stat instead of basing their moves on something more intelligent.
If it gets measured, it gets managed.
A lot of people saw "The Wire," and a lot of 'em didn't learn a thing.
Grove did pitch an additional 1184 innings with Baltimore at an MLE over 100 ERA+. The only reason he wasn't in the majors is his minor league owner wouldn't sell his contract. He more than matches Spahn, it's really no contest. Spahn may deserve some war credit.
That's the fault of the manager, not the stat.
Baseball's primary purpose is as entertainment, not as a scholarly pursuit. It's wonderful that if affords a rather tiny subset of the baseball-consuming public that opportunity, but let's not take ourselves, or our endeavors, too seriously. Many baseball fans like following pitchers' wins and losses, arguing whether the 300 club will be reached again and other uses of the stat. And it's perfectly OK for them to do so. Sure, they're less informed than we are. So what?
It's comical seeing you defend idiotic analysis -- which is what so much of the citing of the wins statistic is. Not people just having fun with the numbers 20 and 300, but people actually basing analysis and pitcher evaluation on 20 win seasons and such. Let's not try to pretend that this is something it's not. People very often stupidly cite wins in evaluating pitchers, and over-rely on the stat. And I don't mind calling it what it is: idiocy.
How the hell am I defending idiotic analysis Ray? I'm not suggesting the stathead community stops trying to convince the non-stathead world that wins are a poor metric with which to value pitchers. By all means, keep at it. But if some casual baseball fan is not interested in the advanced metrics, that's ultimately OK. There's no baseball IQ test required for fanhood. And some knucklehead's piss-poor evaluation skills shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the game one bit.
In this thread, I said in response to Mike's comment in 35 that baseball would be foolish to abolish the win as a statistic. JPFW appeared to challenge that assertion, and I responded why baseball would be unwise to do so with reasons that you actually granted.
I haven't run the numbers, but I'd be willing to bet there's a greater correlation between wins and run prevention than between wins and run support. (Not to mention, the longer you're able to pitch, the better your chance of getting a win - or a loss - which again speaks to the team's confidence in the pitcher's ability.) Even if some guys occasionally luck into 18 wins with an ERA north of 4.50, or whatever, that kind of luck is not sustained. It might be misused by people like Joe Morgan, but it's far from a junk stat.
One thing that the newer stats ignore is that most good pitchers get to choose what team they pitch for.
Starter goes 5 innings and gives up 5 runs, leaves with a 6-5 lead and gets a Win.
That "actually happened," but I don't see why I care that the starter was rewarded.
You mean Cy Young's career loss record?
I also wouldn't care if in that same game someone hit 4 triples if he never once scored, his contributions were irrelevant to the outcome of the game. During the course of the year if that guy got lucky that day it would show if he was a fast guy with good power those extra base hits will make a difference eventually.
In general that's true but in many cases it's not true (e.g., the year Ryan went 8-16 while leading the league in ERA).
It's not true in enough cases as to be a huge problem.
How often does this happen to the same pitcher, though? It's not as if there is a skill level where a guy can consistently win while pitching 5 innings and giving up 5 runs.
Overall, wins are a decent record of what happened over a period of time (i.e. season or career). Not perfect, not predictive... but decent nonetheless.
Huge problem? How many full-time starting pitchers have wildly aberrant W-L records in a given season? One, maybe?
And how about career?
I confess that it irritates me that someone like Jack Morris got credit for many "wins" which had more to do with Alan Trammell or Lou Whitaker or Kirk Gibson. It's a linguistic point that affect the way that most fans see the game.
I don't know why we need to focus on "wildly" aberrant records, but there's so much noise in seasonal W-L record that I quite simply don't bother looking at it when evaluating pitchers to see who the best pitchers in any particular year, or on any particular team, were. I don't look at the wins leaders in any given year, either during the season or after it's over. Last year the media was making a big deal about Tim Wakefield leading the league with 11 wins at the All Star break; it was news to me that he had that many or was leading the league, and I'm a Red Sox fan and follow the team fairly closely (although I didn't have the MLB package last year so wasn't watching a lot of the games).
For career, yeah, it's better, but still isn't worth all that much.
Off the top of my head I have to think it's the low K rate that doesn't bode well for Hudson's longevity. He just doesn't have that far to fall.
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