If the criteria is changed, do we also go back and change all the records from the past? Or do we branch off into a future where any W/L comparisons with the past are apples and oranges? Neither sounds appealing to me.

If you want to know how good a pitcher was, you've got ERA, ERA+, FIP, WHIP, SNWL, and a whole host of metrics to help you with that. As for W/L record - if you think it's crap, ignore it. Most of us know by now to take it with a grain (or three) of salt. Not every stat has to enlighten the world.

If the criteria is changed, do we also go back and change all the records from the past? Or do we branch off into a future where any W/L comparisons with the past are apples and oranges? Neither sounds appealing to me.

I agree with this. While I've taken the time to vent about some of the absurdities that result from the win rule, if I was in charge I wouldn't change anything. What's done is done.

Here's what I would like to see- an expansion of the quality starts concept:

6 ip 3 er or less QS
7 ip 3 er or less GS (good start)
8 ip 3 er or less ES (excellent start)
9 ip 3 er or less SS (superb start)

Then you could look at a pitchers season stats as percentages of his starts where he achieved these numbers.

2012 Verlander looks like this:

21 total starts: 16 QS, 14 GS, 8 ES, 4 SS or 76/67/38/19

2012 C.C. looks like this

18 starts: 11 QS, 10 GS, 5 ES, 1 SS or 61/56/33/6

Just for fun, Jonathan Sanchez

7/0/0/0

That one was easy.


edited for punctuation and spelling

If the criteria is changed, do we also go back and change all the records from the past?

The criteria aren't going to be changed.

6 ip 3 er or less QS
7 ip 3 er or less GS (good start)
8 ip 3 er or less ES (excellent start)
9 ip 3 er or less SS (superb start)

8 IP, zero runs is better than 9 IP, 3 runs. Unless you have the Brewer closing options.

If the criteria is changed, do we also go back and change all the records from the past? Or do we branch off into a future where any W/L comparisons with the past are apples and oranges? Neither sounds appealing to me.

There's precedent for not changing the records, although it's been awhile since they were tinkering with things like how many balls equals a walk.

15 games is roughly 0.3% of the total number played in 2011.

Yes, but if you did away with the 5 inning minimum you would have people start to play games. It's not worth it to try to vulture wins today. You have to have a pitcher who isn't going to throw a fit about being removed. You have to have a decent lead, and balance that with the possibility of losing the game and/or burning up your bullpen. There's no real benefit to gaming the system today, except under the rarest of circumstances.

Do away with the minimum and I think you'll see a lot of cheap 20-win seasons start to pop up.

Do away with the minimum and I think you'll see a lot of cheap 20-win seasons start to pop up.

I'm not sure what you mean, what are some examples of game situations which would produce this result?

Do away with the minimum and I think you'll see a lot of cheap 20-win seasons start to pop up.

I don't see how this would be. Do you think starting pitchers would regularly leave games before 5 innings if they could still get a win out of it? I could see a situation where a pitcher gets a ton of run support, is leading 9-0 after the third inning. Say it's September, bullpen full of callups, and burning the bullpen is not an issue. Manager pulls him after 3 and he gets a win. Under the current rule, he'd pitch 5 innings before coming out, and still get his win. Only way this leads to more wins for the starting pitcher is if the manager changes the way the pitching staff operates, and gives the guy say, 50 starts per year of 3 innings each.

If teams want to try that instead of 30 starts, 7 innings out of 5 pitchers, then I'd hate to see a silly rule about who gets credit for a win be the only obstacle to it.

8 IP, zero runs is better than 9 IP, 3 runs.

I know, but I think the expanded QS concept could give you a quick and dirty idea about a pitchers effectiveness that would be miles ahead of W-L record.

I'm not sure what you mean, what are some examples of game situations which would produce this result?

Sorry, I clearly didn't phrase that well. I didn't mean that guys who would be getting 12 wins today would game the system and win 20. I was thinking of a good pitcher who gets up to 15 or 16 wins as the last month rolls around. Instead of finishing with 18 wins, the team starts him on his throw day, has him throw an inning or two, hoping to get the lead before the "real" starter comes in. So you'd have some 20-win seasons that would have been 17-18 win seasons.

What I always like, is how quickly someone will denigrate "quality start" and the talk up the win stat. Between the two, there is no comparison as to which is the better stat, quality start, despite it's one glaring flaw(that you can lose the quality start after earning it) is much superior to wins, and it's not remotely close. And in the past 30 years, quality start's have gained more value.

I still enjoy the fun little thought experiments, like who will be the next guy to get to 300 wins, even while knowing that the stat is overrated. I'm against the idea of doing away with it completely.

Agreed. I like it as a career stat, even if I don't attach much value to it.

What would records look like if we assigned wins and losses based on Win Probability Added?

Humanity would have ended if they started to use WPA as the basis of anything. Anything as retarded as wpa is a step towards humanity accepting creationism, truthers/birthers and bigfoot.

I don't see why relievers should be assigned wins at all. I also don't see why every game must have a winning pitcher. Not every game has a "save."

I like this, and am willing to subscribe to your newsletter.

If pitcher wins/losses didn't exist the first thing we'd have to do is invent it.

But with today's technology and computers, making things decimal based or formula based isn't nearly the hindrance it was 100+ years ago. I can see that if a system was developed today, that pitchers might get .1 wins for every inning they pitched in a game in which the team wins(with the starting pitcher getting the last remaining .1...extra innings and home wins of course being the death of a simple system which of course would just be modified by assigning a simple number based upon the percentage of the game they pitched)

6 ip 3 er or less QS
7 ip 3 er or less GS (good start)
8 ip 3 er or less ES (excellent start)
9 ip 3 er or less SS (superb start)
.........

2012 Verlander looks like this:

21 total starts: 16 QS, 14 GS, 8 ES, 4 SS or 76/67/38/19

To many stats ... but I think the basis for excellent or superb should be a sliding scaled based upon how much beyond a quality start you go. A superb start would be 7 innings 0 runs, 8 innings 1 run 9 innings 2 runs. A good start would be 7 innings 1 run, 8 innings 2 runs, 9 innings 3 runs. (or however you want but basically it's a performance beyond a quality start)

If the criteria is changed, do we also go back and change all the records from the past? Or do we branch off into a future where any W/L comparisons with the past are apples and oranges? Neither sounds appealing to me.

If you want to know how good a pitcher was, you've got ERA, ERA+, FIP, WHIP, SNWL, and a whole host of metrics to help you with that. As for W/L record - if you think it's crap, ignore it. Most of us know by now to take it with a grain (or three) of salt. Not every stat has to enlighten the world.

This my opinion as well. I love the historical record of wins - the trivia that baseball has ingrained in it's fiber. I love the continuity in baseball's statistics and would be disappointed to see the win stat "fixed" simply to appease our sensibilities.

I realize that wins are not the best analytical tool and don't use it for that.

I don't see why relievers should be assigned wins at all. I also don't see why every game must have a winning pitcher. Not every game has a "save."

Reminds mw of watching college basketball games where they announced the player(s) of the game afterwards. There were some games where no one deserved it, but they gave it out anyways. I think there was a sponsor involved.

2011 MLB starting pitching from B-R:

Wgs -- Wins in games started
Lgs -- Losses in games started
ND -- No Decisions in Games Started
Wchp -- Cheap Wins -- Wins in starts with < 6 IP or more than 3 ER Or wins in non-quality starts.
Ltuf -- Tough Losses -- Losses in quality starts ...

Wlst -- at the time the pitcher faced his final batter the pitcher was in position for a win, but game was blown by bullpen.
Lsv -- at this time of his last batter the pitcher was in position for a loss, but team came back to tie or take lead.

                                                  
Tm       Wgs  Lgs   ND Wchp Ltuf Wlst Lsv   QS QS%
ARI       71   54   37   13   13   10  24   90 56%
ATL       63   48   51   13   10   13  22   86 53%
BAL       46   72   44   12   12   15  24   60 37%
BOS       64   50   48   22   14   15  15   71 44%
CHC       46   65   51   12   16   21  19   76 47%
CHW       58   61   43    6   16   16  16   90 56%
CIN       50   55   57    5   15   18  27   90 56%
CLE       53   61   48    8   17   15  21   85 52%
COL       53   68   41   20   16   16  18   71 44%
DET       72   47   43   16   11    5  22   90 56%
FLA       42   60   60    7   21   15  24   83 51%
HOU       35   71   56    5   18   21  18   80 49%
KCR       45   65   52   10   17   17  19   75 46%
LAA       62   50   50    6   13   20  14   98 60%
LAD       65   61   35   14   23    8  16   94 58%
MIL       73   43   46   13   12   17  18   98 60%
MIN       46   71   45    8   17   17  18   80 49%
NYM       53   58   51   12   22   15  27   84 52%
NYY       71   45   46   14   12   14  19   84 52%
OAK       59   63   40    8   19   12  16   94 58%
PHI       76   42   44    9   14    5  18  108 67%
PIT       49   61   52   10   15   19  18   78 48%
SDP       52   66   44   13   25   17  16   91 56%
SEA       49   75   38    6   23   13  10   94 58%
SFG       60   58   44   11   25   12  18  103 64%
STL       62   42   58   16   11   16  28   86 53%
TBR       67   56   39   11   23   11  21   99 61%
TEX       74   40   48    8   11   14  16   99 61%
TOR       51   61   50   11   17   18  19   81 50%
WSN       49   58   54   16   20   21  17   79 49%
LgAvg     57   58   47   11   17   15  19   87 53%
Tm       Wgs  Lgs   ND Wchp Ltuf Wlst Lsv   QS QS%
        1716 1727 1415  335  498  446 578 2597 53%

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2011-starter-pitching.shtml

I still enjoy the fun little thought experiments, like who will be the next guy to get to 300 wins, even while knowing that the stat is overrated. I'm against the idea of doing away with it completely.

Eh....there are 24 300 game winners.

If you look at say the top 25 in Pitcher Career WAR the cutoff is about 77.

The highest active pitcher is Roy Halladay with 63. If he can recover from his injuries and put up 3 more typical Halladay seasons he can get there. Possible, no easy lock.

The next guy down the list that looks like he could get there is CC...but this season is making you think thats a stretch too.

Then you have to go to 29 yr. old Verlander as the next guy with an outside shot at it.

After that...who knows....Felix, Matt Cain, Greinke...guys young enough that if they are blessed with health and can pitch for 10 more years at a high level might have a shot.

It's just as interesting a thought exercise for me as speculating about 300 wins.

Active career pitching WAR leaders

It's just as interesting a thought exercise for me as speculating about 300 wins.

I don't see it. "Hey you just made it to 77 war" next week after a bad week "hey go out there again and make it back to 77 war"....or he could just Steve Carlton his last few years and go backwards... A milestone that can be lost, isn't really a milestone.

Mind you, the silliness of war as a pitching stat really undermines it anyway in this type of conversation.