Jered Weaver is working on a consecutive-wins streak. Wins aren’t meaningful as a way to evaluate pitchers, but every now and again they lead to something wonderful.
Aug 9, 2012 - We, the hip and enlightened, know that individual pitcher wins aren’t meaningful. Team wins and losses are everything. Individual pitcher wins are an often arbitrary act of accounting in which sole credit is awarded to an individual for a group triumph. Remember Bartolo Colon winning 18 games with a 5.01 ERA in 2004? Storm Davis fooling the Royals into offering him a lucrative free-agent contract by going 19-7 for the World Champion A’s despite posting a 4.36 ERA in a pitcher’s park? Conversely, AL 2010 ERA leader Felix Hernandez won the Cy Young award despite going only 13-12 because voters chose not to penalize him for the failings of his team. In short, they recognized that individual wins did not accurately portray the value of the pitcher.
Having said that, pitcher wins can be kind of fun.
Jered Weaver of the Angels is a case in point. His 15-1 record in no way makes him the most valuable starter in the league, but it sure is pretty to look at. His ability to pile up wins also brings to mind a time when a pitcher’s record said a bit more about his value.
...It was 100 years ago, in a game that only superficially resembled our own. Yet, if Weaver continues to pile on wins in the starts remaining to him, imagine the excitement of a September 6 of our own, with Weaver facing a Johnson or a Wood with a personal stake in the outcome of the game beyond his team’s place in the standings. Rarely has baseball been so personal as it was that day. We probably won’t see such a day again, and September 6, 2012 will probably pass, unremarked upon.
Repoz
Posted: August 09, 2012 at 11:52 AM |
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1. Nasty Nate Posted: August 09, 2012 at 12:27 PM (#4204346)He missed three starts to injury, but he's been pretty damn dominant in his 20 starts. His K rate has dropped a bit and his velocity is down - which worries me a bit - but he has been really good this year.
This isn't Ivan Nova version 2011 - this has been a legitimately good stretch of pitching.
In a season where he averaged just under five and a half inning per start. And in the same year in which they signed Mark Davis because of all of those saves.
That wasn't a very good offseason for the Royals.
Obligatory and super cool, I might add
You can tell me I'm not wanted,
But the joint will still be haunted;
'Cause I'm the ghost of Smoky Joe.
Man, that's priceless
But he had that sparkling 85 ERA+. ERA+ is like ERA, where lower numbers are better, right? :D
Look, I know the wins statistic is fraught with inaccuracy, but generally, pitchers with more wins are better than pitchers with fewer wins. The wins statistic is not meaningless, just inaccurate and historically over rated.
http://articles.courant.com/2011-05-20/sports/hc-viola-darling-anniversary-0521-20110520_1_yale-coach-yale-field-ron-darling
The oldtimers here know this, but it's still worth mentioning:
Future MLB (and Met) pitchers Ron Darling and Frank Viola pitched an all-time classic college baseball game in 1981. In the stands was .... Smokey Joe Wood with author Roger Angell.
The incredible resulting story - a man who once dueled fellow young hurler Walter Johnson with his observations on these hot prospects - appeared in the book, "The Summer Game," the author notes.
No, it would be the awful J-wood. Though Smoky-J is kinda cool....
If Smoky Joe were playing today the damn Red Sox wouldn't be 55-58!
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