GET OFF MY LAWN!! I do believe Fisk has a point- When watching old games on MLB TV(THANK YOU!), I notice that the zone was larger in the 70s, AND hitters swung at more pitches that were not pitches that hitters today seem to swing at as much. That selectivity 9or lack of same) does a lot to add strikes to total and lessen pitch counts.

Perez said that expansion has also been a culprit.... “We’ve got a lot of guys who are position players who aren’t ready to hit in the big leagues.

Remember during the '90s/'00s home run explosion when the chorus of ex-players was telling us that expansion was the culprit because we had so many pitchers who weren't ready for the big leagues? C'mon, guys, you can't have it both ways.

Well, yes, you can, because no one holds you accountable for your contradictions.

no one holds you accountable for your contradictions.

Of course it's only a contradiction if Perez held the counter view at the time. Oddly enough, not all ex-players think the exact same thing, as noted in this very excerpt.

The sillier thing about Perez's statement is that it's been 15 years since the last expansion.

Fisk, elaborating on a greater point, said that the game doesn’t need to change the rules as much as it needs to embrace the ones that are already on the books. The longtime catcher said that umpires don’t call the strike zone the way the rulebook does, and that’s had far-reaching implications.

“You can talk about contracts [or] arbitration, and you can talk about performance-enhancing drugs,” he said. “They all had an impact on the game, but I think the reason there’s a pitch count—which I think is ludicrous—is that the strike zone is perverted. ... I get in more trouble challenging umpires and the strike zone later in my career than ever.

Fisk nailed that part. The top of the strike zone is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the batter's shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, which roughly corresponds to the bottom of the armpits. The last time I saw a pitch that high called a strike was during the Reagan administration.

People talk about how slow the game is, and it is slower, because there are so many specialty positions on the pitching staff. You’ve got a starter, and a quality start is [six] innings and three runs. We used to send those guys to Double-A.”

If the Red Sox had yanked Bill Lee after 5 innings in that 7th game, the Red Sox might have won that World Series.

a quality start is [six] innings and three runs. We used to send those guys to Double-A.

No yah didn't. Because a quality start is also 7 innings and 3 runs. And 6 innings and 2 runs. And ...

Yes, starters with 4.50 ERAs weren't exactly stars. Yet the 1979 Red Sox (first one I clicked on) had a team ERA over 4 and Mike Torrez threw 250 innings at 4.49. A bunch of relievers were over 4.50 but they might well have spent some time in AA (and almost certainly AAA).

The 1986 White Sox used 197 innings of 5.50 ERA from Dotson and 105 from a kid named Joel Davis (who probably spent time in AA).

Anyway, it's that old point about QS that annoys me. No a 6 IP and 3 runs start is nothing to brag about. But a quality start is not the same thing as a 4.50 ERA pitcher. The problem with 4.50 ERA pitchers is they often (about half the time) don't give you a quality start. The other half of the time they are giving you 6/2, 7/2 or 7/3 all of which make you happy. And a pitcher who never did worse than 6/3 would almost certainly be among the best pitcers in the league.

Here's a trivia question I don't think I've seen before. I'm not sure how far back b-r's QS info goes but, career leaders in QS% (min 1500 IP) and their %age?

Seaver at just over 70%. Even Tom F'ing Seaver failed to give you a QS 30% of the time.

#2? Why Mel Stottlemyre of course! :-) Followed by Wilhelm (not that many starts, should have put a floor on that). Then Oswalt, Gibson, Halladay, Johnson, Martinez, Drysdale, Schilling, K Brown, Nolan, Rogers, Veale, Clemens ... Maddux checks in at 65%. Blyleven is at 62.6% and Ryan at 62.2% although in Blyleven's case I suspect it was a lot higher until he hung on for so many mediocre years (while Ryan was surely worse early). Fergie is all the way down at 60% (maybe a Wrigley/Texas/Fenway thing) and is the worst-ranked HoFer I've noticed.

I can't imagine QS or QS% tells you anything that the main pitching stats don't but it's not like they're something any old pitcher can do. Looking at 1990 onwards, seasons with at least 25 quality starts, the worst such season was Jeff Weaver 2004 with an ERA+ of 102. Next worse was Nomo at 112 and only 8 of the 112 such seasons resulted in an ERA+ under 120. Johnson, Felix and Maddux are tied with 30 for most in a season 1990-2011.

On the flip side, seasons with 30+ starts but 15 or fewer QS is topped by Jonathan Sanchez with a 127 ERA+. Kinda cool are Garza 2008 and Lilly 2004 at 119. Felix 2007 actually shows up here too. Kelvim Escobar 1999 possibly qualifies as the worst full-time starter of the last 20+ years with his 9 QS in 30 starts, 86 ERA+ in 174 IP. Or Tanyon Sturtze with 10/33, 85 ERA+, 224 IP. Scott Elarton is the worst "career" of that time period with QS in just 37% of his 170 starts. Chris Haney, Shawn Boskie and Tim Redding are the other guys under 40%. The worst with 200+ starts is Jason Bere at 42%; Moehler for 250 starts at 42%; Jeff Suppan with 417 starts at 46% is the man! Bere also finished with a career record over 500.

I don't know if it was part of the original rationale for the QS cutoff, but for pitchers with a record near 500, the QS% seems to be around 52-53% so not bad.

Wait, Kirk Rueter is the man! QS% of .482; W% of .588. Rich Harden is also good at .500 and .608

I remember looking at quality starts a few years back and I recall finding that if your starting pitcher gives you exactly 6 innings and gives up 3 runs your team is likely to win something like 48% of the time. Not really too shabby.

Edit: Found the data.

From 1998 to 2006 there have been 1968 games in which the pitcher pitched exactly 6 innings and gave up 3 runs.

Their team has a record of 923-1035 in those games.

Now the one thing to note is that is earned runs.

Now then if you go by exactly 6 innings and giving up exactly 3 runs (earned or unearned) then we get 1806 games in the 1998 to 2006 timeframe and the pitcher's team has a 919-887 record for a .509 winning percentage.