Is this a joke? Yes there are some pitchers who keep composure and keep them in the game. I much rather have a guy who give ups 3 runs and 6-7 innings every single start than a guy who shuts them out and gives up 5+ runs the next day.
I was just about to bring Keyshaw up, 9-10 in the playoffs. Do you still put him out there game 7? I probably would but it would depend on who else is available. But yes, W/L isn’t everything. There are a lot of great pitchers that are going to have bad win loss record because they won’t have as much run support. But it is something we can use with a long list of stats to gauge things.
I’ll have to go with Taiwanguy. Even your hypothetical pitcher Andrew who gives up 3 runs every single start will be totally dependent on run support for the W or L. He’ll be a great pitcher because he only gives up 3 runs, and more precisely only lets that many men get hits, walks and extra bases. My interest in baseball is purely for fantasy; I don’t think I looked at a pitcher’s W/L record once last year. I think if I wanted to assemble a real winning team it would be the last thing I looked at as well.
You’re fantasy league doesn’t count W/L? Mine does. Also for quality starts.
If your fantasy team doesn’t count win loss and QS, then yes that doesn’t matter. But for an actual team it would be something a GM/manager considers.
Would you put Kershaw in during playoffs looking at his playoff stats and regular season stats. Lots of things to consider. I love baseball for the stats, so many to look at. And W L isn’t the best or everything. But it does matter when considering pitchers makeup.
It definitely counts W and QS. QS is a more reliable stat to me. I like getting the wins, but don’t consider pitchers’ previous W/L stats as a reliable predictor. I just want them to be a good pitcher, and for the specific purpose of collecting the maximum number of W, on a good team.
Of course I put Kershaw in if he’s healthy. But not because of his W/L record.
Also a guy giving you 6-7 innings every start giving up 3 runs will not burn through your bullpen. A guy gives you shut out and gets knocked around out by the 3-4 innings does. They both can have similar ERA but one is arguably worse for the team. I want inning eaters and efficient pitchers. For example on fantasy I have to balance a guy I know who gets Ks and a guy who eats innings. More pitchers with high strikeout rates hardly get past 5-6 innings.
The idea that there exist some guys that can consistently go 6-7 innings at about 3 ERs per while others who put up similar stats but do it by having a mix of great starts and crap starts is just ridiculous.
Baseball is a game played on the margins. The difference between a really good hitter (3 hits in every 10 at bats) and a really crappy hitter (2 hits in every 10 at bats) is very small. Considering the marginal difference in abilities and all of the randomness in the game, to propose that there are certain players who can pick and choose or through some sort of skill can control their streakiness or consistency in the game is pretty absurd. It’s been mathematically shown time and time again that these things just don’t exist.
Wang was a pretty good pitcher for a couple of seasons. He was fortunate enough to play on a team that scored a crap-load of runs for him. That’s Wang’s story. Who knows what would have happened if he had avoided injury? Perhaps he continues to be a pretty good pitcher. Maybe some of his more extreme stats (GB% and HR/9) regress towards the mean a bit, and he becomes a below average pitcher. No one knows what would have happened.
I just think he was overhyped. He was never going to be a consistent ace-level pitcher. I can’t think of a pitcher in history that was consistently ace-level with his kind of profile. You have to be able to miss bats if you are really going to establish yourself as an ace. His profile leads one to assume he probably would have seen his overall success decline a bit and be a reasonable mid-rotation starter.
He pitched 2 and a half years before injury. Even the greatest pitchers do not pitch the same after a few years. They adjust. I would say a guy who has 95+ velocity can do something like add a change up and it would be a game changer for him. But he clearly could not throw 95+ plus after injury.
A combination of stats in perspective to the eye test.
Every pitcher is different, should we look at BABIP of a strikeout pitcher and a ground ball pitcher and use that to compare without consideration of their pitching style? Also some guys just have a awful defense behind them.
Depending on the pitcher, I wouldn’t look at the same stats for a strikeout pitcher and a ground ball pitcher. What’s the whiff rate for a strikeout pitcher, BB/9, etc. But nothing beats the eye test and going back to stats to see what’s going on and confirm.
For example I would look at Whiff rate, and especially contact in zone percentage. But I wouldn’t value contact in zone percentage as much for a contact pitcher because they want you to make contact, bad contact.
Even then each strikeout pitcher is different. You can’t weight stats the same way for Yu Darvish and Chapmen. They clearly have a very different style and there are stats to look at to see if they are doing what they are trying.
His ground ball rate was insane. Third highest in 20 years.
His HR rate was insane. 2nd lowest in 20 years.
He didn’t strike out that many people. But he didn’t try to get out of jams as much. He just kept inducing ground balls and exchanging outs for runs, and let Yankee hitters take care of it.
I lost patience about 5 min in, that guy’s a bit long winded. Interesting stuff though. This looks like a good article, time to start getting ready for baseball now Would be nice to have an edge in pitcher drafting
Basically Verlander has thrown triple digits 44 times in 8th inning, the second most is like 4 times of any SP ever we recorded. Average spin rate is about 2200 RPM, he was touching 3000 with the highest average of 2600+ on 4 seam fast balls.
But I also read articles of pitcher with high whiff rate with very low spin rate so IDK. Location is obviously not considered, a good located fastball is imo the best pitch in baseball.
I got that bit of it. On the other hand, I and everyone knows Verlander is elite so there’s not really anything useful there. But if there’s a way of picking out diamonds from the rough–before everyone and his grandmother knows what spin-rate means-- that’s obviously something. Even identifying one considerably underrated pitcher in the draft would be useful
Would be nice to have an edge in pitcher drafting