Comments on: I Wanna Hold Johan

By: Richard Aronson

Richard Aronson — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:38:04 +0000

Okay, Lincecum has outpitched Webb. And yeah, wins are very dependent on team, and the Cy Young Award is not the MVP, so team position shouldn’t matter much.

But look at the Diamondback’s team record. Pull Webb’s 19-7 (even after losing today). Without Webb’s decisions, the D’Backs are in 3rd place instead of half a game out of first. If you do the same for the Giants, they are in 5th place instead of 4th.

That means there has been more pressure on Webb all season long. And more than that in other ways: he’s the ace of a first place team, the guy expected to break the losing streaks. I think it’s harder to excel when there’s more pressure.

I first did this analysis a week and a half ago in response to some doof insisting Sabathia was the CYA winner. The thing is, in Sutcliffe’s year the only 20 game winner was also a 15 game loser (IIRC) and not atop the ERA leader boards, and league wide nobody had nearly as good a season as Lincecum or Webb. I still give the nod to Webb. But one or two more losses, and the D’Backs missing the playoffs, and I’d pick Lincecum. Hmm, I wonder if Chad Billingsley actually deserves some consideration after outpitching Webb today?

By: Closer

Closer — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:37:11 +0000

Great column. What I do think we need is a “quality-save” statistic; I am getting sick and tired of reading these lines:

Boston 8 Kansas City 5 (S) Pabelbon
Anaheim 3 Detroit 0 (S) Rodriguez

Protecting a 3 run lead in the 9th is not a Save!

By: knifewrench

knifewrench — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:47:40 +0000

Oh, I finally figured out this headline. And doing so compels me to issue this reminder: It’s pronounced Yo-hahn. Not Yo-han, like they constantly say on ESPN…

By: ChrisV82

ChrisV82 — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:59:36 +0000

I appreciate your work on this, Joe, but I think I’m going to go with my old favorite, Adjusted ERA+.

1) Lincecum -176
2) Webb – 153
3) Santana – 152
4) Dempster – 152
5) Volquez – 148

Lincecum gets my vote, not that I have one.

By: GSOAT

GSOAT — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:24:54 +0000

How could the name of Storm Davis not come up in this discussion? The year after his best W/L season (1989), our Royals signed him, and he performed largely as one might expect from his 1989 season- the ERA (4.36), not the W/L record (19-7). This is the most glaring example of a mediocre pitcher lucking into a ridiculously good W/L record without having the ERA to back it up. I remember being very disappointed when KC signed him, and at the time, I was 19 years old and had never heard of Sabermetrics!

By: ChuckO

ChuckO — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:32:20 +0000

I prefer the Win Probability Added method of evaluating players. An explanation of this statistic is available in the Glossary on the Fangraphs site. By this measure, Lincecum has clearly been superior. Lincecum: 4.71 Webb: 3.37: Santana: 3.04 Volquez: 2.52

By: dan

dan — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:28:51 +0000

Pitchers teams win about 2/3 (67% ) of quality starts. It’s not too bad.

By: T.J.

T.J. — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:46:37 +0000

I like the article but I feel it’s a bit misguided. I mean, why do we even need a one-size fits all statistic for pitchers? There’s a hundred things that go into whether a team wins or loses that have nothing to do with the pitcher’s performance.

I mean, nobody’s saying there should be one “quality game” stat for position players. We have all manner of well-researched statistics that can tell us about how a pitcher performed. Putting those statistics into context and deciding from that who was best should be the hardest part of a sportswriter’s job, not just going by wins.

I just don’t see why writers insist on extolling the virtues of a “team” statistics like wins — as they love to point out — for an award that is entirely individual.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:55:49 +0000

Joe,

That’s a great leaning action shot of you on SI.com. Makes me wonder whether they sent a photographer to Bejing to get a shot of you for the website.

By: Dusty

Dusty — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:36:32 +0000

i like the idea of wins as a baseball statistic.. but what if instead of only pitchers receiving it, all players have the possibility of getting one?

devise a metric, similar to win shares maybe, that takes into account each player’s performance for the game, with weighted numbers given to the obviously more important positions such as pitchers, etc.

say adam wainright gives up 13 runs in 4 1/3 innings, but albert pujols hits 4/4 with 3 home runs, 9 rbis and 4 runs and the cardinals magically win 14-13. after adding up all the stats, pujols ends up with the win.

you could do the opposite to create a new loss statistic.