The flaws of the Win statistic are so obvious that it is hard to imagine anyone taking it seriously as a good indicator of pitcher talent. So much that goes into earning a Win is outside of the pitcher’s control – his defense, his offense, the quality of the opposing pitcher that day, and how his bullpen performs after he exits the game – that it’s far better to look at other stats when evaluating a pitcher’s talent or trying to compare pitcher to pitcher for awards purposes. Even ERA, which has clear shortcomings, is far superior to the Win.
The mainstream usage of the Win continues, though, in spite of obvious evidence of its relative uselessness. There are several reasons for this. The Win is easy enough to understand and interpret. A pitcher with a lot of wins is supposedly good; a pitcher with few wins is supposedly not so good. It’s a binomial stat – you either get a win or you don’t – and there’s no average to calculate, no linear weights to compute, no long division necessary. The official scorer tells you at the end of the game who got the Win, and that’s the end of it. It’s also popular because old habits die hard, and because as children it was one of the first stats we learned, right after Home Runs and RBI. USA Today has a tiny box at the bottom of the MLB page in the Sports section listing the league leaders in Wins. When I was a kid, I would study these tables and memorize the leaders. It was a part of how I understood the game, and it’s repeated at the end of every game and on every highlight clip on Sportscenter. ”The winning pitcher was…Taking the loss was…” It’s ingrained into baseball consciousness and even has some nostalgic value to it. Discarding the Win means discarding the way you used to understand baseball. It’s a good thing to grow up, but it hurts a little.
Yet one of the main reasons, I’d imagine, that the Win hangs on and stays relevant is its name. Calling this statistic the “Win” is a branding coup because it’s hard for people to separate the idea that earning the Win statistic and causing your team to win are two different things. Indeed, you don’t have to look very far to find members of the BBWAA citing some truism like “winning is what matters” and “the object of the game is to win” or “you play to win the game” as evidence for why the guy with the most Wins should get the Cy Young. Of course, they’re conflating a pitcher putting his team in a good position to win with accumulating the statistic known as the Win, but they either don’t realize it or don’t care. The distinction between the proper noun and the active verb eludes them. Would they be so dogmatic about the importance of the Win if it was called something like the “LNB” for “Leads Not Blown”? Probably not. In this case, a rose by any other name would not be so sweet, and it certainly wouldn’t be one of the determining factors for whether a pitcher wins the Cy Young or gets into the Hall of Fame.
CC Sabathia toes the mound tonight against the Orioles with 19 Wins, or LNBs, under his giant belt this season. He’s on the cusp of accumulating 20 Wins for the first time in his career. Like it or not, 20 Wins is a big accomplishment for baseball players, and it’s hard to get to 20 wins without being a good pitcher. This is part of the reason the Win is so popular: the most convincing lies are half-truths. Most 20 game winners are very good pitchers, but this is only an incidental fact. On its own the Win won’t tell you very much at all.
Nevertheless, I’ll still root for Sabathia to rack up his 20th win on the year and not just because I hope the Yankees win today. The Win stat and the pursuit of 20 Wins is a part of our baseball consciousness. It will be interpreted as a major milestone for the big lefty, and any praise he receives as a result is well-earned. Sabathia has had another excellent year and he remains one of baseball’s elite pitchers. Despite the fact that his strikeout rate has dropped, he’s still dominating AL batters by inducing groundballs and keeping guys off-base. He’s an ace in his prime in true form, and it’s a delight to watch him pitch every five days. I’ll be happy for him when he wins his 20th game, just so long as he doesn’t win the Cy Young as a result.
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7 Responses to The Win and the pursuit of 20
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TIQ IQ
The win is valuable in that it tells you whether the team won or lost on days when the pitcher started and if that pitcher had a stake in that outcome (lasted at least 5 innings for a starter to get the win). Yes it is not all-encompassing like a teams win-loss stat, or hyper specific as other stats but on average it can provide a baseline comparison between pitchers if used properly (in conjunction with ERA and other stats).
Yes you can argue its also a function of a teams offense and ball-pen, but the counter is a pitcher can always avoid getting a loss if he gives up no runs, and if he pitches deeper into games (or complete games) he can avoid the impact of a bad pen.
Basically, I don’t want to see something as fundamental as the W-L stat for the pitcher to go anywhere. If you close your mind you can missue any stat (53% of all people know that).
I agree about wins having some use. Even Bill James used them.
Here’s what I always say about wins when in a conversation with someone: a pitcher isn’t a good pitcher because he gets a lot of wins; a pitcher gets a lot of wins because he’s a good pitcher.
If a guy gets 20 wins in a season, he probably had a very remarkable season, pitching very well. That is, it can tell you who some of the good pitchers are. But it can’t tell you who ALL the good pitchers are or how good pitchers are relative to each other. You can’t say X pitcher had a better season than Y pitcher because X had 20 wins and Y had 14 wins. If you do, you become those St. Louis columnists who took Keith Law to task for voting for Tim Lincecum over Carpenter and Wainwright last year. A PITCHER’S JOB IS TO WIN THE GAME!!!!! That lack of intellectual conscience is astounding.
I think that certain things are permanently tied to ‘lesser stats’ like wins and RBIs. I realize both are flawed (especially the latter), but I don’t want to see them suddenly dismissed (like when Clemens won 20 and a lot of people were looking at other numbers-ones they’d never used before.) I think giving MVP, Cy Young, etc voters another excuse for not picking someone they don’t like is a mistake.
Saber folks have their own ‘awards’ for the actual best pitcher-not by giving someone a ‘Saber-Cy’ or anything like that, but by demonstrating why that person was better than everyone else.
If the baseball writers want to give the MVP award to Morneau when Mauer (among others) had far more valuable seasons, none of those awards mean much anyway. (Kinda like Richie Ashburn being in the HOF.)
I actually think there is a case for giving CC the Cy Young when you consider how valuable he is to our team and when you consider that no pitcher gets considered for the MVP it has to go somewhat hand in hand doesn’t it?
The Cy Young award is suppose to represent the best pitcher of the year but can’t it also be the most valuable pitcher? If so there is no question CC is the most valuable pitcher in the AL, without Sabathia the Yankees are likely third in the division and if not they aren’t contending with the Rays for the division and are instead in a race for the WC with Boston.
It’s obviously hard to look at CC this year and say he has had a more dominating year than Felix Hernandez because he hasn’t and you also can’t use the argument used against Greinke that he didn’t face the Yankees at all or the Red Sox enough because he has creamed both teams all year but I think it would be almost impossible to say that Felix is as valuable to the Mariners as CC is to the Yankees. Yes the Mariners have less wins without Felix but they aren’t a playoff team with him, without CC the Yankees likely aren’t a playoff team with him they have the best record in baseball.
TO-
The Cy Young Award is given to the best pitcher, not the most valuable pitcher. There is no award for the most valuable pitcher. The best pitcher this year has been Felix Hernandez.