8/19/25 6:40PM Astros @ Tigers

[RedRamage]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

given the shifts in how pitchers are used, my suggestion for a simple system more appropriate to this era would be that if your team wins the game, whatever pitcher got the most outs gets the win. If your team loses, whatever pitchers gave up the most runs gets the loss.

TBH, the idea that a particular run is a 'winning run' or that when it is scored matters has never made any sense in baseball.

I just think the whole concept of winning and losing pitchers should be dropped all together. I mean even if we look at complete game situations there's still stupid stuff that can happen:

Monday Pitcher A throws 9 innings, gives up 8 runs, but the offense exploded late in the game and scored 10 runs. Pitcher A gets a "Win."

Tuesday, Pitcher B throws 9 innings giving up just two run, one of them because of a fielding error. But the offense was totally shut down that day and only managed one run. Pitcher B gets a "Loss."

Over a full season, and more so of a full career, then a good pitcher will probably end up with a good W/L record and a bad pitcher will probably end up with a bad W/L record, but only in probably and only generally speaking. There are way too many other variables... A perfect example of this is our old friend Jeff Weaver.

In 2002 with Detroit Weaver had an ERA of 3.18 and a WHIP of 1.192 but had a 6-8 W/L record in 17 starts. Then he was traded to the Yankees mid season. With the Yanks in 8 starts he had a 5-3 record. Does that mean he got better when he went to the Yankees? Well, the stats say no. His ERA with the Yankees was 4.04 and his WHIP was 1.231.

Defense, Run Support, Who you end up pitching against... these are all variables that are way outside of the pitcher's control yet drastically effect the W/L record. It's a dumb stat that at best tells you a good career W/L probably tells you the pitcher was better than average.

[gehringer_2]

24 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

I just think the whole concept of winning and losing pitchers should be dropped all together. I mean even if we look at complete game situations there's still stupid stuff that can happen:

Monday Pitcher A throws 9 innings, gives up 8 runs, but the offense exploded late in the game and scored 10 runs. Pitcher A gets a "Win."

Tuesday, Pitcher B throws 9 innings giving up just two run, one of them because of a fielding error. But the offense was totally shut down that day and only managed one run. Pitcher B gets a "Loss."

Over a full season, and more so of a full career, then a good pitcher will probably end up with a good W/L record and a bad pitcher will probably end up with a bad W/L record, but only in probably and only generally speaking. There are way too many other variables... A perfect example of this is our old friend Jeff Weaver.

In 2002 with Detroit Weaver had an ERA of 3.18 and a WHIP of 1.192 but had a 6-8 W/L record in 17 starts. Then he was traded to the Yankees mid season. With the Yanks in 8 starts he had a 5-3 record. Does that mean he got better when he went to the Yankees? Well, the stats say no. His ERA with the Yankees was 4.04 and his WHIP was 1.231.

Defense, Run Support, Who you end up pitching against... these are all variables that are way outside of the pitcher's control yet drastically effect the W/L record. It's a dumb stat that at best tells you a good career W/L probably tells you the pitcher was better than average.

It a counting stat though, not a performance measure. A guy LH hitter hits 30 HRs in Yankee stadium, 15 of which would be outs at Kaufman. It just what happened, not what a great hitter he is. So lots of stats in baseball work that way. That doesn't really bother me. I don't think it's bad for there to be a counting stat for the pitcher who most contributed to a win or loss. And like all counting stats, it would only approximate a player's performance level. So the complaint to my rule would be that a guy could go 4, give up 4, the next guy comes in and pitches 3 shutout innings. I'd still have to give the win to the 1st guy even though the 2nd guy pitched better because I'm measuring outs - and the 1st guy got them. And the 1st guy is still liable for the loss if his mates don't bail him out. But at least you know what the stat means (got outs in a win vs gave up runs in a loss), which I don't think you can still say about wins/losses today at all.

Edited August 20 by gehringer_2

[lordstanley]

2 hours ago, RedRamage said:

How fitting is it that in a extra innings game with zero runs that it ends of a walk?

And it happened on the 74th anniversary of a famous walk involving the Tigers. Eddie Gaedel drew a 4-pitch walk at Comiskey from Tigers' pitcher Bob Cain on August 19, 1951.

https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/inside-pitch/bill-veeck-eddie-gaedel-the-birth-of-a-legend

[lordstanley]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

And here’s that game:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET194808060.shtml

Ted Gray was the winner, Walt Masterson the loser. Both pitched a complete game.

The Tigers drew over 29,000 to Briggs Stadium on a random Friday night in August to see two sub-.500 teams battle it out. That’s post-war and post-Depression exuberance for you.

 

Probably had a lot to do with the novelty of night games, as the next day the two teams drew under 10,000 for a Saturday day game. The first night game at Tiger stadium had been just 7 weeks earlier on June 15, 1948.

[chasfh]

3 hours ago, lordstanley said:

Probably had a lot to do with the novelty of night games, as the next day the two teams drew under 10,000 for a Saturday day game. The first night game at Tiger stadium had been just 7 weeks earlier on June 15, 1948.

Well done. Hadn’t even occurred to me.

[RedRamage]

Okay, lemme say that first I fully recognize that we're arguing over stats for game. It's a minor thing to be "upset" about. Just want to make that clear before anyone posts: "Why are you going off on a stat that doesn't matter?" Okay, disclaimer out of the way:

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't think it's bad for there to be a counting stat for the pitcher who most contributed to a win or loss.

My contention though is that it DOESN'T do this. Some of the time a Win does that, but like in my example above: How can you say a pitcher throwing 9 inning of 1 run ball most contributed to the loss? Or how can you say a pitcher who gives up a ton of runs, but the offense happens to have a monster night most contributed to the win?

 

[gehringer_2]

2 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

Okay, lemme say that first I fully recognize that we're arguing over stats for game. It's a minor thing to be "upset" about. Just want to make that clear before anyone posts: "Why are you going off on a stat that doesn't matter?" Okay, disclaimer out of the way:

My contention though is that it DOESN'T do this. Some of the time a Win does that, but like in my example above: How can you say a pitcher throwing 9 inning of 1 run ball most contributed to the loss? Or how can you say a pitcher who gives up a ton of runs, but the offense happens to have a monster night most contributed to the win?

 

I don't disagree the current stat is worse than useless, particularly the 5 inning minimum given current starter use patterns. So is there a simple way to give pitchers credit/liability for their actual game accomplishments? (as apart from performance stats like ERA/FIP do nothing to record their game success failure). I don't know if there is. I know a suggestion like mine would never be adopted just because it's too big a change and would create too big a break in the statistical history. What I suppose would be better would just a new stat. Leave W/L as a historical artifact and record some other measure of game success/failure. And since everything is in the books somewhere a new stat can be back calculated for what players have done in their careers.

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, RedRamage said:

I just think the whole concept of winning and losing pitchers should be dropped all together. I mean even if we look at complete game situations there's still stupid stuff that can happen:

Monday Pitcher A throws 9 innings, gives up 8 runs, but the offense exploded late in the game and scored 10 runs. Pitcher A gets a "Win."

Tuesday, Pitcher B throws 9 innings giving up just two run, one of them because of a fielding error. But the offense was totally shut down that day and only managed one run. Pitcher B gets a "Loss."

Over a full season, and more so of a full career, then a good pitcher will probably end up with a good W/L record and a bad pitcher will probably end up with a bad W/L record, but only in probably and only generally speaking. There are way too many other variables... A perfect example of this is our old friend Jeff Weaver.

In 2002 with Detroit Weaver had an ERA of 3.18 and a WHIP of 1.192 but had a 6-8 W/L record in 17 starts. Then he was traded to the Yankees mid season. With the Yanks in 8 starts he had a 5-3 record. Does that mean he got better when he went to the Yankees? Well, the stats say no. His ERA with the Yankees was 4.04 and his WHIP was 1.231.

Defense, Run Support, Who you end up pitching against... these are all variables that are way outside of the pitcher's control yet drastically effect the W/L record. It's a dumb stat that at best tells you a good career W/L probably tells you the pitcher was better than average.

Good points all, and it’s even worse than that: if a starting pitcher fails to go at least five full innings—if he pitches 4-2/3 innings of shutout ball, then leaves with the lead that’s never relinquished—then he is, by rule, ineligible for the pitcher win. So the official scorer is forced to assign the win to some other pitcher who didn’t pitch as long or as effectively, which is exactly what happened here. It’s beyond asinine. 

What really got me to start questioning the value of pitcher wins altogether was the season Nolan Ryan had in 1987. He led the league in ERA (2.76) and strikeouts (270), placed fifth in Cy Young voting—and finished with a “record” of 8-16. By pitcher record, he was terrible. By actual performance, he was arguably the best starting pitcher in the league. What else did I need to know?

[gehringer_2]

17 minutes ago, chasfh said:

What really got me to start questioning the value of pitcher wins altogether was the season Nolan Ryan had in 1987. He led the league in ERA (2.76) and strikeouts (270), placed fifth in Cy Young voting—and finished with a “record” of 8-16. By pitcher record, he was terrible. By actual performance, he was arguably the best starting pitcher in the league. What else did I need to know?

I'll maybe beat a dead horse a bit here, but this aspect doesn't bother me. There are better stats to tell me who the 'best pitcher' which you note, Every stat doesn't need to tell you the same thing, Some can just reflect the historical record and I think that's fine. It doesn't have to be a measure of who is the best pitcher to still have stats that catalog actual game history. Good luck/bad luck history is cooked into so many baseball stats already that I don't see that part as a particular knock on some kind of win/loss record. e.g. The guy that finishes with the most HRs may or may not have hit the most balls the hardest. We still follow who has the most actual luck/success. The whole movement to advance stats was to try and separate 'event recording' stats from better performance metric stats. So now we have better performance measure stats, there's no needs to jettison recording stats - the history is still the history.

All that said, I won't defend the current W/L stat. It's a nearly information free from either standpoint.