By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer
Forget what you think you know about how to judge a pitcher’s merits. Essentially, strikeouts, walks, and home runs are even more important than you think. Sure, every true baseball fan knows that the “wins” category is overrated when it comes to how well a pitcher has thrown. It simply relies on too many extraneous factors. Still, let’s go ahead and take a quick look at why a pitcher’s win/loss record is effectively irrelevant.
Run support is the key element in a pitcher being a “winner” or not. This factor is completely team dependent and fluctuates from pitcher to pitcher and even game to game on the same team. The bullpen is another area that greatly influences whether the starter gets credited with a win or not and poses the same problems that run support does. Team defense is the next dynamic when looking at reasons behind a win versus a loss. This does not solely refer to errors, but range varies greatly from team to team as well.
Looking at a pitcher’s win/loss record is the simplest way to measure a pitcher’s ability, but it’s also the laziest and often clouds one’s true value because these three factors (run support, bullpen, defense) must all work in the pitcher’s favor to get the W. These factors are completely out of the starter’s control. A pitcher’s record is not evidence that he’s good or bad, and there are much better measures of pitcher performance that are not so luck and team dependent than wins. For a great example of this, look no further than last year’s Cy Young race in the AL. Bartolo Colon won because his record was 21-8, while Johan Santana’s was 16-7. Never mind the fact that the Angels were 22-11 when Colon pitched, and the Twins were 24-9 when Santana took the hill.
ERA is a better measure, but surprisingly also has its flaws as well. Many people ignore the win/loss column and look at ERA for a reference of ability. This is fine, but not truly the best way to evaluate how a guy is throwing. Again, other factors directly affect one’s ERA. Luck is something too frequently ignored when it comes to starting pitchers in baseball.
Many studies have been done, and the overwhelming conclusion states that for the most part, balls that are put into play affect every pitcher the same exact way. That’s right, the same exact way. Essentially, there is a 30 percent chance that a ball in play off anyone falls in for a hit. Doesn’t matter if Johan Santana threw the pitch or if Jose Lima did. Well, maybe not Lima, but you get the drift. Therefore, ERA can be misleading due to its reliance on luck; some periods will see a pitcher’s rate of balls in play that fall for hits rise to 40 percent while another’s might drop to 20 percent. Either way, it’s going to eventually regress to the mean of 30 percent.
If you remove balls in play, the only other possibilities any given at-bat presents are a strikeout, a walk and a home run. So it stands to reason that the difference between one pitcher and another pitcher depends entirely on how good they are at preventing home runs and walks and most importantly, striking batters out.
The point to take from all of this is simple. A ball in play is going to fall for a hit 30 percent of the time no matter who is on the mound. The pitchers who allow fewer balls in play (by striking more batters out) and are locating well (K/BB ratio, limiting big flies) are the best pitchers in baseball, regardless of what their record or ERA says.
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