An undeserved win and a way to fix that

[arby58]

Tonight, Simeon Woods Richardson threw a brilliant game - 6 innings pitched, no runs scored, 1 hit, 1 walk, and 8 strikeouts. He left, Griffin Jax came in and made a mess of it. Fortunately, he got out of a bases loaded no outs jam with only 1 run scored against him. Of course, the Twins then scored a run that held up, and two other relievers did what Jax could not do - hold the lead.

Jax gets the win . . . what? This should be one of those situations where the scorer should either let the prior pitcher get the win or one of the pitchers that held the lead get the win. No way that Jax should get credit in this game for a win.

[lecroy24fan]

Prior pitcher cannot be given the win. 

[arby58]

1 hour ago, lecroy24fan said:

Prior pitcher cannot be given the win. 

I understand that is the current rule - I'm suggesting this is exactly the situation where it is wrong and should be changed.

[ashbury]

48 minutes ago, arby58 said:

I understand that is the current rule - I'm suggesting this is exactly the situation where it is wrong and should be changed.

Calculation of who is the "pitcher of record" has been part of the rule for 100+ years.  What suddenly went wrong with it? 

Shall we go back and retroactively assign a few additional wins to Warren Spahn and Gaylord Perry for games their teams won after they departed?  They merely led their leagues in complete games some years, they didn't pitch one every time out, so surely we'll dig up a few unjust no-decisions for them.  Let's go back and remove some wins from star reliever Phil "The Vulture" Regan who got his nickname the old-fashioned way by vultching wins from deserving starters.

Maybe we should fix some additional injustices while we are at it.  In 1987 the Astros went 12-22 in the 34 games Nolan Ryan started, despite his leading the league in ERA.  The batters didn't score for him; let's award him some wins anyway.

Starting pitchers victimized by teammates coming in from the bullpen and coughing up a lead; teammates failing to hit and thus dragging the team down. What's the difference? Let's fix everything, when the starting pitcher does his job.

No. Fans have always understood that the Win statistic for pitchers has to be taken in the full context of the pitcher's season.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

Channeling my inner Mike Sixel….

that’s why the Win Stat for Pitchers is stupid and we shouldn’t use it, let’s throw the baby out with the bath water 

[ziggy]

Sometimes wins for relievers is like a backhanded compliment. It's not a compliment. Sonny Gray finished second in the Cy Young award last year despite a so so win/loss record. The professionals are paying attention to performance, not the record. 

I understand your point but SWR getting the win would require human intervention and scoring and there is enough controversy with the strike zone and hits verses errors involving human opinion.  I get your point though, SWR deserved the win last night.

[stringer bell]

We've invented Quality Starts to credit pitching with "good" outings. There also is a Game Score for the starter's performance--Castillo had 60, SWR had 77. Wins have been deemphasized in evaluating starters and justly so. This is not a hobby horse that I want to ride.

[bighat]

It's so funny, I was thinking the same thing this morning! Jax blows the lead and gets the 'win'? Obviously this is nothing new and has been going on forever. 

My main problem with changing the rule is that you are really going to mess up the record books now - because for 120+ years the stats have been kept according to the current rule. 

Baseball records are probably more recognizable and important than in any other sport. You can't just change things now. 

If it helps - just think about how many times a starting pitcher goes 5 innings, gives up 6+ runs and still gets the win. It happens. There are tons of "undeserved" wins by starters, too! 

[Puckett34]

Personally I don't care what pitcher gets the win as long as they are wearing a Twins uniform 55-60% of the time. (92-97 win pace)

[Dman]

I don't know it seems like a pretty fair measure to me.  If SWR really wants the win pitch all 9 innings.  You could easily argue the other side of this argument that giving starting pitchers the win for just 5 innings of work doesn't make sense either.  They barely pitch half the game then the team uses four other arms to shut down the other team for the win.

I get the frustration.  I really do.  We all know SWR's one hit one walk performance through 6 innings was dominant. Jax came out couldn't get strikes when he needed them and gives up the run that would have allowed SWR to get the win and gets the win for himself as the team came back.  He pitched one sort of crappy inning for the win which really doesn't make sense.  I get that makes even less sense, but I think the pitcher of record who has the lead at the end of the game should get credit for the win.  The team got ahead while they were on the mound and thus they won the game with that pitcher.  The same would be true if the starter went all 9 innings but since they don't what they have in place seems the correct way to go about it despite many great pitching performances not ending up with wins.

[jorgenswest]

Like many stats wins tell the story of the game. The blown save and win in Jax’s line represents yesterday’s story well. WPA also helps tell the story and does a good job of representing Woods Richardson and Correa.

Neither stat has value for projection or evaluation.

[Brock Beauchamp]

First, the pitcher win stat is stupid and should be ignored.

Second, if MLB wants to make the pitcher win stat slightly less stupid, they should allow the scorer to grant the win to whichever pitcher they feel deserves it after the game is complete.

[Dman]

I think the way this is setup is a complete game is 9 innings and technically the starter of record is expected to go 9 innings to complete the game.  If he doesn't then he can use proxy's (other pitcher's) to get him through the 9 innings. The proxy's act as the starting pitcher they are essentially SWR although a different player.  So whatever happens the rest of the game plays out as if the proxy pitcher is SWR.  However, the names change along the way and the results follow whatever proxy pitcher is inserted.

If the proxy pitchers hold and don't give up more runs than when SWR was the pitcher of record and he pitched more than half the game he gets the credit for the win even though he didn't make it to the end of the game.  As others have mentioned this method makes win loss records for starter pretty meaningless.  There are better metrics that are used and that will show up in SWR's stat line to prove what kind of pitcher he really is.

 

[Schmoeman5]

Pitcher win stat is stupid and should be ignored.  Hmm. Why is it stupid? Should one hang a dunce cap on it? That's Brian Kenny and Bill James talk. Kenny said the same thing about BA and RBI. Now Kenny has done a complete 180 on BA and tied it into the running game. There has always been those pitchers described as hard luck pitchers. Good stats, who when they threw, their own offense didn't produce results either. SWR went out with the lead. Jax allows 1 to tie it. Twins respond back. Win goes to Jax. Big deal. It happens. There will be games when SWR gives up 5 in 5 innings worked but the Twins will score more and he'll get a win. That's what makes it baseball.  Nothing stupid about it.

[Mike Sixel]

5 hours ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

Channeling my inner Mike Sixel….

that’s why the Win Stat for Pitchers is stupid and we shouldn’t use it, let’s throw the baby out with the bath water 

I assume it was painful to be me, but thanks! 

As bad as quality start is, it tells us more than the win stat....

[MN_ExPat]

3 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

First, the pitcher win stat is stupid and should be ignored.

Second, if MLB wants to make the pitcher win stat slightly less stupid, they should allow the scorer to grant the win to whichever pitcher they feel deserves it after the game is complete.

I get where you coming from, and from an emotional standpoint I can even relate and say you are correct good Sir.  However I would argue that "Win/s" for a pitcher aren't stupid or meaningless, but they definitely aren't the be all, end all.  I view baseball stats in much the same way I do responding to a call for service or an emergency situation.

The first question you ask is "What happened?".  That (to me) is things like... basically your box score, BA, RBIs, OPS, Wins (😉🙂) or other surface level stats.  They don't tell you the details of what happened, just the big 30,000 foot level picture.  To find out the details you have to dive into the underlying situation or metrics, and thus we have the many of the other stats that baseball has such as OBA, WPA, WAR (in all its variants), FIP and such. 

The important thing (to me) that helps put these various stat categories into perspective, is realizing that no one category tells the whole story.  They are all merely pieces to the puzzle.

 

[TwinsDr2021]

First wins shouldn't be taken as anything more than just another stat, it tells one part of the story. Generally pitchers that pitch longer into games ends up with more decisions  (wins and loses), the game has changed and requires starters to not pitch as long and thus reduces their win total, It is also not much of a surprise that pitchers that have the most quality starts end up with more wins and/or the quality of the rest of the team.

Me personally I hate the complaining of the stat, there is a flaw in every start, every stat. It feels like people want to take the credit away from pitchers of the past and give credit for the new philosophy of pitching starters less. As for SWR last night he was pulled with a 1 run lead and thus required the bullpen to pitch 3 scoreless innings so he and the team could get the win, they (Jax) failed, asking the bullpen to perfect for 3 inning on a nightly basis is asking for the impossible and won't happen for even the best relief pitchers.

I also never thought much of relief pitcher wins, because they are based more on luck, and when looking at relief pitchers I generally look at holds/saves/blown save, inherited runners scored.

But hey if we are going to complain, shouldn't Duran get the save, he faced betters hitters than Thielbar?

[TwinsDr2021]

16 hours ago, arby58 said:

Tonight, Simeon Woods Richardson threw a brilliant game - 6 innings pitched, no runs scored, 1 hit, 1 walk, and 8 strikeouts. He left, Griffin Jax came in and made a mess of it. Fortunately, he got out of a bases loaded no outs jam with only 1 run scored against him. Of course, the Twins then scored a run that held up, and two other relievers did what Jax could not do - hold the lead.

Jax gets the win . . . what? This should be one of those situations where the scorer should either let the prior pitcher get the win or one of the pitchers that held the lead get the win. No way that Jax should get credit in this game for a win.

Here is a crazy thought, let a guy that has given up 1 hit and 1 walk in 6 innings with 82 pitches, come out for another inning if they are worried about who gets the win. (Not complaining they pulled h SWR), you can go though box scores every day and see pulling a guy in a similar situation works quite a bit and back fires quite a bit as well. (Just check out the Milwaukee/KC game yesterday )

[bean5302]

Non issue. Pitcher who leaves the game with the lead after coming into the game tied or losing gets the win. If you want to fix it, remove the win stat altogether. Problem solved. Nobody gets a win or a loss. Guess the starter can get "holds" then.

[Heiny]

16 hours ago, ashbury said:

Calculation of who is the "pitcher of record" has been part of the rule for 100+ years.  What suddenly went wrong with it? 

Shall we go back and retroactively assign a few additional wins to Warren Spahn and Gaylord Perry for games their teams won after they departed?  They merely led their leagues in complete games some years, they didn't pitch one every time out, so surely we'll dig up a few unjust no-decisions for them.  Let's go back and remove some wins from star reliever Phil "The Vulture" Regan who got his nickname the old-fashioned way by vultching wins from deserving starters.

Maybe we should fix some additional injustices while we are at it.  In 1987 the Astros went 12-22 in the 34 games Nolan Ryan started, despite his leading the league in ERA.  The batters didn't score for him; let's award him some wins anyway.

Starting pitchers victimized by teammates coming in from the bullpen and coughing up a lead; teammates failing to hit and thus dragging the team down. What's the difference? Let's fix everything, when the starting pitcher does his job.

No. Fans have always understood that the Win statistic for pitchers has to be taken in the full context of the pitcher's season.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a big proponent of changing the rules.  But, they have bungled that pretty significantly quite a bunch recently. (In my humble opinion). For example, there has never been a clock in baseball.  CHANGED.  The Manfred Man.  Ridiculous.  CHANGED.  The rule change for pitchers seems like a much better idea than either of these two rules changes. (Again, in my opinion).  But alas, I am a hardcore traditionalist and prefer to leave rules alone unless there is a perfectly logical and safety issue invlolved.

[Heiny]

4 hours ago, MN_ExPat said:

I get where you coming from, and from an emotional standpoint I can even relate and say you are correct good Sir.  However I would argue that "Win/s" for a pitcher aren't stupid or meaningless, but they definitely aren't the be all, end all.  I view baseball stats in much the same way I do responding to a call for service or an emergency situation.

The first question you ask is "What happened?".  That (to me) is things like... basically your box score, BA, RBIs, OPS, Wins (😉🙂) or other surface level stats.  They don't tell you the details of what happened, just the big 30,000 foot level picture.  To find out the details you have to dive into the underlying situation or metrics, and thus we have the many of the other stats that baseball has such as OBA, WPA, WAR (in all its variants), FIP and such. 

The important thing (to me) that helps put these various stat categories into perspective, is realizing that no one category tells the whole story.  They are all merely pieces to the puzzle.

 

Totally agree with this argument.  I still value batting average, but what if your leadoff hitter goes 4 for 4, but then gets picked off of  first all 4 times?  The batting average stat would seem to mean somewhat less then, wouldn't it?   Digging a little deeper into the stats is important.  I just like to watch the game and judge for myself who did good things and who didn't.  Take Margot for instance.  Take him far far away.

[ashbury]

32 minutes ago, Heiny said:

Take Margot for instance.  Take him far far away.

[AlwaysinModeration]

9 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

First, the pitcher win stat is stupid and should be ignored.

Second, if MLB wants to make the pitcher win stat slightly less stupid, they should allow the scorer to grant the win to whichever pitcher they feel deserves it after the game is complete.

This

[arby58]

Some replies to criticisms:

`1. 'Just get rid of wins' or 'wins are a dumb statistic anyway.' Given the fact that it is the first statistic generally cited for a pitcher, I'm not moved by those who just don't care about it or think getting rid of it is the answer. Way too much use of it throughout baseball history - it isn't going away.

2. 'It will create statistical problems.' First, official statistics have changed over time. The save was added in 1969, the blown save in 1988. It didn't seem to make statisticians' heads explode - the game's history is all stored electronically anyway, and you're talking about lines of code. Or don't - it's unlikely to have much effect in past history, since most pitchers pitched longer (and sometimes even had complete games).

3. 'Too much official scorer discretion.' First, they already have significant discretion on official statistics - hit or error. Second, the rule can be written so there is no real discretion. For example:

'In a situation where a relief pitcher enters the game with his team ahead, if that pitcher loses the lead, completes the inning, his team takes the lead and the relief pitcher is removed from the game before pitching to any additional batters, if his team wins the game, he is not eligible to be the winning pitcher. In this case, if the pitcher he replaced pitched at least 5 innings and completed the inning he last pitched, the pitcher he replaced will be credited with the win.'

This removes any discretion, it requires the starting pitcher (or any pitcher who pitched at least five innings) to complete the prior inning - this takes away the situation where the relief pitcher may have inherited a bad situation - and it only applies if the relief pitcher does not pitch further in the game. If the relief pitcher goes back out and retires batters, you could argue that he has contributed to the victory - pretty hard to do so when (in the case of Jax) he blows the lead. It would be even worse if that pitcher gave up several runs and his team was actually behind. Talk about an undeserved win (but possible under today's rules).

 

[sampleSizeOfOne]

It is times like this i remember my 80s Sci Fi movies as Joshua finally learns the only winning move is not to play.