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Charlie Hough · 04-26-2013, 06:02 PM

17-0 needs to be qualified. It's only a historical mark for the ages if the team never bailed out the pitcher after blowing the lead while he was still the pitcher of record. Otherwise, the zero losses could be a by-product of good fortune. And many of the wins could be too.

As a perfect example, let's look at Roy Face's first two wins of his famous 1959 season. In his first decision, on April 22, 1959, he came into a tie game to start the 8th inning and gave up the go-ahead run in the form of a solo home run by the first batter he faced. He was on track to get the loss. But after pitching a scoreless 9th inning, the Pirates scored two runs in the bottom of the 9th, giving Face the win.

In the next game of the season, on April 24, Face gave up 4 hits and 2 runs in 2.1 innings and blew a save, but he got credited with the win when the Pirates scored 3 runs in the top of the 9th inning and Face managed to avoid blowing the lead for a second time in the bottom of the 9th.

This is just looking at his first two decisions of the season. So let's be serious. 17-0 doesn't necessarily mean that a pitcher was perfect in relief, just as Face certainly was not perfect in his 18-1 season. He blew saves and still got wins on 3 other occasions in 1959. So I've already got a total of 5 of his wins that came from blown saves or blowing a tie game, and I haven't even looked for any other cases of blowing tie games.

So let's see the game logs before we start concluding that 17-0 was somehow a phenomenal feat that may never be repeated. Roy Face certainly had a great season in 1959, and he was really at his best during the middle of that year. But his wins were checkered with blown saves and games that he was on track to lose before getting bailed out.

To Questdog's point, though, this is further argument that sabermetrics should be marginalized. All you really need are IP, H, R, ER, BB, K, ERA and WHIP. I don't think it needs to get more complicated than that to get a sense of general accomplishment, but then we need subjective valuation based on the circumstances of the season, individual game performances, etc. And game logs and box scores can give us what we need for that.

04-26-2013, 06:02 PM	#26
Charlie Hough Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 3,644	17-0 needs to be qualified. It's only a historical mark for the ages if the team never bailed out the pitcher after blowing the lead while he was still the pitcher of record. Otherwise, the zero losses could be a by-product of good fortune. And many of the wins could be too. As a perfect example, let's look at Roy Face's first two wins of his famous 1959 season. In his first decision, on April 22, 1959, he came into a tie game to start the 8th inning and gave up the go-ahead run in the form of a solo home run by the first batter he faced. He was on track to get the loss. But after pitching a scoreless 9th inning, the Pirates scored two runs in the bottom of the 9th, giving Face the win. In the next game of the season, on April 24, Face gave up 4 hits and 2 runs in 2.1 innings and blew a save, but he got credited with the win when the Pirates scored 3 runs in the top of the 9th inning and Face managed to avoid blowing the lead for a second time in the bottom of the 9th. This is just looking at his first two decisions of the season. So let's be serious. 17-0 doesn't necessarily mean that a pitcher was perfect in relief, just as Face certainly was not perfect in his 18-1 season. He blew saves and still got wins on 3 other occasions in 1959. So I've already got a total of 5 of his wins that came from blown saves or blowing a tie game, and I haven't even looked for any other cases of blowing tie games. So let's see the game logs before we start concluding that 17-0 was somehow a phenomenal feat that may never be repeated. Roy Face certainly had a great season in 1959, and he was really at his best during the middle of that year. But his wins were checkered with blown saves and games that he was on track to lose before getting bailed out. To Questdog's point, though, this is further argument that sabermetrics should be marginalized. All you really need are IP, H, R, ER, BB, K, ERA and WHIP. I don't think it needs to get more complicated than that to get a sense of general accomplishment, but then we need subjective valuation based on the circumstances of the season, individual game performances, etc. And game logs and box scores can give us what we need for that. Last edited by Charlie Hough; 04-26-2013 at 06:07 PM.