Quote:
Originally Posted by Number4
Wins/Losses don't say much about a pitcher. If you don't have run support, you might toss 9 great innings with one unearned run and still get the loss, conversly 5 innings of 9-run-ball might be enough for the W if your batters knock in 10. Even if you compare the teams overall records, the sample size of any single starters starts is not enough to overcome statistical noise. A good W/L record on a otherwise sucky team might sound impressive, but even the worst MLB team will still win one third of their games and any starter might just be lucky enough to get the starts where the bats where hot, or he'll maybe face lower rotation positioned opposing starters more often than usual, etc.
Compare Wrights W/L records and his ERA:... Steven Wright Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com |
I agree, stats like IP, K, HRA, ERA, FIP, etc... are all more important than wins. But as much of a "team stat" as it is, to me they still count as the tiebreaker.
So in the above, to me, they're different enough that they easily become the tiebreaker between the top 2 arms. If Fernandez and Kershaw had identical records, then I would say you could pretty much flip a coin between them and I wouldn't have a problem with the decision. Heck, even if Fernandez was 19-10 instead of 23-5, I think that would be close enough that you could make arguments for the other guys, and I'd expect that him and Kershaw would be roughly tied in the polls.
If it was Greinke who was 23-5 based on their above stats, I would still give it to the 14-14 Kershaw ahead of him. But Fernandez led in innings, ERA, 2nd in Ks, 2nd in FIP, and 1st in WAR, while also leading by 5 wins? I don't see how there's an argument.