Why Don't Losses Count Anymore?

by R.J. Anderson on Nov 21, 2009 6:12 PM EST Comment 11 comments

Winning games is the whole point of baseball. Yet all these voters seem to have forgotten that. For whatever reasons these "educated" voters gave the best pitcher awards to pitchers who lost a combined 15 games in 65 appearances. Bollocks says I. Forget these calculators and mathematical equations and focus on what matters: winning games. Or, inversely, not losing games. The illustrious Herm Edwards once said "You play to win the game," right on Herm. That's why the best pitcher in the league is none other than Hideki Okajima. Oh, I'm crazy you say? Look at these artifacts of record:

68 games, 6 wins, 0 losses

That's more games than San Francisco Giants pitcher "Tim Lincecum" or Kansas City Royals pitcher "Zack Greinke". Oh, you can point to their increased win totals but that's just dishonest. Okajima is a reliever, one who never let his team down. You can't say that about these other jokers. In wins he held opponents to a .100 batting average and 100% of his hits allowed were home runs - showing that he let his defenders take the games off in which he won. What a great teammate.

It's time we put the bed sheets and new-fangled numbers behind us. Old-timers will tell you what really matters (wins) and that lead paint looks better than any water-based type.

As for the rest of my ballot:

Brian Bruney 5-0

Joe Nelson 3-0

John Grabow 3-0

Tony Sipp 2-0

4 recs | Comment 11 comments | Share

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

What makes me sad is that somebody is going to read this and take it seriously

MLB Notebook / Baseball Daily Digest / FanGraphs Fantasy

by Zach Sanders on Nov 21, 2009 6:33 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

two dudes on BBTF already did

by Doug Chu on Nov 22, 2009 1:02 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

what makes me sad is how many people

agreed with the Why Don’t Wins Count Anymore article. 131 commments? And at least 9/10 (rough guess, I stopped reading them after the first 3) agree with the guy. Damn

Adoptive parent of Kyle Nicholson

by gore51 on Nov 22, 2009 1:06 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Don't forget...

…Mark Hendrickson.

CY YOUNG SLEEPER FO’ SHO’

Crashburn Alley

by Crashburn Alley on Nov 21, 2009 6:37 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Ignore...

…his starts.

Crashburn Alley

by Crashburn Alley on Nov 21, 2009 6:38 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Hey, how did Brian Burwell

hack RJ’s account?

godfather of futureredbirds.net

by erik on Nov 22, 2009 5:09 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Your logic is bulletproof!

by quincy0191 on Nov 22, 2009 5:13 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Hogwash

If anybody knows how to win it’s Matt Palmer.

by ThundaPC on Nov 22, 2009 6:27 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Well done buddy

My brain started to hurt after perusing some of the comments on that other article. A user mentioned that they asked Mr. Law if he would have voted for a 30-game winner or MVP for a .400 hitter and was dumbfounded when Keith gave an answer stating that those two numbers don’t tell much. I don’t think people realize that if a guy hits .400 and wins the MVP, the smart voter isn’t awarding it based solely on the batting average.

For example, looking at Ted Williams (for the uninitiated he is the last guy to hit .400+) 1941 season, I have him putting up a 0.539 wOBA (data for IBB and ROE is nonexistent so this number may adjust slightly) while the AL average was 0.322. Converting this to wRAA you get 114.3 and turning that into wins, you’re talking 11.4 wins just from the bat. If someone would turn in a season like this today, the main focus would be that that player hit .400, while those that are more statistically inclined would have to wipe the drool from their mouths that someone just put up over 114 more runs than the average player. You could play defense like Brad Hawpe and still be a potentially 10 win player!

Those that are statistically inclined, generally, have been through arguments like this before and are well-armed to counter the arguments that they have heard time-and-time again. On the other side of the fence, the ignorance-is-bliss argument is so ingrained that they don’t have to think about things such as the fact that if a guy hits .400 there is a really, really strong likelihood that they are going to grade well on many different metrics across the board, not something as crazy as looking at one data point and saying that therein lies the truth. Luckily, the ranks of the thinkers seems to be growing. Amen.

I'm not really a NUMBERS guy!!

by Andy Hellicksonstine on Nov 22, 2009 10:25 PM EST reply actions 1 recs