Blue Jays GDT: 2024 v6 | Fri, Sept 13 | vs StL | 7pm ET/4pm PT | TBA vs TBA Ohtanis Makes History

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The Nemesis

Semper Tyrannus
Apr 11, 2005
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Jesus f***ing Christ, Buck. Why are we doing the pitching wins rant AGAIN?

How is it so difficult to understand the distinction between the value of team wins as a success metric and assigning wins to an individual pitcher which may or may not strongly correlate to performance?

I wanted to find the most wins for seasons with higher ERAs (like 4.50+) but I can't seem to find the filters button on Fangraphs' leaderboards anymore (only filters for the splits leaderboard, which does not seem to easily allow me to parse whole individual seasons for a long span of years. It's just "all data per player within a date range". Did they restrict it to subscribers like they did with data export?


"I'm gonna keep my eye on Saggese because he doesn't have gloves or an elbow pad or a shin guard or eye black."

He's also hitting below the Mendoza line, Buck.
 
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The Nemesis

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Apr 11, 2005
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I can't do exactly what I wanted but:

Jose Berrios is 15-9 with a 3.52 ERA
Kevin Gausman is 12-11 with a 4.02 ERA
Chris Bassitt is 10-13 with a 4.20 ERA


Carlos Rodon is 14-9 with the Yankees with a 4.21 ERA. He has a Bassitt ERA but a Berrios record.
Tyler Anderson is 10-12 with a 3.50 ERA He has a Berrios ERA but a Bassit record.

Jack Flaherty is 12-6 with a 2.86 ERA He's got a far superior ERA to any of those Jays starters but has a middling amount of wins (relatively speaking) and far fewer total decisions (with only about 4 fewer starts)

Yes, ok, in a general sense ERA and win totals usually move in lockstep assuming a similar number of starts. But the fact that it doesn't do so entirely and there are better ways to model that relationship is the whole issue with wins. It's not that "winning the game isn't important." It's that "the fact a pitcher wins or loses the game can potentially be divorced from how well or poorly he pitches, which is a big problem when you want to use that stat to measure success."

It's not freaking rocket science.
 

the valiant effort

settle down, bud
Apr 17, 2017
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Look how beautiful these simple white unis look compared to the City Connect and powder (?) blue alternates. The Jays should never wear anything but these and occasionally the blue tops at home. #BeautyIsEverything
 
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The Nemesis

Semper Tyrannus
Apr 11, 2005
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"If you look at the best teams in baseball, their starters have the most wins..."


Yeah? I mean, obviously? If most wins get assigned to starters, then obviously the teams with the most wins will have most of their wins attributed to their starters who will, in turn, have more wins than other teams' starters. That's not some amazing discovery nor is it a heady, valuable insight into the performance of those pitchers.
 

The Nemesis

Semper Tyrannus
Apr 11, 2005
89,525
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BUCK. STOP.

Nobody says that it's unimportant to win games. The problem with pitcher wins has never been that winning isn't important. It's that pitcher performance and game outcome are not universally linked.

Pitcher A has a 2.50 ERA
Pitcher B has a 4.50 ERA

Who's better? Ignoring the potential issues with ERA because this is just for illustrative purposes.

But now assume that A's team scores an average of 2 runs a game while B's scores 5. By season's end:

Pitcher A could have a record of like 9-16
Pitcher B could be 16-9.

So who's better? Buck would tell you it's B and not see a problem with that.
 

canucksfan

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Mar 16, 2002
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BUCK. STOP.

Nobody says that it's unimportant to win games. The problem with pitcher wins has never been that winning isn't important. It's that pitcher performance and game outcome are not universally linked.

Pitcher A has a 2.50 ERA
Pitcher B has a 4.50 ERA

Who's better? Ignoring the potential issues with ERA because this is just for illustrative purposes.

But now assume that A's team scores an average of 2 runs a game while B's scores 5. By season's end:

Pitcher A could have a record of like 9-16
Pitcher B could be 16-9.

So who's better? Buck would tell you it's B and not see a problem with that.
Take the best pitcher in baseball and put him on the White Sox and his win loss record would be bad. Same pitcher but different teams.
 

tmlfan98

No More Excuses #MarnerOut
Aug 13, 2012
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aren't there stats that show their avg vs lefties and righties?
There are, but people have been ignoring his minor/major career splits since his original callup last season, including John Schneider himself mostly utilizing him as if he's a weak side platoon bat.

That being said he should be able to hit both righties and lefties well, he's not supposed to be some weird right handed strong side platoon guy.
 

Discoverer

Registered User
Apr 11, 2012
11,236
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There are, but people have been ignoring his minor/major career splits since his original callup last season, including John Schneider himself mostly utilizing him as if he's a weak side platoon bat.

That being said he should be able to hit both righties and lefties well, he's not supposed to be some weird right handed strong side platoon guy.
To be fair, his major league debut last year included some MASSIVE splits where he was very good against righties (134 wRC+) and absolutely annihilated lefties (245 wRC+). I think he should have had more even playing time out of the gate, but a huge part of what made him such a revelation last year was his dominance of lefties.

He was rewarded with more playing time against righties early this year and the stats predictably reverted to closer to his minor league splits (similar 135 wRC+ against righties through the end of May, down to a still-solid 110 against lefties).

When he fell off a cliff in June and July, he was still getting a pretty normal playing time distribution (118 PA against righties, 39 against lefties). They weren't platooning him, he just wasn't playing much because he was struggling. The platoon thing only really emerged as the young lefties (Wagner, Loperfido, Barger) showed up around the deadline and performed fairly well and earned more playing time.
 
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tmlfan98

No More Excuses #MarnerOut
Aug 13, 2012
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Hockey's Mecca
To be fair, his major league debut last year included some MASSIVE splits where he was very good against righties (134 wRC+) and absolutely annihilated lefties (245 wRC+). I think he should have had more even playing time out of the gate, but a huge part of what made him such a revelation last year was his dominance of lefties.

He was rewarded with more playing time against righties early this year and the stats predictably reverted to closer to his minor league splits (similar 135 wRC+ against righties through the end of May, down to a still-solid 110 against lefties).
My point (when I specifically said "since his original callup) was that he should have been rewarded with more playing time against RHP last season too. Could have used more of that 134 wRC+ vs RHP in games that John Schneider was inexplicably sitting him.

When he fell off a cliff in June and July, he was still getting a pretty normal playing time distribution (118 PA against righties, 39 against lefties). They weren't platooning him, he just wasn't playing much because he was struggling. The platoon thing only really emerged as the young lefties (Wagner, Loperfido, Barger) showed up around the deadline and performed fairly well and earned more playing time.
I think it's funny how this is the only PA splits sample you chose to cherry pick because it accurately reflects a close to 75/25 split that most everyday bats see vs RHP/LHP. Why didn't you post his PA splits sample from 2023? It was a rhetorical question, the answer is because it would have made my point instead of yours.
 

Discoverer

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Apr 11, 2012
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My point (when I specifically said "since his original callup) was that he should have been rewarded with more playing time against RHP last season too. Could have used more of that 134 wRC+ vs RHP in games that John Schneider was inexplicably sitting him.


I think it's funny how this is the only PA splits sample you chose to cherry pick because it accurately reflects a close to 75/25 split that most everyday bats see vs RHP/LHP. Why didn't you post his PA splits sample from 2023? It was a rhetorical question, the answer is because it would have made my point instead of yours.
Alright, here's a quick rundown for you:
- Last year - As I said in my original post, I agree that his usage was bad last year. I can reinforce that with his PA splits if you want, but I don't know how that changes anything since we're already on the same page.

April/May- I didn't bother posting the specific April/May split because it was pretty close to completely normal (28% vs. lefties). He was playing full time.

June/July - I posted that split because that's when I expected to see it start to shift more towards a platoon and I was surprised that it didn't. I thought that made it an interesting point.

August/Sept - This is the one where I think there are extenuating circumstances, so the split isn't as simple.

I mean... I don't even know what point you think I'm trying to make. I thought his usage was interesting and posted about it. I don't have some overarching point. I just think it's interesting.
 
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