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Starting Pitcher Arguments

by The Animal on Apr 18, 2006 11:42 PM EDT

I have noticed in the first two weeks of the season that Jay has been very quick to point out when an excellent pitching performance results in a loss. It is obvious that he must be hearing arguments from many people that certain pitchers really are "winners", and that they really do have some way to control their own team's offensive production. I think Jay has posted something of this nature in just about every game thread, and I'm thinking now that he is probably just pissed off at Bob Dolgan(one of the apparently many who try to make this argument).

I addressed this topic today in my blog, looking at the differences between Kevin Millwood and Cliff Lee in the 2005 season. You can read it here:
http://the-cleveland-sports-animal.blogspot.com/2006/04/cliff-lee-vs-kevin-millwood.html

I would really appreciate any feedback as well as any thoughts that all of you might have on the subject.

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Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Interesting article. My point of view has always been that Lee and Millwood had eerily identical peripherals. Millwood was lucky with stranding more runners on base (hence the lower ERA), and Lee was lucky in wins (better bullpen support, gave up many of his runs when the tribe had a big lead already and was just firing fastballs, battled better in close games (is this luck or ability?), Lee left two games 0-0 and one down 1-0 so he was not completely lucky).

On balance though, I find that Lee's huge advantage in wins (and yes, it was huge), outweighs Millwood's advantage in ERA. One may see it differently, but as a fan, I trusted Lee much more than Millwood last august and september.

Note I am not saying that Elarton was a better pitcher than Millwood because of wins (this is not even close). But all things being equal, why not consider wins?

Finally, I hate to be on the same side of Bob "the dog" Dolgan.

by oxforddave on Apr 19, 2006 12:10 AM EDT reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

My thought is mostly that Dolgan, and thousands of people just like him, have never really given the matter any serious thought.

It's not just Dolgan. It's also most Cy Young voters.

by Jay on Apr 19, 2006 2:48 AM EDT reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Like the certain local sports writer (rhymes with "Ocker") who gave a Cy Young vote to Cliff Lee but not Kevin Millwood last year.

by mkwng @ Let's Go Tribe! on Apr 19, 2006 9:26 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

I didn't realize how closely thier numbers matched up until now. Pretty neat, I must say.

A few points:

Millwood's translated pitching statistics are slightly better than Lee's. In absence of any other proof (save W/L records), I say Millwood was the better pitcher.
Although you provide some indication that Millwood might have let the other team score first a few more times, there have been no studies done that I know of that can attribute that to anything but random variation. Logic tells me the same thing.
The most important stat not discussed here is the date of the start. Huh? I mean they pitched in a different game every single time, against a different SP, and maybe vs. a few different teams. What if Lee's and Millwood's place in the rotation was swapped? Do you think that Millwood would have won 18? Probably not, as 18 was near the ceiling of what anybody would win with thier performance last year (it's just hard to do). But would Millwood have won more games? I have no reason to believe he wouldn't.

Do we fault him for the day he started?

by Thommy on Apr 19, 2006 9:41 AM EDT reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Well Thommy, you got me thinking, and I decided to waste some more of my time and look it up.

Turns out you actually have a pretty good point, at least when looking at Cliff Lee and Kevin Millwood from last year.

Millwood started 5 times against the White Sox and 4 times against the Twins. Lee started only twice against both the White Sox and the Twins. On the other end of the spectrum, Millwood started only 3 games against KC. Lee started 6 games against KC.

Average winning percentage of teams started against:
Millwood: .505
Lee: .471

Basically we are all agreeing on the same point here, that there are a lot more factors that contribute to a victory total than just pitching performance. An interesting topic though.

by The Animal on Apr 19, 2006 10:16 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

The study you would need to see is, in equivalent starting performances -- for example, 2 ER in 7 IP -- is there a variation in run support based on when the opposition scored its two runs within the seven innings.

I would be shocked if there was any significant variation, but I can't say that I've seen a study like that.

by Jay on Apr 19, 2006 11:27 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

This all comes down to the fact that you can't give a Cy Young vote to a starting pitcher who only won 10 games, and had a losing record (I think the voters only get to put 3 pitchers on their ballots). Wins matter in the Cy Young voting for good or bad.

by oxforddave on Apr 19, 2006 10:03 AM EDT reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Why can't you?

We give awards to other players with certain bad stats. Pudge won his MVP while leading the league in GIDP. It's just a question of the voters deciding which numbers they think are important, and how important.

Wins not only matter in the Cy Young voting, but they are basically the main criteria. And the only reason for that is that the voters as a group are thoughtless and lazy.

By the way, it's not like it was just between Colon and Millwood. Santana should have won it -- wins aren't everything, but neither is ERA -- and it wasn't particularly close.

by Jay on Apr 19, 2006 11:23 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

I agree with most everything you say here. Wins matter in Cy Young voting. This is natural and is not a conspiracy, or the fact that some writers may be lazy. Cy Young won 511 games. That is his legacy, and what the award is about.

Team wins are really the only thing that matters. They are the currency in which you get into the playoffs with (or not). The starting pitcher is not wholly responsible for his wins (or more importantly his team's wins when he starts), but he is the individual with the most relevance (by far) to his team's performance on the days he starts. So while it is far from a perfect stat, it is still has some relevency.

100 years from now, 200 years from now, if Millwood's great-great-grandson puts up a season like Millwood's 05 season, he still will not get a single Cy Young vote.

The greater travesty is in MVP voting, but that is for another day

by oxforddave on Apr 19, 2006 11:59 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

But they're not even looking at team wins, they're looking at pitcher "Wins," a stat that is more arbitrary than "quality starts" or "saves."

Had the Indians come back and won in Cliff Lee's terrific start a few days ago, his record for the day would have been 0-0, despite the team win, despite the great start. He would be given no credit for the game -- and as it is he gets the blame -- in the eyes of the voters.

Ergo, the writers are idiots. Period.

by Jay on Apr 19, 2006 12:11 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Jay, your argument above Bob Dolgan would be proud of. All stats have the ability to give a very inaccurate picture. If say, Hafner hit a grand slam in the ninth last night (making it 19-1), his stats would look better at the end of the year, and it may be enough to put him over the top for MVP. Would that mean that writers are idiots, if they looked at his hitting stats?

Or say, when the tribe took a 13-0 lead I could care less if Johnson proceeded to give up back to back to back homers in the bottom of the inning. His ERA would care though.

Again, team wins are the only stat that counts. All other stats are proxies for this, and they all have faults. I'm not happy with a pythagereon flag. Are you?

by oxforddave on Apr 19, 2006 12:34 PM EDT up reply actions

If you're going make this.....

....argument, then the burden is on you to prove that Millwood didn't pitch well in close games, but was exceptional in blow outs.

Yes, it's a nice, cute hypothetical you play out in your post. It could also be completely irrelevant. Don't rebut someone by simply throwing a scenario out there. Back it up.

by crazymoloh on Apr 19, 2006 1:13 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

No stat is perfect, but pitcher Wins and Losses are actually CONTRA-indicative of performance at least several times a week.

A player may get a lot of credit for a grand slam while deserving only slight credit, but that is the extreme case. In Wins and Losses, that kind of credit is awarded routinely, and the extreme case is far, far dumber.

A grand slam never hurts your team and a player is never given negative credit for getting one. In constrast, a pitcher can throw 12 innings with no hits, walks or HBP and still get tagged with a "Loss."

A GIDP never helps your team and a player is never given positive credit for getting one. In contrast, a pitcher can have a horrible start and still be credited with a "Win."

By the way, what was the grand slam hitter supposed to do in that situation? We're still sending him up there! Should we discredit Jason Johnson for only giving up one run, when clearly his job was just to give up less than 15?

by Jay on Apr 19, 2006 1:48 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Wins are probably the dumbest stat you can use to evaluate a pitcher. Even losses are better (you will always lose a game by giving up 20 runs, but you can't always win a game by giving up zero), though that's not saying much. But I think it's good that these idiot writers and members of the media think a W/L record is the best way to evaluate a pitcher. I mean, the awards are really meaningless, and it's just more poorly informed people in the game. God bless people like Jim Bowden and Brian Sabean for giving away their money to "winners" every year!

I realized last night that I haven't been paying attention to "old school" statistics for the last five years. I don't play fantasy baseball (I absolutely despise it), but one of my friends was asking me for some waiver wire sleepers last night. I recommended Jason Michaels and Ryan Madson, two guys who were both on the wire, but I told him I didn't know if they were good fantasy players. He picked up Madson, but he told me Michaels was worse than Craig Monroe, which sort of made me laugh. Turns out Monroe had 89 RBI last year (who knew?!). I just laughed and said, "Well, that's fantasy baseball for you!"

by Kos @ Let's Go Tribe! on Apr 19, 2006 2:08 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Exactly. Wins might as well be assigned randomly. I know sportswriters understand this (right?), but a lot of average-type fans think the pitcher that "deserves" the win always gets it.

by rog on Apr 19, 2006 8:07 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

IMO wins meant a lot more when pitchers completed most of their games.

Yes, wins do mean something, but they shouldn't be the major criteria for a Cy Young award in this day and age. That's like picking the MVP based entirely on RBIs. There's many other salient statistics that we can look

Ocker IMO had absolutely no excuse for voting for Lee instead of Millwood. He should have known the Indians gave Millwood very little run support and Lee a lot of run support. He's the beat reporter, for goodness sake!

An interesting project (if anyone's interested in it) is to use win probability for Millwood's and Lee's 2006 starts to get a better picture of how important each pitcher was in team wins and losses. I think that's what you're alluding to, Dave.

by Ryan on Apr 19, 2006 12:25 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

I've thought about the win probability, but haven't taken the plunge. I waste enough time already.

by oxforddave on Apr 19, 2006 12:35 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Me too. But you don't have to get ultra-scientific with it. A basic, but fundamentally sound, grounding in baseball stats is all that would be needed to get these awards a lot closer to "right."

There are no writers with a solid understanding of baseball stats who voted for Colon. Zero. You don't have to become a comprehensive guru on the subject of win probability, you just have to be trying, at least a little, to pick the best pitcher.

by Jay on Apr 19, 2006 1:52 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

I've followed a little bit of the change in basketball statistics over the past two seasons and they are now looking at performance measures for given groups of five players, situational stats for individuals in specific situations, and other such things. I wonder if you could come up with some statistic akin to a composite win percentage based on how well pitchers perform when it matters. I would imagine it would involve basic performance measures coupled with some measure of situational leverage (whether a game is close or not at the time). If you could, maybe it would help separate the "winners" and "losers" better than a win-loss record.

For example, every starting pitcher enters the game (at least for the home team) in a high leverage situation (tie game). However, the value of their individual effort to team performance as the game goes on will vary based on a combination of how well they perform and how meaningful it is at the time. With the pitch-by-pitch data available these days, it should be possible to measure the performance value of any given at bat, at the time, and come up with a total composite value for each appearance a pitcher makes. Good performances are more valuable in close situations. Bad performances are less negative in blow outs.

Does that make any sense?

by APV on Apr 19, 2006 3:20 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Of course pitcher wins are relavent to team victories, and team victories are all that counts. But the myriad of factors that contribute to a pitcher win (run support, opposing pitcher, quality of opponents, bullpen capability, etc) decrease the correlation between the quality of the pitcher and the number of wins he achieves.

I don't expect writers to understand this. I'd like them to, of course, but I'm not suprised they don't. It seems as if Cy Young voters vote for the pitcher who contributed the most wins to thier team as it turned out that season , as opposed to who was the best pitcher that season. I'd prefer to focus on the latter, but that isn't the case. Oh well, my opinion doesn't count there :)

Trying to assign relavance to something like this gives me a headache, I must say.

by Thommy on Apr 19, 2006 12:53 PM EDT up reply actions

In summary...

I think the majority agrees that the Cy Young award has in its basis a win component, for better or worse. Given that, it would be illogical to vote for Millwood over Lee last year. Ocker may be an idiot (I don't know, I never read him, and I'm not one to judge anyway), but his decision in this case makes complete sense given the parameters he has to deal with.

Most of this discussion has been on the efficacy of the win stat. This is interesting, but pretty unresolvable in a discussion format. I'm sure somewhere on the web this has been attempted to be quantified. I'd be interested if anybody knew articles about this topic. Until then...

by oxforddave on Apr 19, 2006 3:31 PM EDT reply actions

Re: In summary...

"Wins" is a component of the current voters' voting habits. It is not a component of the award. It would not be illogical for any voter to choose to start voting for the best pitcher. It would not be the first time that voting habits change as perceptions of "best" change. As it is, apropos of Kos' comments above, they are basically choosing the best fantasy starter.

Consider that when Santana won in 2004, half the voters picked him as the likeliest winner in 2005. When Colon won in 2005, NOBODY picked him to win in 2006. I would submit to you that the voters actually ALREADY KNOW that Colon is not the best pitcher, but they feel obligated by some weird tradition to give the award to the "best arbitrary season" rather than to the best pitcher.

That is not a reflection of the award or its intention, it's a reflection of the voters.

Win Probability (discussed above) is one quantification of starter contribution. BP's "support neutral value added" is another good way. You could also look at a starter's impact on win probability.

Each of these methods has its appeal and its flaws, but I would maintain, again, that you don't have to be super-scientific to see that Colon should not have won last year, or that Millwood was better than Cliff Lee. You just have to be ACTUALLY TRYING to pick the best pitchers.

by Jay on Apr 19, 2006 6:05 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

this may not concern our discussion, but vazquez has a no-hitter going through 5 innings today in chicago (already has 1 BB).

by The Animal on Apr 19, 2006 3:39 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

KC is terrible. The tribe better take at least 2 out of 3 this weekend.

by oxforddave on Apr 19, 2006 4:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

KC is real bad. How many times have they already been one hit? The truly sad thing is I think the team they are actually putting on the field this year is better than the team they had last year, especially on the offensive side. Ouch.

by APV on Apr 19, 2006 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

I'm not sure if their offense is better or not, but their pitching is horrendous.

This whole thing really sucks. I don't want to root for a division rival, but this used to be one of the proudest teams in professional sports. Think about it - George Brett, Frank White, Amos Otis, Dan Quisenberry, Bret Saberhagen, Hal McRae, Willie Wilson, Paul Splittorff, etc. The way Baird and Glass have run this franchise into the ground is awful.

by mkwng @ Let's Go Tribe! on Apr 19, 2006 5:02 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

The conundrum here is that you're giving out a personal award in what is, after all is said and done, a team sport. What we could do is take CY winners stats, W, L, ERA etc. do a regression analysis and come up with a 12 term polynomial so that every the CY winner would have the highest score. Pretty straight forward. Excel even has a macro that will do a least squared best solution for the coefficients. Then we'd reduce human competition down to nothing more than facts and stats.

But then we'd lose one of the most, for me, intriguing aspect of sports: the human factor. I think that some of the Cy Young voters ask questions like: it's August, you're in the pennant chase, you're on a three game slide and the Yankees are coming to town - who do you want to start? Millwood, Lee, Santana, Halliday? Do you look at their respective record against NY, or do you go with the guy you think is going to win? In other words, who's got the stones to put the entire season on their shoulders? BTW, I'd take Santana.

For me, that's the most important criteria I'd use to vote for the CY.

by mauichuck on Apr 20, 2006 8:43 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Starting Pitcher Arguments

Hey, absolutely, I like that approach. (The second one, not the regression analysis.) Part of the problem is that when voter choices are tied so heavily to the W stat, you end up saying that you want Cliff Lee in that game. I like Cliff Lee a lot (I hate to hear him called "middling") but still, who would pick him for that game?

by dgcambridge on Apr 21, 2006 10:56 AM EDT up reply actions

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