Sep 16, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Shelby Miller (17) reacts after getting pulled from the game in the fourth inning of their game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Turner Field. Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports
Atlanta’s Shelby Miller is going to get one more start this season – that’s currently scheduled for Saturday… against John Lackey and the Cardinals. If there’s any good news in that, then it’s the thought that by then the Cards should have clinched their division, home field advantage through the NLCS, their 100th victory, and are merely just trying to insure that their starters are tuned up and ready to go in another week.
For Miller, there’s a psychological aspect to this game that goes well beyond an otherwise meaningless contest on the last weekend of the year. This is getting personal.
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If reporters and fate were kinder, Miller would be able to go into the off-season reflecting on a job well done. And he should. He has the 16th-best ERA among all major-league starters (3.10). He is one of three pitchers to carry no hitters into the 7th inning or later this year. He’s been the best on the Braves’ staff.
But there’s that one stat that dogs him… 5 wins, 17 losses. Moreover, it’s now 8 “Loss” decisions in a row and 24 straight without a “Win.”
He has faded down the stretch, yes: In September, his ERA has bumped up to 6.75 as hitters are getting after him for a .321 average and .400 OBP/.933 OPS. Maybe it’s fatigue; maybe it’s him pressing too much. Can’t say.
But 11 times in that 24-start span, he’s allowed 2 runs or less. Not earned runs, mind you – just runs. 7 times: 1 runs or less. On one occasion, he allowed nothing and still got a no-decision for his labors.
Arguments
Clearly, Shelby Miller would be the poster child for any groundswell movement among fans to eliminate the “W” stat, but that’s just not going to happen. It’s too ingrained in the psyche of baseball fans… and pitchers, for that matter.
Of all qualifying pitchers (79 of them) this season, the only other one with just 5 wins is C.C. Sabathia… who is sporting a 4.82 ERA at 5-10 (Aaron Harang is 6-15/4.86, Mike Pelfrey 6-10, 4.09).
Back in the middle of this month, TomahawkTake writers Ryan Cothran and Brandon Woodworth attempted to have a discussion on this very subject with broadcaster Chip Carey via twitter. If I recall correctly it was launched by Chip in response to a Cubs tweet about a Jake Arrieta game at the time.
In short, after considerable banter, I believe Brandon ended up getting his tweets blocked by Carey, and all other sides ultimately agreeing to disagree on the merits of the “Win” vs. that plus advanced stats to help evaluate pitchers. Some of this was chronicled by Peter Evangelakis at the Braves General Store blog as Carey used his national forum to – as Ryan put it – ‘throw advanced stats under the bus.’
The following chart, though, illustrates clearly the flimsy correlation between ERA and Wins:
TomahawkTake.com graphic. 2015 qualified starting pitchers: Wins (horiz axis) vs. ERA (vertical).
There is a general downward trend to the data as you progress to the right in win totals. However, it’s a very sketchy relationship, statistically, given the wide variations in ERA. Plus, there are outliers all over the place.
- Miller’s 5 wins vs. 3.10 ERA is highlighted in red. But Scott Kazmir‘s 7-11 record against 2.97 ERA is also well out of the cluster.
- On the other end of the scale, Alfredo Simon has 13 wins… and a 5.18 ERA.
- Colby Lewis of the Rangers: 4.53 ERA with 17 wins. But that happens when you actually have an offense.
I’ll throw in one more chart – FIP vs. Wins (below). It’s actually surprising to me that this appears so similar to the prior chart… with Miller again hung out to dry beyond the lower left edge of the data cluster.
Bias alert: while I appreciate many of the advanced stats, I do despise FIP, for it hurts non-strikeout pitchers badly… I understand what it aims to accomplish, but ‘pitch-to-contact’ pitchers will always find disfavor in FIP.
TomahawkTake.com graphic. 2015 qualified starting pitchers: Wins (horiz axis) vs. FIP (vertical).
All That To Say This
Clearly, the ultimate goal is to achieve a team win. But pitching “Wins” are highly overrated, and the best thing you can do as a pitcher is to keep your team in the position to win a game. As such, the ‘W’ is a metric that’s so simplistic and ignorant of the facts of the game as to be not only useless, but actually misleading as a means of evaluating pitchers.
Unless you’re Madison Bumgarner or Zack Greinke and can win games with your bat, the extent of what pitchers can do in a game is to stifle the opposition. It is a team game, but aren’t pitchers getting credit for the wrong things here? The performance of 8 hitters?
In addition, during this age of reliever specialization, would you (if you were a pitcher) really want the fate of your Wins total to hinge on somebody entering the game in the 7th… 8th… or 9th innings? Why shouldn’t you get credit for what you did… even if a teammate allows a tying run to score. Or an opposition winning run, for that matter?
I suppose the “Quality Start” stat was invented as a means of trying to capture that kind of effort (6+ innings; 3 ER or less), but not only does it also seem to be simplistic it averages out to a 4.50 ERA, which is quite insufficient to define “quality” in my mind.
But allow me to digress just a bit with that:
- Tom Glavine (305 “wins”) had 445 “Quality Starts”. Clearly the ‘QS’ is too lenient.
- But he also had 312 starts with 7+ innings and a game ERA of 4.00 or less.
- Greg Maddux: 355 “wins”… and 361 times with 7+ innings and 4.00 ERA or better.
Hmmm…. Interesting. It’s a tiny sample size, but maybe we’re on to something here.
Shelby Miller? 11 times in 2015 with 7+/<4.00.
Perhaps that’s at least something that might help Miller to keep his head about him during a long winter’s off-season.