Farmer1906 said:

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irish pete ag06 said:

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I am pretty sure we agree on what useless means. It literally means nothing about how a pitcher performs. Nothing. I have no idea why people even refer to it anymore. That and the save. On a useless scale of 1-10 those are 10s. RBIs are about an 8.

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I can't decide if its more or less useless than saves. Both stats need to just go away.

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Saves are worse than W/L. At least the latter tells you something about what the team did.

Ag_07 said:

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Y'all really saved this argument for a game day after we just swept the Giants to win our 5th series in a row?

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In my defense, I woke up thinking it was an off day.

CSWendt said:

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IMO W-L for a starter are pointless. Dallas would be 3-6 no matter how he pitched because he's gotten 0 or 10 runs a start.

Wins are pointless for a reliever. However, I think losses for a reliever have value. To me that shows that they came in during a game they were leading or tied and surrendered the lead. While it is not the most useful for determining their success, it does show me if they are able to keep the lead when pitching.

Saves I value. It is very easy to tell a difference in pitching in the 8th versus the 9th. A guy with lots of saves tells me he's able to pitch in typically the most stressed inning.

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Is it really that stressful to go one inning with a 3 run lead? What about a 10 run lead but pitching the last 3 innings? Theoretically, a pitcher could have a 5 run lead with the bases loaded and give up 4 runs and still get a save.

I also don't buy the thing about handling stress. I think making it to the majors weeds out anyone who can't. I know it looks like guys crack under pressure all the time, but it's really hard to identify statistically.

If you want to look at a "stress" metric then look at how he does in high leverage situations.

it's totally anecdotal, but closers seem to be some of the stranger personalities in baseball. Not sure if the weird guys just get highlighted more or if there is a "closer personality"

TREX01 said:

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Exhausting, isn't it.

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if it's so exhausting to you, you could always come up with a better topic that kills this one.

Diggity said:

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it's totally anecdotal, but closers seem to be some of the stranger personalities in baseball. Not sure if the weird guys just get highlighted more or if there is a "closer personality"

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Kenny G sure has been pitching a lot better since AJ asked him to tone down his closer personality though, right?

he hasn't pitched that well start-in and start-out (i.e. consistency). ERA is decent, but his standard deviation so to speak is not.

for Astros fans that watched Roy Oswalt his entire Houston career. He always had a gaudy W-L record...primarily because he was very consistent and rarely had a dud performance

NotGibbs said:

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Pretty awesome sports day with Astros and Aggie baseball early this evening, and then Rockets later tonight

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I'll even throw in the Aggie softball Super Regional for this evening.

and for the anti-W-L record crowd...I always like to go back to Ron Guidry's 1978 season when he posted a 25-3 W-L mark with the Yankees.

you don't need to look up his run support...and you don't need to look up his ERA either...to know he was brilliant that season

Just the fact that these arguments can be made and that people are interested in making them means the statistic is not totally useless.

I don't think anyone is proposing that it is the end all metric to judge pitchers by. It does tell part of the story and combined with other statistics it can tell you quite a bit.

We know that won't last

So not completely useless, but probably not in the top 25 stats to use when judging a pitcher.

Sound good? Okay lets move on.

W-L is a fun stat that means little in the grand scheme of things. See how easy that was?

W said:

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he hasn't pitched that well start-in and start-out (i.e. consistency). ERA is decent, but his standard deviation so to speak is not.

for Astros fans that watched Roy Oswalt his entire Houston career. He always had a gaudy W-L record...primarily because he was very consistent and rarely had a dud performance

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Which six of his ten starts are loss worthy? Since you think 3-6 is indicative of his performance, identify the six starts where he clearly earned the loss.

6 IP, 3 ER
5 IP, 1 ER
4 IP, 3 ER
8 IP, 2 ER
6 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 6 ER
7 IP, 3 ER
8 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 0 ER
5 IP, 4 ER

Farmer1906 said:

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CSWendt said:

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IMO W-L for a starter are pointless. Dallas would be 3-6 no matter how he pitched because he's gotten 0 or 10 runs a start.

Wins are pointless for a reliever. However, I think losses for a reliever have value. To me that shows that they came in during a game they were leading or tied and surrendered the lead. While it is not the most useful for determining their success, it does show me if they are able to keep the lead when pitching.

Saves I value. It is very easy to tell a difference in pitching in the 8th versus the 9th. A guy with lots of saves tells me he's able to pitch in typically the most stressed inning.

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Is it really that stressful to go one inning with a 3 run lead? What about a 10 run lead but pitching the last 3 innings? Theoretically, a pitcher could have a 5 run lead with the bases loaded and give up 4 runs and still get a save.

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You're right, not all saves are the same.

But there's a reason why a guy like Will Harris can be lights out in the 6th, 7th, or 8th inning but can't record outs in the 9th for saves.

It would be easier to highlight 6 games where he should have gotten the win.

Maybe, maybe not.

Here is Harris in "Late and Close" situations vs his career #s.
.223
.283
.328
.611

.227
.281
.342
.620

He's actually at his worst when its a big margin.

.276
.307
.432
.739

Will Harris

9th inning
4.61

Career ERA
3.01

There is a very good chance that a good chunk of his 9th inning appearances have come in save situations.

I'm not advocating that saves are the best measure of ability and clutchness. The final inning of a game is on average consistently the most stressful inning and the hardest to record outs for a pitcher. Not every single game, or every single save, but on average it is. Saves just measures their success level in the most stressful inning.

Steve Carlton won 27 games for a Phillies team that won 56. To me that's even better than Guidry's season. The 78 Yankees were good.

If there was no save stat and closer's role, the ninth inning would likely be viewed differently. I think the stat has contributed to additional pressure being added and guys worrying about losing their closer's role.

He was a teammate of his from college but says "he spoke to him once and decided not to do that again" Must have been a rough club house at UCLA

cpsencik04 said:

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He was a teammate of his from college but says "he spoke to him once and decided not to do that again" Must have been a rough club house at UCLA

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UCLA must have a HUGE clubhouse and dugout.

1: Road game
2: Morton on the bump
3: Facing a non-scrub

Q: Does the Astros offense score 8 or 12?

6

Guess we gotta call it - Jake from Rake Farm will make an appearance tonight.

Not sure why we dont get Marwin in the outfield and JD Davis at 1st

The Milkman said:

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Not sure why we dont get Marwin in the outfield and JD Davis at 1st

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Marisnick!

I do not like calling up Davis while he was tearing it up in AAA and then sitting him in 2 of the first 3 games.

so we are 50 games in.... is anybody else as shocked as I am that the Dodgers are so bad?

I really thought we might see a World Series rematch this year (though I picked Houston vs Chicago)