Pancho – Perhaps one day you’ll realize that I’m not Craig, and I don’t have to be nice. If your going to spout off inanities I am not going to be any nicer to you about them then you have been to Craig and others. You challenge people continually on thier ethics. That is not nice. In fact its pretty low. I feel no obligation to you to be nice in my replies when you are not respectful of others to begin with.

And as for Wins, I’m pretty sure on the open market right now Felix would command more money than any 20 game winner in baseball. The Yanks would give him far more money than CC, or Lee. That is because they realize what you don’t: Wins are a function of the team, not the pitcher.

I don’t see many GMs trading 20 game winners for 10 game winners. I wonder why? I don’t recall many 10 game winners getting $100 million plus contracts. Again I wonder why if wins don’t matter.

Craig, I don’t agree with you that the decisions managers make on a day to day basis, the ones GMs make on month to month basis, and the one voters make when looking at a entire career should use the same criteria. It’s a little like saying if I invest my money on what gives me the best return today that will be my best return over 20 years. Careers need to be evaluated as whole careers and compared to those who were playing during their time.

I’m not trying to start anything. I’m not a sabermetrician but I Love stats. The best thing about collecting cards as a kid was looking at the backs and evaluating talent and looking beyond some of the obvious numbers. I do think, however, that we’ve started taking some of the number deciphering a bit too far.

Oh well, I guess I’m old and still value a CG, or at least 8 innings from a pitcher. Ask my son who is a fairly decent pitcher what is most important and he’ll tell you knowing the hitters, establishing his strike zone, know when to pitch to contact based on who’s behind him and ultimately when to go for the strikeout….and hit one out of the park when he bats. Earl Weaver knew what he was talking about.

Also, hat tip to baseball-reference.com for the data.

Measuring one pitcher’s season by wins is a poor barometer because so much more can affect it then just how well the pitcher performs.

The Pitcher controls very little of the equation when it comes to Wins. Its been that way since pitchers stopped throwing complete games on a regular basis. Especially true in the AL where they can’t even hit thier way to a Win if necessary.

Wins are a team stat. A pitcher contributes at best, one third of that stat. The other two thirds are contributed by the defense and the hitting lineup. I’ll buy into Wins as a stat when it can be seperated in such a way that it makes sense that only a third of the Win or Loss is attributable to the pitching.

Wins are meaningless for the purposes of determining which pitcher was a more effective pitcher. Who was better able to prevent the other team from scoring runs separate and apart from how much run support that pitcher receives from his offense (which is totally out of the pitcher’s control).

That is an important thing to consider in real baseball, not fantasy baseball. GMs need to figure it out when they make a trade for one or draft one. Managers need to figure it out when they decide who makes their rotation. Finally, for our purposes, voters need to figure it out to determine if a pitcher is worthy of a postseason award or election to the Hall of Fame.

Craig, let’s say this correctly. Wins are fairly meaningless in determining a pitchers value in fanasty league baseball. Real baseball is another story. Here is one more shock. Fanasty league baseball success is not the same as real baseball success.

All that said, I don’t think Morris is a HOFer. If he had a couple more 20+ wins seasons he would be a HOFer. Let’s not forget that he played in the AL which was clearly the inferior league during most of his career.

We’re better off to say that pitching wins itself is a poor barometer of quality (his ERA+ isn’t that far above average for example) than to say the “most wins in the eighties” claim was misleading.

Mostly though, it’s just for fun.