these are stats from a progressive that has ranged from 1969-1975  - The pitchers are sorted according to wins - Is this the list of pitchers you'd expect to see here?  

I was *kind of* surprised to see Carlton at #16...but relieved that Hunter was #12 since I traded Carlton for Hunter and a 1st.   It looks like I've got the better end of the deal...at least this far!  

How about that baltimore threesome??  McNally, Palmer and Cuellar are #7, #8 and #11.  

I am equally surprised at Lolich at #2 - I know wins don't necessarily point to being the best pitchers - but the fact that he's 2nd behind Seaver is saying something right???  I've never put much value in him as a pitcher in this era.  Anywho....thoughts??

Looking at Lolich's WHIP and ERA compared to the other guys, I think you have to conclude that his wins total is a function of (a) his sheer number of games and IP (b) perhaps the quality of the offense on his team (c) luck.  I would say he's been no better than the 15-20th best pitcher of the guys on the list.

Hunter has been better than Carlton so far, but as of '75, Catfish is done.  Whereas Carlton is really just getting started; his run from 1976-83 should be pretty awesome.

Further proof that wins aren't a good measure of a pitcher's true value, but instead are a function of team ability. 

I've come to think of wins and RBI's as "storytelling stats". They help explain what actually happened during a season. I'm tired of thinking of wins as worthless. But yeah, even die hard non-sabermetric fans gotta start admitting that wins correlate only slightly with actual pitcher ability.

loma, I really like the "storytelling stats" since baseball is very much about story telling but it is also true, as you, contrarian and others point out, that these are not the crucial stats to tell how good a player is, but rather as you say, what happened. 

But I have to defend Catfish Hunter just for a minute. In 1976 he goes 17-15, 3.53 and has a WHIP of 1.12. He pitched the second game of the Series after pitching reasonably well in the playoffs, and he might have won game 2 for the  Yankees had Jim Mason not bobbled a ball in a late inning, a break the Reds did not need. 

In 1978 he was no Ron Guidry, but no one was. But 12-6, 3.58 and a WHIP of 1.12 is not chopped liver either. 

And the Boston Massacre that year began with Catfish Hunter against Mike Torrez. The game was 15-3 Yankees. Some Boston fans may still be bitter enough to consider Catfish "done" by 1975, perhaps blocking out memory of that game and the rest.  :-)

Plus, Bob Dylan never wrote a song about Luis Tiant, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez  or Curt Shilling.   Here is the Joe Cocker cover of the Dylan song: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCNsNK4vpwk

One of the reasons many pitchers don't have eye popping stats (RL) is they pitched to the score. If they had a big lead, they relaxed. In today's game, it is different. To get the mega bucks, you need the mega stats. That really doesn't apply to our game, but I had an experience with 1940 Bob Feller in Donburgh's exclusive ownership league. His ability to pitch and not get fatigued was incredible, he won 27 games. His stats, other than the wins, were very ordinary. I had a very strong offense, led by '43 Rudy York (!?) 50 HRs 143 RBIs. Pitchers that are able to go deep into games get wins that other pitchers can't get. And managers who are willing to set their PC high enough to keep them in games helps, too. some of my most amazing pitcher's seasons occurred because my bullpen was awful, and I left the starters in.

Thanks for saying that pfattkatt. I really don't believe that W-L is pointless, though I agree with others that it is a dependent and not an independent variable. But I think that many of these great pitchers had every game been 2-1 would have ended up on the right side of the ledger. But with a 5-1 lead the thinking was, throw strikes, don't let anyone on on BBs. So a HR or two, or a double and and a single here or there meant their WHIPs were not overwhelming. 

I would still rather have Catfish, Dave Stewart, any of the big three Orioles pitchers of the 70s (who tormented me as some Yankees greats tormented Red Sox fans), or, though I hate to say it, Curt Shilling, than Pedro, or maybe even Maddox, magnificent as he was, if it were game 7. 

ps, I just got so caught up in this debate that I managed to eat the top of my hamburger bun without eating the rest of the burger as I typed that previous post. 

Rudy York is a real interesting story.  He apparently was the reason why the Tigers ditched Greenberg....he was all bat, no glove, and a real nice guy.

Lolich has the most losses and the only one to break 2000 IP.

I'd take 2000 or 2001 Pedro certainly over Catfish, Cuellar, McNally, or David Stewart without a second thought, over any Maddux marginally, but maybe not over Jim Palmer in his prime in a game 7.  His peak was short, but it was ridiculous.

bases loaded - 2 outs, full count -  the best hitter ever in your mind up to bat - 


Who you you want making that last pitch?