Posted by toddcommish on 12/11/2017 5:29:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bad_luck on 12/11/2017 5:13:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 12/11/2017 5:11:00 PM (view original):
Can we agree that a guy who didn't walk people, basically pitched to contact, could have this mindset?
"I always thought about completing games, starting games, eating up innings and trying to win games more importantly than anything else"
And, in doing so, he allowed a lot of runs. Sorry. That makes him a less effective pitcher.
But "effectiveness" in baseball is WINNING. You don't really care if your pitcher goes 9 innings and gives up 5 runs, if the team has already scored 8. Sometimes his job isn't limiting "BABIP" or "ERA+". Sometimes (and this was more true in the 70's/80's than now) his job was to suck it up and throw a complete game to spare the bullpen.
That will never show up in the "new" stats.
It's amazing how many people fail to get this. Roy Halladay always comes to mind. If his team gave him a 6-0 lead, he'd go right after hitters, focused on getting outs and eating innings, not caring if he gave up 4 runs, as long as his team got the W. Conversely, if his team gave him a 1-0 lead, he could bear down and make that stand up as well as anyone in the game.
Any pitcher who's on the mound thinking about his WHIP, ERA or whatever else during a game isn't worth a salt. Those are the guys you see who continue to nip the corners with a 5 run lead and end up walking a guy because they're trying to hard too strike him out.
That mindset was even more prevalent before the 1990s. A pitcher's job, especially the ace of the staff, was to go the distance and make sure his team got the W. That's it. It wasn't to shut them out, throw a no-hitter, etc...it was to get the W for his team.