Doing it With Perfect Pitch…

Baseball Pitcher - Photo courtesy of Big West Conference

My favourite aspect of professional sports happens to be the conversations that take place after viewing an event. This past week the MLB hosted the annual Mid-summer classic (All-star game) which, like many, lead to discussion about the games best. Among other things, our conversations lead to pitching, and what actually makes a good pitcher. In no way am I an expert on the subject, but like everyone else, I had an opinion. I suggested that having a pitcher with a strong Win-Loss record is actually more beneficial to a team than having a pitcher with a low ERA (The combination is obviously ideal). This point was really an attempt to explore what statistics truly matter with pitching, as there are so many out there. An agreement was not met…

Win-Loss – A statistic that has obvious impact on a team. Simple fact – if you don’t win enough games – you don’t make it to the playoffs. Of course the counter argument is that on occasion a pitcher will throw a great game and be winning for their entire performance, but if the relief pitcher blows it and surrenders more runs than his team earned, the starter will not be credited with a win. So is this really a great indicator of how strong a pitcher is? Perhaps not. I’ve seen it time and time again – most notably would be to Roy Halladay when he played for the Toronto Blue Jays. He would come out night after night with a strong performance, leaving the game after 7 or 8 innings with the lead, and the set-up man or closer ends up giving up too many runs, costing Halladay the win. So if this one doesn’t provide enough information, how about ERA?

ERA is a great indicator of how an individual pitcher is performing. This is a calculation of how many runs a pitcher gives up (through what is essentially their fault). But a pitcher may have a great ERA and still not be winning games. At the end of the day, there is only one thing in professional sports that truly matters, did you win? Looking specifically at the Blue Jays, we know how difficult it is to make it into the playoffs, and in the A.L East, every opportunity at a win must be taken.

When it comes to pitching there are many statistics out there that help to show almost every aspect of the pitchers ability. Another very important statistic used is WHIP – which represents the number of walks and hits per inning pitched. This is an obvious showing of how well a pitcher is performing, as it is their job to avoid both of these things from happening.

All of these statistics together, along with something called ‘quality start’ (for starters) will truly help you to see how strong your pitcher really is. But this is really what it’s all about isn’t it; the reason we all watch sports? So we can sit around with friends and discuss our favourite aspects of the game, and pretend like we truly know what we are talking about.