This Guy Blew Past 5 Innings Almost Every Start
Based on baseball’s rules today, if you leave a start trailing 1-0 after 4.2 IP and your team never catches up, losing 9-8 after a stunning rally that fell just short, you absorb the loss.
If you, however, pitch 4.2 IP and leave with a 10 run lead, and your team wins by, say, 8 runs, you cannot pick up the W. Why?
Gotta get 5 innings in.
Unfair…I’ve said it before, and I will say it again.
In 2024, just two starters in all of MLB won 18 games. (Warren Spahn won 18 games or more in a season 14 times, by comparison.)
No one won 19 in 2024. No one won 20 or more.
Just 45 starters in all of baseball in fact had 11 or more wins.
Reese noted this - Dylan Cease had a solid year, but won “just” 14 games.
“His high water mark in victories is just 14.”
But…those 14 wins were good for 12th best in baseball amongst MLB starters in 2024.
So…looked at another way…since he was 12th, at least 18 teams did not have a guy win 14 starts.
Just 3 pitchers had 2 complete games, and just 22 had one.
MLB Total? 28.
In 1973, Gaylord Perry completed 29 starts; Nolan Ryan? 26.
So…the game for starters has drastically changed. We all know that.
DRASTICALLY.
Heck, Milwaukee relievers in 2024 secured 79 decisions, while the team’s starters garnered just 4 more (83). In 1969, on the other hand, one MLB team’s pen got just 30 decisions, and only one team’s pen got more than 48 decisions. The Mets’ pen in 1969 had 39 decisions, but jumped to 67 in 2024. Starting meant something.
Why not therefore shorten the IP to qualify for a W to 4 IP, instead of 5?
Seriously.
If, as a guess, that 5-to-4-inning change boosted starter decisions per team by an average of 15 a year, that would rebalance starter vs. reliever decisions overall, more towards historical norms.
Thoughts?
Rumors? Not from me today. Happy Friday.
11 comments:
Tom, are we really going to pay the pansies 20+ mil a year to go 4 innings to get a win. They should be wearing diapers instead of uniforms.
The way to build a pitching staff is no longer to have 5 or 6 really good starters. It is to have 13 good pitchers, maybe one of them is a closers, and 4 or 5 may be considered 'starters', but it is the mid-innings guys that are gaining importance now. I think this is where the Mets have built adequate depth if they use Canning, Blackburn, and/or Megill as long-men out of the pen.
Other than personal pride for the guy that starts the game, it doesn't matter who gets the win anymore. Just give it to the guy that pitched the best/longest and call it good. If starters want the wins for their resume, they better be pitching the best and longest they can in each start.
Interesting concept
Why not just allow them to throw out the first pitch?
This is why Stearns refuses to give out crazy contracts for starting pitching. Except for the rare few, even the better pitchers don't go 6 innings.
Both Corbin Burnes and Max Fried have averaged about 18 outs per start for their careers. That gets you over $200M contracts. Huh?
JoeP, my article has nothing to do with salaries. Just the reality that many starters lose out on wins by not being able to leave a game after 4 innings to 4.2 innings with any chance of picking up a win. All other metrics that drive salaries do not change.
By your logic, virtually everyone starting games today is a pansy. But only 4 guys in all of baseball had 200-209 innings in 2024.
Mack, I am working down towards if a starter has a good bullpen session but doesn't actually start the game, he should nonetheless get the W. Give me more time to get us there :)
As we see with Pete and Flaherty, if there are performance reasons to not pay a guy big money, they will not pay it. 5 innings or 4, for the win, it makes no difference in $$.
Case in point: Jeurys Familia was 9-4, 3.97 in 2021 in the last year of a 3 year, $30 million deal. 9 wins is a lot. But he signed for "just" 1 year, "just" $6 million for 2022. Maybe he got a little bit more due to his 9 wins than he would have if he was 4-4, who knows.
Tom, pretty much every starting is a pansy. Most barely make 4 innings without throwing 100 pitches. I was just trying to shed some light on Stearn's strategy.
Also, honestly, I'm not quite sure what you meant about the Familia example. He was a closer/set up man?? He had so many wins because he blew a lot of leads.
I have no theory on why modern-day starters have become such pussies
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