Laurila: Players’ view: Kill the win?
From SABR member David Laurila at FanGraphs on May 26, 2015:
MLB Network’s Brian Kenny wants to “Kill the Win.” As a FanGraphs reader, you’re certainly familiar with – and quite possibly supportive of – his stance. The stat is often misleading, and slowly but surely it’s becoming less of a barometer when assessing an individual pitcher’s performance. But should the win be “killed”? I recently posed that question to nine pitchers, two pitching coaches and a pitcher-turned-broadcaster. Here are their responses:
Chris Archer, Rays: “I don’t know if it should be killed. The emphasis behind it isn’t as great as people make it out to be. I think true baseball gurus, and players and management, know. It’s how a lot of fans may judge someone, but we know there’s not so much behind the importance of (an individual pitcher’s) win.”
Craig Breslow, Red Sox: “I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Unless we’re going to kill every single statistic, then we should spare the win. I don’t think you can make a good argument for killing a statistic for not telling the whole story. You just to have to explain it doesn’t give a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of a pitcher.”
Kevin Gausman, Orioles: “I don’t think you can just get rid of it. What if a starting pitcher has an unbelievable year and wins 25 or 30 games? He definitely had an effect on why his team won those games. That would probably be my biggest argument against getting rid of it.”
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/players-view-kill-the-win/
Originally published: May 26, 2015. Last Updated: May 26, 2015.