Tim Hudson: Hall of Famer?

That was exactly my point yesterday: A majority of "quality starts" are something like seven and one.

Let's rewrite for accuracy. You have always disliked the idea that a 4.50 ERA (six and three) is considered a "quality start."

But if you're really interested in coming up with a stat for "dominant starts", you could do a lot worse than Bill James' Game Score (as long as you eliminate extra-inning starts from the results when comparing different eras. And realize that Game Score gives extra credit to high strikeout totals.)

For instance, here are the top Game Scores from 2013 so far:

Code:

                                                                                        
Rk              Player       Date  Tm Opp   Rslt  AppDec  IP H R ER BB SO HR Pit Str GSc
1           Yu Darvish 2013-04-02 TEX HOU W  7-0 GS-9  W 8.2 1 0  0  0 14  0 111  78  96
                                                                                        
2      Adam Wainwright 2013-04-13 STL MIL W  8-0 SHO9  W 9.0 4 0  0  0 12  0 115  84  91
                                                                                        
3       Anibal Sanchez 2013-04-26 DET ATL W 10-0 GS-8  W 8.0 5 0  0  1 17  0 121  84  88
4    Jordan Zimmermann 2013-04-26 WSN CIN W  1-0 SHO9  W 9.0 1 0  0  1  4  0  91  59  88
5         Homer Bailey 2013-04-16 CIN PHI W  1-0    GS-8 8.0 2 0  0  0 10  0  89  59  88
                                                                                        
6    Jordan Zimmermann 2013-05-01 WSN ATL W  2-0 GS-8  W 8.0 2 0  0  0  8  0 107  72  86
7      Clayton Kershaw 2013-04-28 LAD MIL W  2-0 GS-8  W 8.0 4 0  0  0 12  0 117  78  86
8            Cliff Lee 2013-04-04 PHI ATL W  2-0 GS-8  W 8.0 2 0  0  0  8  0 106  78  86
9      Jeff Samardzija 2013-04-01 CHC PIT W  3-1 GS-8  W 8.0 2 0  0  1  9  0 110  71  86
10     Clayton Kershaw 2013-04-01 LAD SFG W  4-0 SHO9  W 9.0 4 0  0  0  7  0  94  65  86
                                                                                        
11       Kyle Kendrick 2013-04-26 PHI NYM W  4-0 SHO9  W 9.0 3 0  0  1  5  0 107  73  85
12       Clay Buchholz 2013-04-14 BOS TBR W  5-0 GS-8  W 8.0 2 0  0  4 11  0 109  69  85

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/3/2013.

 

93Devil isn't interested in your Bill James stats. He's an innovator. He'll come up with something.

 

Your dickhead WAR is very high this season.

 

Should that be DAR -- Dickheads Above Replacement?

 

Value Over Replacement Punk-Asses?

 

Oy vey. Three of those are against the Braves.

 

Tekiya ... Oy Vey ...

... all this kvelling about sabrametrics!

 

BW, that is very interesting, but to the common fan, saying a pitcher scores an average of 74 on the start metric means jack shit. They cannot compare it to anything. It is just a number floating in air.

Saying there is a 25% chance a pitcher will go seven and allow one run or fewer while the guy he is facing as a 10% chance of doing that, to me, makes clearer sense.

 

Irony alert! Irony alert!

Give up, man.

 

No, what I am measuring is a fact. It's a percentage of what actually happened.

 

61 home runs is just a number in thin air. You cannot compare it to anything.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

 

Seriously, you should probably read something from Nate Silver to learn about how probability works. That "dominance" stat you just made up is not predictive in any way. It's barely even evaluative. And it's certainly not both.