Wang anyone?

Rating the best of anything is tough. It is always subjective and as such, usually leans towards personal preferences and experiences first, your heart second (the result of the first) and the truth, unfortunately, is. third. Granted Wang is at least in the discussion as being the best in MLB over the last 3 or 4 years. But I have always thought that Wins is actually one of the worst ways to tell if a pitcher is good or not. It is unfortunate that it is the best of the worst ways to judge a pitcher.

The logic: Relief staffs. I have seen so many leads blown by the middle relievers and closers over the last 25 years, that if those relievers were any good (let’s say only blew half of those games) , the starters would have won more and the teams would have won more. What if the yanks did not have Rivera? You could subtract maybe 3 or 4 wins from that 19. The other part of the equation is Offense. There is a sabermetric for cheap wins (a win without a quality start), Wang had 6 last year (wins game while giving up 3 or more runs in at least 5 innings). But! The more telling numbers about Wang revolve around offense.

In the 19 wins last year, the Yankees scored 164 runs for him (almost 9 per game) - and the relievers. In the 7 losses, they only scored 27 runs (3.8 runs). In those 7 losses he and the relievers gave up 69 runs. 10 per game! So in Wins, yes, when the Yanks score 9 or more runs, they will win for him. But there are plenty of games when they score under 4 runs for him and they lose.

I know most pitchers will have similar situations, but the fluctuations in Run Support to me, is the most telling of his stats. Not his Wins/Losses. If any team scores 9+ runs per game for a starter, they will win the game. It has less to do with what the starter does and more to do with what the team does at the plate. He also had 5 games last year when he could not get out of the 5th inning. This is not my idea of dominance. He had 18 starts last year where he let up 3 or more runs. Also, not dominant, since he only averaged 6.6 innings per start.

Another way to look at this theory: There was a pitcher in 2005 who won only 13 games. Mediocre right, going by your Win/Loss theory. I would say so too - until you look at the games. In the 19 non-wins that this pitcher was involved in (L or NDs), his team only scored 26 runs. That is 1.36 runs per game. They were also shut out 9 times! This pitcher won 5 games when his team only scored 3 or fewer runs! This pitcher won the ERA award this season too, with a 1.87! Who was the pitcher? Roger Clemens.

So is Wang the best since 2006? Not sure. Curious, sure, but likely no. The Yankee offense is probably the best since 2006.

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I think Wang’s performance in 2008 just tells everyone how wrong the assumption is that Wang’s success is depending on Yankee’s offence.

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