Alex Wood shows both sides of the win

Phil Gurnee ♦ August 16, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

Keith Law has a great book out right now called Smart Baseball telling us in one of the early chapters how wins are a ridiculous stat because so much of a win is team based. I’ve gotten through about five chapters so far and have learned nothing new except on how to tell baseball fans why baseball card stats suck using many many words. Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying the book, but for someone who learned from Bill James thirty years ago about how to properly view baseball stats, the first few chapters are not eye openers. I do look forward to the ensuing chapters and really enjoyed the vitriol displayed toward the save stat which I may hate even more than Keith Law, and he really hates it.

Alex Wood showed last night why the win is a crappy stat as he pitched seven beautiful innings, only to leave with the game tied 1 – 1. His team would earn the win by blowing open the game in the bottom of the eighth after Brandon Morrow had pitched a clean top of the eighth. Brandon Morrow pitched one inning and was credited with the win. Alex Wood pitched seven innings of one run ball and got nothing.

Still…………………

I can’t quite give up my back of the baseball card winning percentage love.  Ron Perranowski and Phil Regan blew me away with their winning percentages.

And right now, Alex Wood has the best winning percentage amoung starters with at least fourteen wins.  So while 5/6 of me has moved on from the win, that 1/6 still sees some kind of beauty in a plus .900 winning percentage.

Player          W-L%  W L Year Age    IP  ERA  FIP OPS+
Alex Wood       .933 14 1 2017  26 117.1 2.30 2.70   54
Greg Maddux     .905 19 2 1995  29 209.2 1.63 2.26   29
Randy Johnson   .900 18 2 1995  31 214.1 2.48 2.08   48

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/16/2017.