My league recently made the transition from Wins to Quality Starts, meaning we removed Wins as a stat and added Quality Starts. We opened the change up for discussion, but no one defended Wins. Is Wins, as a stat in fantasy baseball, even defensible as a stat?
My specific question, which no one answered, is "what does Wins measure about a pitcher's performance"?
I'm interested in others' thoughts on the issue.
0% Agree (0 votes) |
I would prefer wins. Typically, the teams with better pitching are going to end up with more wins, and it adds a little more strategy. When you're behind in wins later in the year, you can throw up starters with good matchups, and hope for a win. I imagine finding random Quality Starts will be harder to do. Also, this removes some of the value from relievers that tend to get wins as good setup men.
Was your league thinking wins are too random?
0% Agree (0 votes) |
Our league was tired of what Yu Darvish did here.
Compared to what Cliff Lee did here.
Makes no sense at all, in most of our members' minds, to reward the owner of Yu Darvish for an atrocious showing (his owner gets a W), and give the owner of Cliff Lee nothing.
Our league was also tired of what Jose Valverde did here.
Better yet, it was also tired of what happened to Justin Verlander in the same game. 8IP, 0ER, 7K, leaves with a lead, and a blown save costs him a decision.
I would say the two most common scenarios that led to our decision were crappy games where a SP gets a garbage win (think 5IP, 5ER, W), and stellar games where the pitcher gets a ND or L, even worse when that pitcher leaves with a lead and bullpen brings out the gas can.
Under QS, all of the good pitchers in the above games would be rewarded. Better yet, our league doesn't have to worry about two good SP squaring off against each other. They can both have stellar turns (Lester and Verlander both had QS in the Valverde game above) and get QS.
Other thoughts?
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What I meant by "what Valverde did" is closers who come in with a lead, give up a few runs to blow the save, but finish the inning, and their team then wins in the bottom half of the inning, giving them the W because they coughed up the lead for the starter. The most infuriating is when you have the SP and your opponent on the week has the closer. 2W flip right there.
0% Agree (0 votes) |
"I imagine finding random Quality Starts will be harder to do."
My keeper league switched from W to QS last season, and, based on my small sample of second-half streaming, I would argue that it's easier to scout for QS than W because they aren't as random. Solid pitchers facing bad offenses tend to put together quality starts, play the matchups and it tends to work out. As I've said to you before, Ken, I used Ease Rankings for this purpose down the stretch with great success.
And speaking to the switch, I was one of the lead proponents. I just like the idea of the emphasis being more squarely on pitcher performance. You can argue that the criteria for earning a QS isn't exceptionally difficult, but how difficult is it for a pitcher to get a win when his offense scores 8-10 runs?
A qualifier for the switch: with QS being squarely a SP category, you may want to consider adding another RP-heavy cat like HLD to balance things. We moved to 6x6 with what I felt were excellent results (dropped AVG, added OBP and SLG for hitters). Then you have four cats that SP influence (ERA, WHIP, QS, K) and four cats that RP influence (ERA, WHIP, SV, HLD).
100% Agree (1 vote) |
Our league has been using Quality Start for the last four years. Our owners would be opposed to rewrding wins. In addition to Quality Start as a scoring category, we use Innings Pitched, K/9, ERA, WHIP, and Net Saves/Holds. We find this combination balances the value of relievers and starters.
0% Agree (0 votes) |
If I had to choose one over the other, I am going with QS. As was stated, Wins are more random. I remember years ago when Kevin Milwood won the AL ERA title and went 9-11...that's just funny. Also, it just really bugs me when a pitcher goes 7-8 strong innings, doesn't get the win for whatever reason, and then some rp picks it up who went 2/3 of an inning, or because he blew the save.
I understand that in baseball and or sports when dumbed down it's about wins and losses, but from a fantasy baseball perspective I am all on board with QS over Wins. I have tried to get the 16 team keeper I am in to change, but not enough were on board.
We currently run a 6x6. Offense is...avg, runs, hr, rbi, sb, and .ops. Pitching cats are...w, k, sv, hld, era, whip. My arguement for going to QS contained some of what I mentioned here ( much more in depth), and also the fact that we have saves and holds, so it's not like we are hanging the rp's out to dry, at all. Maybe one day we will switch. We switched to the auction two years ago, and I was one of the main guys who initially started pushing for that, and I will keep pushing for this. I hope the new change works out for your league, and I perosnally see it as a positive.
0% Agree (0 votes) |
A Quality Start has more of a reflection of how the pitcher actually pitched. A win outcome is mainly a random stat because a pitcher cannot control how the offense plays and how many runs they score. I like to have both in my leagues but if I had to choose one it would be QS for sure.
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Such a bummer. I wrote a long post under General Discussion and it submitted properly; however, it seems that forum doesn't work. :-(
0% Agree (0 votes) |
I'm the league with Buser where we added QS and holds to replace wins and OBP and SLG for AVG and I don't regret it at all. We had long discussions on it and I really like what we accomplished. The balance between SP and RPs
I can't remember the exact math at this point, but I remember a big factor on my end was looking at the percentage of wins that came from middle relievers and thinking that it was insane. I think right around 90 wins was winning our league as the most wins in a season and about 20 of those were coming from middle relievers. I mean last season Nate Jones (who?) and Rex Brothers each had 8 wins and bad stats. Rex Brothers should have had 7 blown saves/losses, but had an 8-2 record on the season. Jones had an 8-0 record but blew three saves and held 7 games. Other 16 game wiiners: Darvish (18QS), Cain (21QS), Bumgarner (19QS), Gallardo (25QS), Lohse (24QS) and Scherzer (20QS) to name a few.
0% Agree (0 votes) |