Duncan, do you think Chen will have a winning record this year?

Honestly?

I don't give a flying f*** what his record is.

I care what type of ERA and ERA+ he posts, whether his BABIP and BAA stats stay the same as they have the past two years.

I care about his walk ratios.

Those are the true indicators of a pitcher's value. Plenty of pitchers have put up crappy W totals while pitching on great teams. Plenty have put up gaudy W totals while pitching on shitty teams.

Wins are the most worthless stat in baseball. Worse even than saves, in my opinion.

lol are you ****ing serious

Here's how much I hate Ws as a stat...

I think Quality Starts is about the dumbest statistical invention in baseball, especially considering it is a new stat and makes no adjustment for year-to-year trends (i.e., it would be much better if the pitcher had to have an ERA for the game equal to or lower than the league average ERA for that year to count it as a quality start).

And I would still place more value in it over Ws.

Something I'd add...

George, you're too much of a baseball fan to limit yourself to a 1980s way of thinking about it. Statistics don't replace everything, but they can add a lot of targeted insight to your enjoyment of the game.

Yup, this says it perfectly. Great post.

Bruce Chen > Storm Davis

Chen is really terribly underrated. Now whether he'd be doing the same thing in the Yankees rotation, I don't know. But he's been rocking it pretty solid for a couple years now. The guy posted a 3.77 ERA in the American League last year. That's pretty tough. Especially when you don't strike anyone out.

But on the flipside, if he even posted a 4 ERA for the Yankees, he'd probably have a winning record... so there's that.

Hmmm, here's a question: which stat is more worthless, Wins or RBI?

Ready....... go.

A) His ERA was 3.77 last year and 4.17 the year before, and he's looked better than ever so far this year. Not sure how that guarantees low-to-mid 4's by the All-Star Break
B) His career ERA is 4.48. That is not really around 5 at all, actually.
C) He is 0-2? Is that a serious complaint? Do you know anything about baseball at all?
D) You named six teams out of thirty. That is 1/5 of the teams, not 3/4. Continue...

Okay, I take back my comment asking if you know anything about baseball. You've answered clear as a bell.

Drew Hutchinson is 1-0 with an 8.44 ERA. He is so awesome.

His career won loss is 60-60 for eleven different teams.
HOSANA!!!

I think everybody knows that, ace, but that's not all you're saying. You said he would be a number 5 on 3/4 of major league teams, which is arguably the dumbest thing anyone has ever said in the history of this board.

Felix Hernandez sucks.

Definitely wins.