[Ed. note: This page originally appeared on Aug. 12, 2007 as a post by Nate.]

Undeniable Truth #1: A pitcher, in his defensive role, is never solely responsible for a win.

No matter how good a pitcher is, the plain truth is that he is a defensive player. As a defensive player, he has no ability to add runs for his team to the scoreboard. A team cannot win a baseball game without runs being scored by offensive players, even if the pitcher throws a perfect game. (It almost goes without saying that it is possible for a pitcher to win the game by himself, as he would in a 1-0 win where he pitched a complete game and hit a solo home run. If this was the only case when we gave the pitcher a win, I would humbly submit and shut up.)

The fact is, however, there are analogous “win” statistics in goaltending sports (hockey and soccer), which are equally meaningless, and are calculated pretty much the same way (Were you the goalie when the other guys on your team scored the winning point? Cool! You got a win!). At least in those cases, there’s some degree of sole responsibility: the goaltender is the final obstacle to scoring a point. A baseball pitcher, on the other hand, is not stopping you at all! In fact, his control over whether or not you score (unless the ball is hit to him and he becomes a fielder) stops as soon as he releases the ball, BEFORE the batter takes action. There is simply no way to argue that the pitcher causes a win to happen. He simply keeps the game from being a loss.

Yes, the pitcher contributes to a win (or makes it a non-loss) by keeping the other team from scoring more runs than his team does. However, does that merit the assignment of a “win” to that single player? I would maintain that it does not.

Undeniable Truth #2: It is obvious to the casual observer who the losing pitcher is, but not who the winning pitcher is.

This truth is emphasized by the Official Rules, which define the assignment of a loss this way:

A losing pitcher is a pitcher who is responsible for the run that gives the winning team a lead that the winning team does not relinquish.

And the assignment of a win this way (comments removed for sake of brevity):

(a) The official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher that pitcher whose team assumes a lead while such pitcher is in the game, or during the inning on offense in which such pitcher is removed from the game, and does not relinquish such lead, unless
(1) such pitcher is a starting pitcher and Rule (b) applies; or
(2) Rule (c) applies.
(b) If the pitcher whose team assumes a lead while such pitcher is in the game, or during the inning on offense in which such pitcher is removed from the game, and does not relinquish such lead, is a starting pitcher who has not completed
(1) five innings of a game that lasts six or more innings on defense, or
(2) four innings of a game that lasts five innings on defense, then the official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher the relief pitcher, if there is only one relief pitcher, or the relief pitcher who, in the official scorer’s judgment was the most effective, if there is more than one relief pitcher.
(c) The official scorer shall not credit as the winning pitcher a relief pitcher who is ineffective in a brief appearance, when at least one succeeding relief pitcher pitches effectively in helping his team maintain its lead. In such a case, the official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher the succeeding relief pitcher who was most effective, in the judgment of the official scorer.

I don’t know about you, but I have to read that set of rules about the win over and over to really understand what is being said. Why is it so hard to figure out which pitcher to give the win to? Because it’s not natural! An observer of the game, in order to determine on their own who won the game, must consult a scorebook or a play-by-play commentary, and look at which pitcher was in place when their team went ahead. That’s not enough, either; if the five-inning starter rule is part of the decision, then the win is assigned purely on a subjective decision by the scorer. There’s just something wrong with that; even soccer and hockey don’t have that problem.

So, if the win is a confusing, non-obvious, sometimes subjective statistic, and is not even a totally accurate name for what is being awarded (see Truth #1), why is it such a good indicator again?

Undeniable Truth #3: A reliever is, in most cases, even less responsible for a win than the starting pitcher is.

One of the main problems with the win statistic is that if the starter (in most cases, the player who handled most of the pitching for the game) for the winning team doesn’t get it, the creators of the rulebook felt the need to give it to some other pitcher. This is not totally illogical in and of itself; the problem is taking the illogical step of assigning it to a pitcher at all, which has already been committed to. However, in trying to find another pitcher deserving of this honor, things just get ridiculous:

• Closers routinely blow a save by giving up three or more runs, but then get the win when their teammates bail them out by scoring enough runs to take the lead again,
• The winners of 14- or 15-inning games are not the long reliever heroes who held the opposition to no runs for multiple innings in order to extend their chances, but the dregs of the bullpen, brought out when there’s no one left, who just get lucky, and
• In probably the biggest insult (and a situation that happens WAY too often to ignore), a reliever comes into a scoreless game after a starter has pitched a shutout for seven and two-thirds innings, throws one pitch to one batter to end the eighth inning, and gets the win because the offense takes the lead in the team’s next at-bat.

The irony is that it is obvious to everyone how stupid this is! The players themselves even admit it from time to time. It’s the “elephant in the room” in baseball: reliever wins have NO value in determining a player’s contribution to a team, and yet we assign them, we print them in the box score, and we post them on the stadium scoreboard and on the television screen when the reliever enters the game. Doesn’t everyone see how ridiculous this is? So why do we keep doing it?

The sad fact is that, despite these three Undeniable truths is that the Win statistic results in Unfortunate Consequences:

Unfortunate Consequence #1: Giving someone credit for winning the game inflates their importance.

We can’t help it. Words have meaning. If we say that Tom Glavine has 300 wins, then it sounds like Tom Glavine was responsible for his team winning 300 times. We begin to think that having Tom Glavine on our team gives us a better chance of winning, despite the fact that he’s given up about four earned runs every nine innings for the last five years. We say Dennis Eckersley had almost 200 wins and nearly 400 saves, even though 20% of those “wins” came after he stopped being a starting pitcher, many of them probably after blown saves. We can’t make ourselves discount the meaning of the word, which results in…

Unfortunate Consequence #2: Awards and large contracts are given to pitchers partially due to the number of wins they have accumulated.

I wish it weren’t true, and I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t ignore it when sports talking heads and sportswriters frequently and publicly use wins to evaluate how a pitcher is doing. These are the people who are allowed to vote on very prestigious awards which are taken very seriously in the world of baseball: Cy Young, MVP, and Hall of Fame inductions.

• Roger Clemens(18-4) is given the Cy Young over Randy Johnson(16-14) in 2004 despite the fact that Randy had better statistics than Roger in every category, and a perfect game against a playoff-bound team.
• (Sorry Cards fans) Chris Carpenter(21-5) is given the Cy Young in 2005 over a dominant Roger Clemens(13-8). Dontrelle Willis (22-10) comes in a close second.
• Don Sutton(career 324-256) is inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Now some of you may argue that there are other good reasons why these players received these honors, and I would really like to agree with you. The problem is that the individuals responsible for voting for them are very public with the fact that they did so partially because of their won-loss record. I just find it frustrating and a bit frightening that these people would take their responsibility so lightly as to use a suspect statistic to judge the value of one player over another.

If it were just awards, that would be one thing. It’s not. Large contracts are routinely offered to pitchers, and the won-loss statistic comes up unashamedly as the owners and managers who offer these contracts talk to the press. (My apologies for not providing examples, but you know you’ve seen them.) It’s hard to understand how that much money could be based on a counterfeit measure, but it’s hard to deny that it happens.

Finally, because it is given so much importance, it results in…

Unfortunate Consequence #3: In-game management of pitchers is influenced by the win statistic.

At last, we’ve come to the consequence that I think is really bad for baseball. Like the Save, pitchers are used, removed, and/or kept in the game based on the likelihood of getting a Win in their statistic chart, and not based on whether it’s the best way to win the game. You’ve seen it happen yourself: a starting pitcher whose team is ahead in the fourth, but who is obviously struggling, will be left in to let the opposing team score enough to catch up or take the lead in the fifth, in hopes that they will be able to be assigned the “win” for the game.

How different would baseball be without this statistic?

• Would teams long ago have moved to a different way of using their pitchers, saving their best hurlers for the most important situations?
• Would outcomes of seasons, postseasons, World Series championships be different?
• Would players whose inflated salaries have contributed to the downfall of their teams never have received more than they were really worth?

How can we have let this happen? Is it worth it, just to have a pithy statistic that we can throw around to evaluate one pitcher over another? Does the small amount of value that the loss provides to the evaluation of the player justify the elevation of the faulty win statistic to absurd levels? Is “tradition” so important in this case that we should just let it go, when everyone knows how wrong it really is?

I know it’s a losing battle, but for those who love the game, it should be worth fighting.

Abolish the win statistic. It’s bad for baseball.