There are five pitchers in baseball that have 11 wins. They are, in no particular order…
- Roy Halladay, the reigning NL Cy Young award winner
- Jair Jurrjens, who leads baseball with a 1.89 ERA
- CC Sabathia, one of the best pitchers year after year and another former Cy Young winner
- Justin Verlander, who has been so dominant this year, and threw a no hitter earlier this season
and finally…
- Kevin Correia, who has a 57:25 strikeout to walk ratio in 113 innings for the Pirates and a 3.74 ERA.
Of the first four ptichers, three of them will be heading to Phoenix next month for the All-Star Game, with Sabathia possibly joining them if he wins the final five voting. Correia was never mentioned as a serious candidate to go, and shouldn’t be going at all. But wait, he’s got 11 wins! Shouldn’t we be giving him a little more attention?
In a word, no. Wins are partially dependent on a team’s offensive output, in addition to how well the pitcher pitches. If a starter allows one run in nine inning, and gets the loss because his team didn’t score any runs, should he be penalized? If a pitcher throws eight shutout innings, and his closer allows a solo homer to tie the game in the ninth, should he be penalized? Of course not.
Hiroki Kuroda of the Dodgers has a 2.90 ERA, 81 strikeouts, and only 29 walks in 108 2/3 innings. He has six wins. Is he somehow a worse pitcher than Rick Porcello, who has a 4.96 ERA, 51 strikeouts, and 29 walks in 90 2/3 innings, but has seven wins? Of course not. Wins are a contextual stat, and tell you nothing about how well the starter pitched.
If my guy goes five innings and allows eight runs, he didn’t pitch well. But hell, if my team put 12 runs on the board in those first five innings…he’s going to get a win, despite getting shelled. Kevin Correia isn’t a great pitcher because he has 11 wins. He’s a league average or worse pitcher who’s getting great run support, and that’s why he has 11 wins. Let’s not confuse him with any of the four pitchers I listed above, who are all having fantastic seasons and actually deserve their wins. Correia is getting lucky, and there’s not much more to it than that.
