What’s This About?
ABOUT THE BLOGGER
Located only a few miles from Fenway Park, I will try to prove that as in 2007, pitching, namely quality starts, will lead the Sox to the playoffs and a championship in 2008.
My other active blog is about my Pan-Mass Challenge Ride and fundraising for Cancer Research.
I used to write another blog…. Commissioner of Sport , but I have retired it.
ABOUT QUALITY STARTS
Back in 1985, a Philadelphia sportswriter introduced the world to the ‘quality start‘. Nowadays, I have gotten curious, do quality starts in Major League Baseball lead to wins? Baseball Prospectus looked at this in 2002. So lets set up the criteria and the goals of this project?
Definition: quality start
A quality start is awarded to a starting pitcher who completes at least six innings and permits no more than three earned runs.
Many have complained that this result, 6 IP and 3 ER, gives a starting pitcher a 4.50 ERA. Well, in 2006, that would have been better than the league average for all pitchers in the American League (4.64). Also, Bill James discussed this in his 1987 Baseball Abstract, and noted, wisely, that this is only one of the many possible outcomes, and in fact, was the least likely of all of the outcomes.
So what are we trying to prove here. Well, I’d like to answer two questions.
- Does a quality start by a starter give his team a better chance to win? Do some teams take better advantage of this than others?
- Will teams with more quality starts win more consistently and get in the playoffs? How will that translate in the playoffs? Will the team with the most QS in the playoffs win it all?
