Comments on: eMailbag: Non-Horrible Starts

By: metsftw

metsftw — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:18:33 +0000

i love how people just scroll on past the posts explaining that the majority of quality starts aren’t 6 IP/3 ER. sigh.

By: metsnfinsfan

metsnfinsfan — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:35:29 +0000

The idea of a quality start is that you kept your team in the game. If you allowed 3 runs in 6 innings, and the bullpen allows 1 run or less the rest of the game, that should be good enough to win in most cases.

I don’t love the stat. But i take it for what it is, and indicator of how often your starter kept his team in the game

By: theperfectgame

theperfectgame — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:57:48 +0000

Oliver Perez

By: andyglass1

andyglass1 — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:04:40 +0000

lets not forget Livan H, Kyle Lohse, Bartolo Colon, JoE Blowton in Oakland.

By: Protes

Protes — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:54:15 +0000

To me, 7 IP 3 ER is quality. I won’t ever consider 6 IP to be quality on principle.

By: Free Aaron Heilman

Free Aaron Heilman — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:44:23 +0000

Wow, that’s incredible. I never followed the links. Doc’s 1985 season ranks as one of the best ever by a ML starter.

What that points out is that the Quality Start can be used to differentiate a mediocre pitcher from an elite one. The better pitchers usually have quality starts in roughly 75% or more of their starts, whereas a mediocre pitcher may get it in only 50% of his starts. The higher the QS percentage, the better the pitcher.

By: hyperion4

hyperion4 — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:26:00 +0000

I agree, thanks for posting this, FAH. If you go on to read the 1992 article by David Smith that is referenced in the Wikipedia article, you see something that I found truly amazing: Dwight Gooden had 33 Quality Starts out of 35 starts in 1985! That’s one of the most amazing stats I’ve ever seen.

By: Nate W.

Nate W. — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:43:15 +0000

you also cant expect the bullpen to pitch 3 innings and allow 1 run or less.

If the starters job is to go 6 and hand the ball off to the bullpen for a win, then a “quality start” is fine. But I think we expect the starters to get the decisions most of the time, so something better is required.

By: Another Matt

Another Matt — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:29:40 +0000

Game-winning RBI is meaningless because it combines the randomness of hitting with the randomness of having men on base and the randomness of it being the bottom of the 9th with the scores tied or your team down by 3 or fewer runs.

The only proper pitching analogy to the game winning RBI is the Save, and even that’s flawed because you have much more control over who’s pitching in a save situation than over who’s hitting with a walk-off opportunity.

Quality start is much less random (averaging out at least 6 innings of work), and therefore much more meaningful. I’d also say it’s a lot more meaningful than W-L (which is affected by errors, bullpen and offense) or saves, or even save percentage (affected by how often you’re given a 3-run lead vs. a 1-run lead).

By: Another Matt

Another Matt — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:24:10 +0000

Add Gil Meche to that list also.