How do pitchers get wins in baseball

Twenty game-winners are often by default considered serious candidates for that year's Cy Young Award. Even greater significance is given to pitchers who "win" games over the course of their career.

Every game winner who has been retired at least five years has been inducted into the Hall of Fame. However, the reality is that "wins" as an individual statistic are often a misleading measure of a starting pitcher's performance and value. Pitchers who play for teams with good offenses that can give them a lead and good bullpens that can hold on to leads have a significant advantage in accumulating wins over pitchers on mediocre teams.

When it comes down to it, there are only two statistics that are relevant for starting pitchers. First, earned run average ERA , which measures the average number of runs a pitcher allows over nine innings. This is ultimately a pitcher's job: to prevent runs from scoring. It doesn't matter if he loads the bases every inning. In order to win in baseball a team must string together many hits in order to get the most runs they possibly can.

On offense players focus on the pitches that are being thrown in order to try to decipher how they will be pitched during their at bat.

Stealing signs using electronics is not allowed in baseball as players must figure out what pitch is coming on their own. If players were able to know what pitch is coming before it is actually thrown, they would definitely have a better chance at winning each game. Teams try to string together as many walks , singles, doubles, triples, and home runs because as long as there are people getting on base, runs should be scored by the offense.

On defense, teams must insert the best pitchers into the game to try to strike the opponent out, get them to fly or line out, or lastly, try to get them to ground out. When do you have to run in baseball? Previous Next. Fortunately we've grown from back when that was the only stat considered in Cy Young voting, but we still aren't home.

Legions of players, fans and media still look at it as if it matters. The good news is should give us an impetus to change this ridiculous rule. This season, many starting pitchers haven't been stretched out enough to get deep into the games and it's due to the circumstances of how this season has been played out.

Starters are averaging less than five innings per start, through Tuesday 4. Further, in the era of the opener and bullpen games, it's possible the most effective pitcher threw the first three innings. The solution is pretty simple to me. If we're going to continue to pretend a team stat is assigned to an individual pitcher, give the win to the pitcher who, in the discretion of the official scorer, did the most to contribute to the team victory.

In nearly every case, it's pretty clear. As with the above case of the Rangers Tuesday night win, it's Minor. That's pretty easy and obvious. If it's not easy and obvious, that's OK with me. They make tough judgement calls on errors vs.

The bottom line is the win stat is absolutely hit or miss. Sometimes it's assigned correctly. Far too often it's given to someone who has no business getting it while the most deserving pitcher is snubbed simply because of circumstance.

That's not a stat that deserves being taken seriously, no matter how much one might revere history. By Matt Snyder. Aug 12, at pm ET 6 min read. MLB rumors: Fast free agent frenzy coming?