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Pitchers should not ultimately be judged by their records

In my opinion, many people make a bigger deal about a pitcher's record than they should when it comes to evaluating that pitcher's level of effectiveness and overall success in Major League Baseball. As I see it, a pitcher's record is not solely reflective of his level of effectiveness, but reflective of the entire team's level of effectiveness when he starts. A pitcher can be nearly flawless for a game, yet if the defense slips up a time or two and/or the offense doesn't generate any runs, it will be impossible for him to notch a win by his name.

The following ten pitchers have a combined record this year of 44-48 (.478): Clayton Kershaw (5-4), Stephen Strasburg (3-5), Anibal Sanchez (5-4), Travis Wood (5-4), Chris Sale (5-4), James Shields (2-6), Scott Feldman (5-4), Hiroki Kuroda (6-5), Kris Medlen (3-6), and Ervin Santana (4-5). The worst ERA among these ten pitchers is Ervin Santana's 2.99 earned run average. All ten of these pitchers currently have sub-3.00 ERA's, yet have a combined sub-.500 record. Clayton Kershaw has a sub-2.00 ERA at 1.93, yet is only 5-4 on the season. Stephen Strasburg has an ERA of 2.54, yet is 3-5 on the season thus far. James Shields and Kris Medlen are currently sporting ERAs of 2.81 and 2.87, respectively, yet have gone a combined 5-12 on the season. These ten pitchers have been ten of the most effective pitchers to this point in the season, yet their records aren't showing that. How can this be? A lack of run support and poor defensive play.

On the flip-side of those statistics are the pitchers whom sport solid records with less-than-satisfactory ERAs, due to great run support. Jason Hammel and Jeremy Hellickson are a combined 11-6 this season. What's their combined ERA? 5.18 - a full 2+ more runs than the 5-12 duo of James Shields and Kris Medlen. The reason for this is that Hammel and Hellickson rank 2 and 3 in all of baseball in run support, as they're getting an average of 6.31 and 6.23 per start.

I think it's very easy for many fans, columnists, and ESPN talking heads alike to judge a pitcher, first and foremost, on his record. However, I think that's often times inaccurate, and simply look at a pitcher's record as being a statement of how well the team has played on a whole when he has taken the mound. While I'm a firm believer in the saying that great pitching beats great hitting (most times), I also can't deny the fact that without scoring runs, it's impossible to win.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/order/false

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/sort/runSupportPerStart/type/expanded-2/order/true
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