Why do pitchers get wins and losses but position players don't?

[BiZmaRK]

This is something I've never quite understood. Why do pitchers get wins and losses but position players don't?

[Honus Wagner Rules]

This is something I've never quite understood. Why do pitchers get wins and losses but position players don't?

How would you assign "wins" to position players?

[BiZmaRK]

How would you assign "wins" to position players?

Same way you assign "wins" to pitchers.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Same way you assign "wins" to pitchers.

That makes no sense, please explain. Would you split each team win among all the position players? How about pinch hitters and pinch runners?

[JDanger]

This is something I've never quite understood. Why do pitchers get wins and losses but position players don't?

Pitchers actually don't get wins and losses anymore. They banned them after Felix won the Cy Young...

[Cowtipper]

Sometimes I don't think pitchers should be saddled with a loss, such as when a pitcher does not allow any earned runs but loses because his team allowed unearned runs behind him.

[drstrangelove]

This is something I've never quite understood. Why do pitchers get wins and losses but position players don't?

The answer is this:

1) when baseball first started out, pitchers were comfortably the most valuable player on each team. James has calculated that pitchers WAR in those days (pre 1890 or earlier) was far in excess of anything we see today due to the amount of time they pitched. (IIRC, it was like the top 100 of all time WAR by season was in the 19th century.) It's still been true, even into the seventies, when complete games were far more common, that the most significant SINGLE person in the game was the pitcher. Is it still true today? Well, it could be if the starter is one of the better ones.

2) Given that pitchers were that significant, that in the early history of baseball that pitchers completed EVERY start, and started 45-60 times a year in much shorter seasons, it became logical to relate team success to pitcher success. In those days, a great pitcher was invariably far more valuable then a great position player.


Why then do we still have wins and losses for pitchers? Why do we say the sun rises/sets, why do we say objests 'fall', why do we say 'dial' a telephone number, why do we say 'record' store, why do we say "wear that or you'll catch a cold"?

People take decades, even centuries to weed out archaic concepts and phrases. It's not a bid deal unless people don't understand them. Luckily, we do.

[BiZmaRK]

That makes no sense, please explain. Would you split each team win among all the position players? How about pinch hitters and pinch runners?

Just as the winning pitcher is the pitcher in the lineup when the winning team took a lead which they never relinquished, the winning position player for any position would be the one who was in the lineup when the winning team took a lead which they never relinquished.

[BiZmaRK]

Pitchers actually don't get wins and losses anymore. They banned them after Felix won the Cy Young...

Well, not for that reason. The pitcher gets a win only in a mythical way - sort of like when a college football team wins a national championship. The pitcher doesn't actually win the game. As he isn't even responsible for how many runs his team scores, it makes no sense at all for a pitcher to get a win or loss for a game.

[BiZmaRK]

The answer is this:

1) when baseball first started out, pitchers were comfortably the most valuable player on each team. James has calculated that pitchers WAR in those days (pre 1890 or earlier) was far in excess of anything we see today due to the amount of time they pitched. (IIRC, it was like the top 100 of all time WAR by season was in the 19th century.) It's still been true, even into the seventies, when complete games were far more common, that the most significant SINGLE person in the game was the pitcher. Is it still true today? Well, it could be if the starter is one of the better ones.

2) Given that pitchers were that significant, that in the early history of baseball that pitchers completed EVERY start, and started 45-60 times a year in much shorter seasons, it became logical to relate team success to pitcher success. In those days, a great pitcher was invariably far more valuable then a great position player.


Why then do we still have wins and losses for pitchers? Why do we say the sun rises/sets, why do we say objests 'fall', why do we say 'dial' a telephone number, why do we say 'record' store, why do we say "wear that or you'll catch a cold"?

People take decades, even centuries to weed out archaic concepts and phrases. It's not a bid deal unless people don't understand them. Luckily, we do.

Were pitchers ever responsible for making offensive strategic decisions?
Were pitchers ever responsible for filling out the lineup card?
Were pitchers ever responsible for signing players to be hitters and/or position players?

Unless the answer to those are yes, then the pitcher should have never been given a won or loss, as it isn't his responsibility how many runs his team scores. The win or loss goes to the team, not the pitcher.

[ipitch]

It's pretty much accepted that pitchers have more influence on the outcome of the game than the other players. So, they get the wins and losses. It's just another stat though. If a pitcher happens to go 15-2 with 7.89 ERA this year, no one is going to think he's a great pitcher.

Position players do get wins, sort of. I read that Pete Rose is the all-time leader with 1,940 wins.

[Jackaroo Dave]

I wonder if a position player's won-lost record might not be quite revealing over the very long run. How much better or worse does a team do with a given player in the lineup? Does that figure jibe with his expected effect calculated from individual stats? Calling Captain Intangibles!

[BiZmaRK]

I wonder if a position player's won-lost record might not be quite revealing over the very long run. How much better or worse does a team do with a given player in the lineup? Does that figure jibe with his expected effect calculated from individual stats? Calling Captain Intangibles!

That wouldn't be an appropriate way to compare. Not all the games a pitcher appears in count in his W-L record.

[Jackaroo Dave]

Were pitchers ever responsible for making offensive strategic decisions?
Were pitchers ever responsible for filling out the lineup card?
Were pitchers ever responsible for signing players to be hitters and/or position players?

Unless the answer to those are yes, then the pitcher should have never been given a won or loss, as it isn't his responsibility how many runs his team scores. The win or loss goes to the team, not the pitcher.

A "win" isn't really a win, it's a tally indicating the pitcher fulfilled a bunch of somewhat arbitrary criteria, like a "save."

Everyone is happy when the closer completes the ninth inning without surrendering the lead, but most of the time, it's pretty routine. The game usually isn't in dire peril, tied to the railroad tracks, and Papelbon rides up on the white horse to rescue it, then gets marched around the field on the shoulders of his cheering mates. He gets a save, but it would be misleading to say, "Papelbon saved the game for the Phillies yesterday," if the game wasn't actually in danger. "Closer" expresses the job much better.

We could have a parallel thread about awarding saves to players who make sparkling defensive plays at high-leverage moments.

I agree, it's a problem, because people unconsciously equivocate between the two senses of the words. If wins were called beagles, or trips to the bathroom, a lot of hall of fame arguments would be different.

Calling a win a win or a save a save is just crudely expressing the idea that the pitcher did his job.

[Jackaroo Dave]

That wouldn't be an appropriate way to compare. Not all the games a pitcher appears in count in his W-L record.

True. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest they would be comparable, just that a properly contextualized player won-lost record might tell us something about the quality of the player.