best 4-tool Pitchers this year...

[reiser]

just for giggles, I went over to ESPN and made a spreadsheet of the top 20 Pitchers in W, K, ERA and WHIP. Mike Mussina, my apologies!
I have also ranked them by categories, meaning if a pitcher was a top 20 in 4 categories, he's listed first!

Cat Last Team
4 Halladay, Tor
4 Loaiza, CWS
4 Mussina, NYY
4 Nomo, LA
3 Brown, LA
3 Hernandez Mon
3 Hudson, Oak
3 Martinez, Bos
3 Mulder, Oak
3 Prior, ChC
3 Schilling, Ari
3 Schmidt, SF
3 Vazquez, Mon
3 Webb, Ari
3 Williams, StL
2 Pettitte, NYY
2 Redman, Fla
2 Wolf, Phi

[quickfingerz]

How does a guy with a low-2 era like Kevin Brown have such paltry #'s in the rest of his stats esp wins?

[jdh]

Brown has an excellent ERA and WHIP, and is top 10 in the NL in strikeouts. The reason he has mediocre win totals is because the Dodgers offense couldn't hit little league pitchers. On a team with any kind of run support, he'd probably be closing in on 20 wins by now.

[GSes]

lol

how bout Keith Foulke as the only 5 tool pitcher

wins, saves, era, whip, k's

[pkarr5000]

keith should win the cy young award.

[stratusfactionrt]

Man, Randy Wolf sucks! <img src=/forums/images/smiles/kiss.gif>

[PresHabib]

lol

how bout Keith Foulke as the only 5 tool pitcher

wins, saves, era, whip, k's

I think Foulke's wins (and most reliever wins) come in the form of vulture wins, where they blow the lead and then benefit from the offense coming back, or as a matter of them being the lucky guy on the mound who throws one inning of a tie game and his team scores. I personally don't like wins and losses as a term of measuring pitcher quality because a fair percentage of wins and losses are offense related. Not always obviously, but a couple times a season. how does Russ Oritz have 18 wins and an ERA over 4 (right?) and pedro have an era of 2.2something and only 10 wins?

Maybe I'm wrong about Fulke snagging the vulture wins, I haven't actually looked, but I can't imagine that they came from anything less than him entering in a tie game and winning it later or blowing a win and having the A's come back.

[jdh]

To some extent, I would agree that Foulke's wins appear to be luck. However, there seems to be something about A's closers and picking up vulture wins. Last year, Koch had 11 wins and this year Foulke has 8. It seems that either the way the A's use their closer or the way their offense scores runs opens up the possibility of vulture wins. In any event, it's worth considering when picking a closer next year.

[reiser]

the one i was most surprised by on this list was L. Hernandez. and he has perhaps more of a track record (17-11 in 2000).

has Livan turned the corner?

[guest]

I've been riding him for a while now ... I think he's back to his earlier form, at least for now.