rainman23 wrote:The idea about QS and ERA going hand-in-hand -- true to a large extent, undoubtedly. QS could reward that guy who's a little more consistent, though. Two guys can have exactly the same ERA, but with radically different standard deviations. In both real life and fantasy ball, you'd probably rather have the guy who's consistent to the "feast or famine" guy. QS rewards that consistent performer.
Interesting point. One that I hadn't previously considered.
Otherwise, my take on it is that I was going to shift from W's to QS's earlier this year and was talked out of it here on the Cafe. The compelling arguments that sealed the deal were:
1) The variables rewarded in a QS are already rewarded in ERA (and probably, although not necessarily, WHIP).
2) Wins, as opposed to Quality Starts, are league, park, and condition neutral. The Marlins always seem to have super-stud pitchers because of the NL and a friendly park. But even quality starters can look like dog vomit when placed into the AL East (there are exceptions but speaking generally). Wins equalizes these factors as both pitchers are pitching in the same stadium under the same weather conditions (sunny days favor hitters, humid, heavy days pitchers) and you simply have to be better than the other guy. Whereas with QS you're competing against all of the other pitchers in the league who aren't facing the same conditions.
3) Less so but somewhat, my co-commish pitched in HS and believed in the, "dig deep" idea. That there's something to be said about keeping your team ahead even if it is a bit of a blow-out.
So wins are obviously imperfect. There's been much said against them as a statistic (not least compelling of which is it's a measure of a pitcher's offense rather than him as a pitcher) but on the whole I was swayed that it was a better
additional category to the other standard ones than QS's were.
by The Artful Dodger » Mon Aug 28, 2006 12:45 pm 
