1961 - Whitey Ford v. Warren Spahn

[NetShrine]

Who do you think had a better season and why?

[NetShrine]

No one seems to be biting on these - so, I'll go first and hope it primes the pump. Using Lee's great software, I can see how they both did on the leader boards that season:

FORD: 1961
WINS 1ST 25
WINNING PERCENTAGE 1ST .862
GAMES STARTED 1ST 39
COMPLETE GAMES T9TH 11
INNINGS PITCHED 1ST 283
HITS 7TH 242
EARNED RUNS 9TH 101
STRIKEOUTS 2ND 209
ERA 10TH 3.21
HITS/9 IP 8TH 7.70
BASERUNNERS/9 IP 7TH 10.65
STRIKEOUTS/9 IP 5TH 6.65
STRIKEOUTS/WALKS 3RD 2.27
SHUTOUTS T6TH 3
WILD PITCHES T6TH 8


Spahn: 1961
WINS T1ST 21
LOSSES T7TH 13
WINNING PERCENTAGE 6TH .618
GAMES STARTED T9TH 34
COMPLETE GAMES 1ST 21
INNINGS PITCHED 2ND 263
HITS T5TH 236
ERA 1ST 3.01
RSAA T7TH 17
HITS/9 IP 5TH 8.08
BASERUNNERS/9 IP 1ST 10.40
WALKS/9 IP 4TH 2.19
SHUTOUTS T1ST 4
BATTERS FACED 4TH 1064
NEUTRAL WINS 1ST 20
NEUTRAL LOSSES T4TH 14
BATTERS FACED 1ST 1159
NEUTRAL WINS T6TH 16
NEUTRAL LOSSES T9TH 13

It's close - - and, I can see the fight for Spahn in terms of ERA and Ratio. But, the lead on Ford in those two cats is not big enough to offset the gap in GS, IP and Win%. Like I said, close, but, I would go with Ford. Thoughts on this?

[timconnelly]

I think you have to give the won-loss record a lot more attention than you are giving it. Whether you are just lucky and the recipient of a lot of run support, 25 and 4 is so far beyond 21 and 13, that it's not even a good comparison.

You can say that Spahn pitched better than Ford and maybe even be right: But who had a better season? Always the guy with such a decisively better record. OK, we can make an exception to that when the pitcher plays on awful teams and manages a good record anyway.

But ERA breaks down just a little bit when a pitcher is getting great run support. Do you really think R Johnson would have given up 2 runs without the big support he got in game 6. Had he kept pitching don't you think it likely the Yankees would have scored another meaningless run or 2. And what would it have mattered.

I am not discounting ERA and these other stats. But when a pitcher pitches well enough to win, he has done his job.

I think wins are basically aesthetic only. They tell nothing about how good a pitcher actually pitched. They say only how many times he outpitched the opposition, and maybe not even then if you considered unearned runs that can beat a pitcher. As for the ERA with IP comparison, it seems by the fact that Whitey was 10th in ERA that the AL was a little lighter on the hitting that year and that makes Spahn's 3.01 look a little bit better still. The gap in IP's is significant, but if you consider that that's only about the equivalent of two games, it doesn't seem quite so bad, and I think the ERA covers that gap nicely. Had they been equal in ERA, a slight edge would've gone to Ford, but with the way it turned out, the slight edge goes to Spahn. I just can't see saying the guy with the 10th best ERA in his own league was the best.

[Skipper Steve]

Originally posted by Throwback
The gap in IP's is significant, but if you consider that that's only about the equivalent of two games, it doesn't seem quite so bad, and I think the ERA covers that gap nicely.

Actually, Ford had five more starts - - which may be why his ERA was higher than Warren's. It's easier to keep a smaller ERA when you don't pitch as often.

[timconnelly]

think wins are basically aesthetic only. They tell nothing about how good a pitcher actually pitched. They say only how many times he outpitched the opposition.

Throwback

Outpitching the opposition is the ultimate criteria of how well a ptcher pitched. If a pitcher gives up 4 runs in 7 innings and his offense scored 7 runs, that is a far more successful day than if he allowed 3 runs in 8 innings in a 3-1 defeat. You might say the pitcher can't control that and you'd be right. But you are ignoring the obvious when you look past wins and losses. (IMHO)

The Yankees were actually 34 and 5 during Ford's 39 starts in 1961. Certainly a lot of that is a matter of coincidence but if 5 percent of it was that the team felt confident when he was on the mound, then you have to factor that in.

I am fine with using ERA as an indicator when you are looking at similar records or when a pitcher is hampered by a lousy club but as the most significant measurement, no way!

Originally posted by Skipper Steve


Actually, Ford had five more starts - - which may be why his ERA was higher than Warren's. It's easier to keep a smaller ERA when you don't pitch as often.

Actually, if you consider that despite 5 extra starts, Ford only had 20 more innings, it means that Spahn is going deeper into ballgames, and probably fighting fatigue a little bit. I'd have to think that if he had, say 5 extra starts and the same number of innings, he would have compiled those stats when he was stronger by not completing or going deep into as many games. This would be likely to be the case with or without those 5 starts, since I'm sure Spahn would tend to lower his ERA with only having to go 4 innings in each of them.

Tim- Take 1876, for example. With an ERA of 1.76, and fewer innings and starts, Al Spalding managed to win more games for the 1st place White Stockings than George Bradley did for the 2nd place Brown Stockings, despite Bradley's much better ERA of 1.23. Certainly, the Brown Stockings weren't a bad team, finishing only 2 games back of Spalding's club. Can you argue, then, that Spalding was better because he won more? Net, if you agree with Tim, does this change your mind, since you picked Bradley as the better of the two in a thread addressing that topic?

[Skipper Steve]

Originally posted by Throwback
Actually, if you consider that despite 5 extra starts, Ford only had 20 more innings, it means that Spahn is going deeper into ballgames, and probably fighting fatigue a little bit.

Yeah, but, a season is finite - - so, Ford pitched more frequently - - therefore Spahn pitched with greater rest and that helped his numbers too, no?

[timconnelly]

Hey Throwback! I'm enjoying the discussion and even though we disagree somewhat, I have nothing but respect for the amount of knowledge you are bringing to the table.

I would award my Cy Young Award vote to Bradley in 1876. I mean the guy was 45 and 19 for a club that scored 3.4 runs per game LESS than Spalding's team. I am not advocating that wins and losses are the only thing that matters; I'm saying that I think they are a far more important factor than you do. But I am never going to knock a man who throws 16 shutouts and completes 63 out of 64 games.

The Yankees scored an average of .48 runs a game more than the Braves in 1961. That is certainly significant but Ford's winning percentage of 24% higher than Spahn's more than offsets that for my money. There is only a 9% difference between Bradley and Spalding and there is a much bigger difference in the surrounding numbers between those 2 than Ford and Spahn.

I also think less attention should be given to ERA and more attention to Run Average. If you are going to let the pitcher off the hook for defensive miscues, shouldn't you hold him responsible for runs that WOULD have scored without exceptional plays. Have you ever seen a pitcher just sort of fall apart after an error? I was very impressed with the way Anderson pitched through some miserable defense in game 3. Someone may look at the World Series stats in a few years and note that Rivera only allowed one earned run in the 2001 World Series. But who can deny the ineffectiveness of his pitching in the 9th inning of game 7?

I know from your posts that you are looking at a wide range of pitching stats and consider ERA to be the most important. It seems to be that you are more concerned with how well a pitcher pitches and I am more concerned with how successfully he pitches. But I'm sure it is primarily a difference in emphasis.

A very good, thoughtful analysis, Tim. You've got my line of thinking pegged down pretty good, too. It just seems to me as if all things other than the pitcher's actual pitching being equal, the pitcher with the best pitching would invariably be the one with the most successful pitching. Therefore, if I had a team, whether great, abysmal, or somewhere in between, I would want the guy with the lower ERA over the guy with the most wins any day. That's what I base my view on, primarily. I can certainly respect where you're coming from, though. Also, excellent point about run average. ERA would tend to favor pitchers who don't work around their team's defensive miscues, but it seems inequitable to punish the stats of pitchers whose defense puts them in that situation too often. Also, it would tend to be much more difficult to determine which runs would have scored save for great defensive plays than those that wouldn't have save for bad ones. If you consider that there are a variety of types of bad plays that don't count as errors, it probably balances out quite nicely. It's not an exact science, but I firmly believe it's the best figure we've got to go on.

Originally posted by Skipper Steve


Yeah, but, a season is finite - - so, Ford pitched more frequently - - therefore Spahn pitched with greater rest and that helped his numbers too, no?

True, so it probably comes somewhere very close to balancing out. Certainly, an inning eater should get an edge over a 5 and out guy or one who missed part of the season or something, but when the innings are comparable, as they are for the two of them, I think, and I know there's disagreement here, that the focus should turn to ERA, which solidly points to Spahn.

[Skipper Steve]

Originally posted by Throwback
the focus should turn to ERA, which solidly points to Spahn.

Two-tenths of a run points solidly?

Per nine innings! I think so. Anything more than a tenth is solid, I think. Especially when you're talking about starters with lots of innings.

[timconnelly]

Baseball is a very situational game. The objective if you're a pitcher is not to prevent the other team f rom scoring per se; it's to prevent the other team from scoring as many runs as your team. I won't deny that most of the time these things go hand in hand but neither can you deny that a pitcher with a lead will pitch differently than a pitcher in a tie game. If you're leading 8 to 1, you might change your focus to getting the first strike over more frequently, to not worrying so much about the runner leading off first base, to making sure that you don't fall behind on the count. In other words, you know that 1 or 2 runs aren't going to beat you.

Any pitcher who is more concerned about his ERA than he is his winning percentage has a misplaced priority. That Whitey Ford was 25 and 4 in 1961 indicates clearly that he wasn't giving up runs that were beating him. Therefore his ERA is a moot issue.

One of the things that is very important in any kind of an evaluation is the bringing in of Rudyard Kipling's friends: who, what, when, where, why, and how. If we find that Ford was pitching against second division teams a lot more than Spahn, or that Spahn was taking on the ace of the other staff, or that Spahn was pitching an abnormal amount of games in pitcher's ballparks, or that Ford pitched great until he worked up 5 run leads or that one of them got shelled for 8 runs in 3 innings twice during the season... I think you get the point. There are any number of variables that can make a much bigger ERA differential than .2 completely irrelevant.

You might wonder how it would change things if we found that the Yankees were giving Ford unusual run support in 1961. Well my guess is they were. I don't think that matters at all. Luck is to baseball what it is to everything else in life: it's completely unavoidable and to try to factor it out like it doesn't exist seems idealistic but very unrealistic to me.

In one of Throwback's earlier posts, he said that he would prefer to draft the pitcher with the lowest ERA and probably the pitcher with the best stuff (I'm paraphrasing. Hope I got that right). I wouldn't disagree with that but that's talking about future value and not present day success. I think they need to be separated and winning percentage or better yet, wins above team seems like an equitable way of doing it.