If you come from a team that has been bad for a period of time while having a solid pitcher or two, you’ve felt that the “Win” stat given to pitchers is completely bogus. We’ve all witnessed our favorite pitchers take a no-decision or even a loss for putting in a very strong effort in a team outing. We’ve also seen the occasional instance where a pitcher will allow a ton of runs but still manage to get the “Win” because his offense backed him up enough to maintain the lead while he stayed in the game. That’s why today, I’m going to propose an entirely new way to give pitchers a Win that they deserve, and take away Wins from pitchers that are being given a mulligan by their offense. Let me start by stating what current criteria a pitcher needs for a Win:

For a starter:

• Must go 5 IP
• Team must have lead when he is removed from the game
• Team never loses lead after the pitcher is taken out
• Team wins the game (obviously)

For a reliever:

• If starter left with the lead but didn’t throw enough innings, reliever gets the Win
• Team takes lead while pitcher is in the game

Let me start by criticizing the criteria above. Why should a pitcher be penalized/unrewarded if his team can’t muster a few runs while he’s in the game? The team’s lead should not play a factor in whether or not the pitcher helped the team win or not. And that five inning requirement? Did they pull that number out of a hat or something? Completely ridiculous. Anyway, this is what I think should be the new way to give a pitcher a Win…

The idea is that whoever contributes the best outing into the team win receives the win. In this system, the two most valued stats in an outing are earned runs allowed, and then innings pitched. This way the pitcher is given credit for the runs he allowed and how long he lasted in the game. Fair enough, right?

Here is how each pitcher should be evaluated:

• The winning pitcher must have the highest differential between innings pitched and earned runs allowed (IP−ER)
• If tie occurs between IP and ER differential, the pitcher with the most IP receives the win
• If a tie persists between IP and ER differential and IP, then the decision is made by the scorer for who gets win. Scorer may take game stats into account (Strikeouts, hits allowed, walks allowed) or resort to the old method of determining Win

Notable new changes:

• All pitchers with less than 2 IP are ineligible to receive Win
• Closers are no longer qualified for Win/Loss, only Save/Blown Save if > 2 IP

Don’t be intimidated by all the terminology listed above. It’s pretty simple when it comes down to it. To give you more of an idea of how it’ll work, I’ll list some sample box scores down below and give the pitchers their respected Wins.

Final: Sox 2 Cubs 1 F/12

(W) Sale 8 IP 0 R 0 ER

Jones 3 IP 1 R 1 ER

(S) Robertson 1 IP 0 R 0 ER

This is a classic example of Sale getting robbed of a Win under the current criteria. Sale goes eight innings, gives up no runs, and manages to get a no decision because his team didn’t score during the time he was in the game, which totally sucks. Under my Win criteria, Sale would be given a Win for his efforts; his IP and ER differential would be +8 (8 IP − 0 ER = +8), which would be higher than Jones’ +2. Note that Robertson is a closer and had less than 2 IP, so he is ineligible for the Win. This example perfectly shows how a deserving pitcher recorded a Win.

Final: Sox 13 Cubs 10

Shields 5 IP 7 R 6 ER

Fulmer  2 IP 2 R 2 ER

(W) Kopech 2 IP 0 R 0 ER

In this case, no pitcher had a stand-out performance, which happens from time-to-time. However, Shields would have gotten a Win under normal circumstances because his team had the lead when he exited the game. This doesn’t make sense because Shields’ outing was the only reason why the game was even close. While there are no stand out candidates for the Win here, I would give it to Kopech because he had a pretty good outing compared to the other two pitchers and he had the best differential of +2.

I’ll do one more, for the sake of everyone for reading this lengthy column.

Final: Sox 9 Cubs 5

(W) Rodon 5 IP 5 R 0 ER

Fulmer 4 IP 0 R 0 ER

Let’s just say for the sake of the argument that Carlos Rodon gets the worst pitching luck ever, and the White Sox make 10 errors in one inning to give up five unearned runs in the first inning. Obviously, there’s not much Rodon could do in this case, and under normal circumstances he would get the no decision when he exits the game and his team rallies late. I would give Rodon the win because he allowed no earned runs over five innings (+5 differential) and he narrowly threw more innings than Fulmer (+4 differential).

Anyway, I hope that people who think similarly to me would consider showing my method some support and share this to other people to spark some controversy. For those of you that want to keep it old school, thanks for being open minded and I hope you found this column interesting. Thanks for reading and Go Sox!