Why Cole Hamels Hates “Wins”

Perhaps your league is just forming, or has been around a few years and has an established core of owners, and you may be mulling some changes in rules. I’d like to suggest adding Quality Starts (QS) + Wins (W) over the simple Wins category in pitching. There are a few reasons for this, but first I would say the “Quality Start” is far from perfect, as it may devalue young pitching that would dominate a game, and the organization is looking to protect the young asset, then pulls the young phenom after 5 and 2/3 innings (a Quality Start requires 6 IP or more with 3 ER or less). There are also times when a pitcher is shelled and bailed out by errors. The “Wins” category can be less reflective of the pitcher’s effort in a positive or negative way depending on if his team scores two or more earned runs a night than league average, or has a bullpen like the 2014 Chicago White Sox. With the flaws in both categories (although I suggest QS as the better of the two on its own), combining the two makes for a more realistic category in my opinion, and let me show you why.

Below are the Wins + Quality Starts (WQS) and straight “Wins” of pitchers last year, put side-by-side in an effort to demonstrate that Phillies pitchers should be really mad at their results last year. Also, the combined metric is a better fantasy stat to use overall. I was introduced to the Wins + QS concept (thanks Brad and the “YEML” league) a number of years back, and I’m surprised more leagues do not experiment with WQS or even QS today. See some of the players highlighted in blue such as Felix Hernandez (+9 in overall ranking last year with WQS), Sonny Gray (+19), Stephen Strausburg (+11), Jordan Zimmerman (+11), Chris Sale (+16), and worst of all Cole Hamels who would rate +54 slots higher in ranking when you add his quality starts to his paltry 9 wins in 2014. Wade Davis won as many games as Cole Hamels in 2014, and he’s not a starter anymore.

You may look at it and immediately say “Why isn’t Clayton Kershaw 1st?” I’d agree he should be the consensus best pitcher in baseball, however Cueto had seven more starts in 2014 and pulled out five more quality starts + wins (WQS) overall. Don’t get me wrong, I love some draft day bargains like Wei-Yin Chen (-37), Matt Shoemaker(-57), and Bud Norris (-60), but all of them fell precipitously in WQS rankings. The combined metric allows for more separation due to greater differentiation between great, good, and mediocre pitching. Take a good look and I hope you’ll agree it’s worth a conversion to WQS (or perhaps QS) in your league(s) this year or next.

2014 Wins metric vs. Quality Start + Wins