Playing What If...

There has been a lot of hand wringing lately over pitching wins and how much weight to put on them.

I come down fairly conclusively that just about no weight should be put on them and here is why, some pitchers have an offense that doesn't score any runs behind them. Namely the Giants pitchers who have the worst offense in the major leagues behind them.

With the worst offense at scoring runs behind them it is no wonder that most Giants starters are hovering at around .500 this season despite each of the team's main starting pitchers putting up an ERA+ over 109.

So what if the Giants pitchers got some better run support?

I will use MLB win leader Justin Verlander as an example here to illustrate my point. For each of the Giants main 3 starting pitchers who has had a full season of starts I put their runs allowed into the corresponding run support received by Verlander.

Here are the results:

Tim Lincecum:

Currently he is 12-12, with the Verlander run support he improves to 19-7 and I am sure he would be getting some nice attention for the Cy Young Award.

Matt Cain:

Currently he is 11-9, with the Verlander run support he improves to 15-7.

Madison Bumgarner:

Currently he is 10-12, with the Verlander run support he improves to 13-8.

The Giants pitching has been stellar this season but wins and losses are not going to let you know how great they have been despite the wretched offense that has been backing them up this year.

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