Every
year you hear someone saying ‘that was a great effort today, a real quality
start.’ So much has this term been bantered back and forth that MLB came up
with a stat called the Quality Start
(QS). Some of you are aware what this means, some of you aren’t. Either way I
hope to present a fresh look at the QS in this piece.
DEFINITION
I
would hazard to guess that if you have spent anytime actually thinking about
what denotes a QS you might think MLB missed the boat
on this one. Let’s begin by defining exactly what a QS is. A QS occurs when:
A
pitcher throws a minimum of 6 innings.
AND
He
allows 3 or less earned runs to score.
Pretty
simple right? Upon a cursory review it would appear that pitching such a game
would probably leave that hurlers team in a good position to win the ballgame.
Problem is, some starts defined as quality really are nothing but average when
we break them down. How about we look at a table showing the ERAs of various QS to see whether or not a QS is actually something to be proud of.
|
|
1 ER
|
2 ER
|
3 ER
|
|
6
IP
|
1.50
|
3.00
|
4.50
|
|
7
IP
|
1.29
|
2.57
|
3.86
|
|
8
IP
|
1.13
|
2.25
|
3.38
|
|
9
IP
|
1.00
|
2.00
|
3.00
|
How
many of you would consider an ERA of 4.50 to be quality performance? However
when a pitcher throws 6 innings and allows 3 ER his ERA is just that, 4.50. If
a pitcher hurls 7 IP and allows three runs, his ERA is 3.86, which I think we
would all agree is a solid ERA, but still on the borderline of real quality (at
least in my mind). Therefore it seems that
QS is in need of some revision, with
one option possibility being a sliding scale of ER runs allowed to the tune of
something like 2 ER per 6 IP, 3 per 7 or 8 IP and 4 per 9 IP. However, a
revision of the current method for determining QS is not the goal of
this article, so let's just get back to what the QS really is.
In
PART I, I will discuss the QS Leaders. In PART II, I will discuss QS
Percentage and why it is important.
PART
I – THE QUALITY START
Here
are the 2006 QS leaders (minimum 20 Quality Starts).
|
PLAYER
|
W
|
L
|
ERA
|
GS
|
QS
|
|
Roy Oswalt
|
15
|
8
|
2.98
|
32
|
25
|
|
Chris Capuano
|
11
|
12
|
4.03
|
34
|
25
|
|
John Smoltz
|
16
|
9
|
3.49
|
35
|
24
|
|
Johan Santana
|
19
|
6
|
2.77
|
34
|
24
|
|
Mike Mussina
|
15
|
7
|
3.51
|
32
|
23
|
|
Brandon Webb
|
16
|
8
|
3.10
|
33
|
23
|
|
John Lackey
|
13
|
11
|
3.56
|
33
|
23
|
|
Bronson Arroyo
|
14
|
11
|
3.29
|
35
|
23
|
|
Carlos Zambrano
|
16
|
7
|
3.41
|
33
|
22
|
|
Tom Glavine
|
15
|
7
|
3.82
|
32
|
22
|
|
Kevin Millwood
|
16
|
12
|
4.52
|
34
|
22
|
|
Brett Myers
|
12
|
7
|
3.91
|
31
|
22
|
|
Jake Peavy
|
11
|
14
|
4.09
|
32
|
21
|
|
Vicente Padilla
|
15
|
10
|
4.50
|
33
|
20
|
|
Erik Bedard
|
15
|
11
|
3.76
|
33
|
20
|
|
Derek Lowe
|
16
|
8
|
3.63
|
34
|
20
|
|
Barry Zito
|
16
|
10
|
3.83
|
34
|
20
|
|
Andy Pettitte
|
14
|
13
|
4.20
|
35
|
20
|
|
Nate Robertson
|
13
|
13
|
3.84
|
32
|
20
|
|
Kelvim Escobar
|
11
|
14
|
3.61
|
30
|
20
|
|
Jason Schmidt
|
11
|
9
|
3.59
|
32
|
20
|
|
Jason Jennings
|
9
|
13
|
3.78
|
32
|
20
|
|
Dontrelle Willis
|
12
|
12
|
3.87
|
34
|
20
|
