Don't Abandon the Win OR the Quality Start

This is a counter-argument to the post written here by Michael Grennell. In his piece, Michael argues that you should remove the wins and quality starts categories from your fantasy baseball league.

You should read his full article before continuing, but I will summarize his arguments here first. This is just a summary and does not cover his full argument, but I think this is the gist of it.

• Wins are largely out of a pitcher's control, making it too random of a statistic to use in your fantasy league
• Quality starts are arbitrary (lots of times a non-quality start is actually better than a quality start, for example, going eight innings giving up four runs is probably better than going six and giving up three). They are also becoming rarer and rarer as teams use their bullpens to cover more and more innings.

I do not dispute his points. He is correct about everything he says. The win is probably the category most affected by randomness in the game and the quality start absolutely is weirdly arbitrary. I just don't believe that those points necessarily justify removing them from your fantasy baseball league.

The Case For Wins

The most "fair" categories league would be incredibly boring. You could set up a league where you just add up the total WAR values for your roster and the true best team would probably win the league most times. This would be a better way to quantify true production, but man that would be so much less fun. The truth is that all categories are influenced by randomness.

The wins category is not much different than the runs category. A pitcher can throw a great game and not get a win because his team did not score for him in the same way that a hitter can get on base three times in a game and not cross the plate because the hitters behind him didn't drive him in. Same with RBI (nobody being on base for your hitter), same with saves (your closer's team losing or winning big), same with ERA and WHIP (bad defensive play).

While wins may be more random than these categories, as long as it is not entirely random, I see no problem with it. Pitchers do have some level of command over winning the game. The better you pitch, the higher your chances are of winning.

The Case for Quality Starts

One of the most frustrating things that happens in a league that uses quality starts is when a pitcher of yours has a line of 5.2 innings and no earned runs. This kind of start is becoming more and more frequent as teams let their prized starters throw fewer and fewer pitches per start. But just because a category is sparse does not mean it should be removed. Steals are pretty sparse, but we still like that category.

There are pitchers out there that are immune to all of this as well. Established veterans and highly efficient pitchers will still be able to get through six innings at a high rate even if their teams do really crack down.

The Main Point

The game of fantasy baseball is about playing to your league rules. You should not be tailoring your league settings to what makes the most sense from a real-life baseball perspective. You should set up your league in a way that requires as much strategy as possible out of the league members. This means having categories that measure separate things. Steals and home runs have nothing to do with each other, they are not correlated at all, and that makes team assembly a really strategic thing. Your league should be won by the manager that manages best based on the league rules. I'm much more concerned with accomplishing that than having all categories that don't have other problems in "real life".

All of that said, Michael's argument is completely valid and you should consider it just as much as you should consider this. There is no right answer here, the end goal of this fantasy baseball game we play is entertainment - so do whatever you get the most enjoyment out of.

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