skyking162

I watched part of the Mets game yesterday and caught the second half of a discussion about quality starts. One announcer stated that 68% of quality starts result in wins for the team. The other one then questioned the definition of a quality start, because a 6 IP 3ER performance qualifies and isn’t exactly a stellar performance. True, the first one said, but that’s just the cut-off point — most quality starts are better than that (see below). The second announcer then mentioned that the percentage of quality starts won by teams has gone up steadily over the past twenty years. The first announcer said that was because run-scoring has gone up steadily and a quality start has more value when more runs are scored. Wow, all true. To hear a discussion like that during a mainstream broadcast is cool. They didn’t decide that a quality start was good or bad, or better or worse than a Win — it was just an intelligent conversation. The announcers ended the chat by wondering exactly how many quality starts are of the 6 IP 3 ER variety. Well…

[QS] is a simple and elegant stat that suggests a pitcher did a reasonable job of keeping his team in the ballgame. And while it’s possible for a pitcher to earn a quality start with a game ERA of 4.50, such instances are rare. In the aforementioned ESPN column, Neyer found that in 2005, the average quality start featured a game ERA of 2.04, a non-quality start 7.70–that’s not a misprint, it’s Boeing’s next jet–and the 6 inning/3 earned run/4.50 case constituted just 9.2 percent of all quality starts.

- from this BPro article

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