Chris Carpenter’s W-L record with the Cardinals
Posted by Andy on August 22, 2010
Last night Chris Carpenter improved to 14-4 this season by beating Tim Lincecum and the Giants. His overall record since joining St. Louis in 2004 is 82-28 in 151 starts. Wins and losses are overrated as stats, but this bears a little comparison...
Carpenter's winning percentage with the Cardinals is now .7455. For comparison purposes, note that the overall leaders in career W-L% are Al Spalding with .7940 and Spud Chandler with .7171.
He's already the Cardinals' all-time leader:
Win-Loss %
| Rank | Player | W-L% | IP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Chris Carpenter | .743 | 1036.3 |
| 2. | Ice Box Chamberlin | .719 | 568.7 |
| 3. | Ted Wilks | .718 | 742.7 |
| 4. | John Tudor | .705 | 881.7 |
| 5. | Dave Foutz | .704 | 1457.7 |
| 6. | Silver King | .700 | 1432.7 |
| Tony Mullane | .700 | 460.7 | |
| 8. | Bob Caruthers | .692 | 1395.0 |
| 9. | Mort Cooper | .677 | 1480.3 |
| 10. | Woody Williams | .672 | 588.7 |
(That's not updated through yesterday's game yet.)
Some other things to consider about Carpenter's record:
- As per his detailed starting pitching stats, there were 9 games in which Carpenter was in line for the win when he left but the bullpen relinquished the lead. Conversely, there were 21 games in which Carpenter was in line for the loss when he left but his team rallied to tie the game. (See his Cardinals-only totals here.) This includes 6 such games this year alone! If we add 9 wins and 21 losses to Carpenter's actual stats with the Cardinals, his overall W-L% is reduced to .650, a number that feels a lot better to me in terms of what Carpenter deserves.
- His run support with St. Louis has been 4.8 runs per game. In the NL from 2004-2010, run scoring has averaged 4.62 per game. So Carpenter has benefited from above-average run support, which is surprising since he often has gone up against the opposing team's ace. In any event, this has put him in a position to win a bit more than his fair share of games.
- In his nearly 7 full seasons with the Cardinals he's started only 152 games, or 22 per season on average. That's low, thanks to missing nearly 2 full years to injury in 2007 and 2008. This means two things: it has been easier for him to accumulate a really good record by starting fewer games (i.e. the more somebody plays, the closer to average they tend to get) and when considering his overall value, we need to remember that he gave the Cardinals nothing for 2 years. That has to count against him when evaluating his career with St. Louis.
I don't mean to sound like I'm criticizing his performance--he's been a wonderful pitcher for the Cardinals. Just trying to give equal measure to both sides of the story.
August 22nd, 2010 at 8:43 am
Here's more comparison. In 154 decisions, Pedro Martinez had a W/L with Boston of 117-37 (.760).
August 22nd, 2010 at 8:57 am
Wins and losses are not overrated. They are the most important stats for a pitcher.
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:05 am
Joe Buck agrees, Tim. Just don't start on that "Great American Songbook" kick again. . . .
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:06 am
Overall, since 2004, the Cardinals are 609-482 (.558). Removing Carpenter's decisions, they would be 527-454 (.537). Even if we remove the aforementioned 30 games in which the offense changed what Carpenter had left them, the team has a record of 506-445 (.532). As mentioned above, if the fortunes of those other games had not been changed by the offense following Carpenter's exit, his winning percentage would be .650, instead of .746.
While I generally I agree that there's not that much to won-loss records of pitchers compared to one another, it seems valid to compare a pitcher to his own team. I would say that a pitcher who outpitches his team by .100 or .200(!!!) is doing a pretty remarkable job. Kudos to Carpenter.
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:18 am
I love the fact that there is a guy named "Ice Box Chamberlin" on this list 🙂
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:21 am
Levity aside, I would guesstimate Carp's "neutral" (Pascal) record to be around 76-34 .691, given 337 earned runs against 489 league runs (ERA+ of 145) over 110 decisions. So the Cardinals have converted 6 losses into wins for him, keeping him from being lower on the list. Pascal records for most of the others:
Tudor 62-26 .705
King 113-48 .702
Mullane 35-15 .700
Chamberlin 43-21 .672
Cooper 102-53 .658
Foutz 105-57 .648
Caruthers 154-85 .644
Williams 39-28 .582
I don't think Silver King gets his due.
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:22 am
Any pitcher that can pitch a heap of games in a season against the Pirates should not be counted...
That winning percentage is helped bunches by his 11-1 mark against the Pirates (and that's just the record)
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:41 am
#2 As another reader put it very nicely on another thread, TEAM wins and losses are the most important stat. For starting pitchers, even if they pitch complete games every time, they are only 50% responsible for what happens in the game as they have no control over what their own team's offense does (ignoring NL pitcher contributions of course.) The bottom line is that numerous factors outside of a starting pitcher's own performance strongly influence whether he gets a decision and whether that's a win or a loss, and therefore W-L records are not a terribly good indicator of quality of pitcher. I'm not saying there's zero correlation, but it's certainly not a great indicator of how well he pitched.
August 22nd, 2010 at 10:05 am
"Any pitcher that can pitch a heap of games in a season against the Pirates should not be counted...
That winning percentage is helped bunches by his 11-1 mark against the Pirates (and that's just the record)"
Every pitcher gets to pitch a lot against the last-place team in their division. Doing exceptionally well against such opponents is the mark of a good pitcher. If his record was 8-4 against the Pirates, would you think more highly of him?
August 22nd, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Chris Carpenter was also under contract for the Cardinals in 2003 and missed the entire season with an arm injury.
August 22nd, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Is 4.8 vs 4.62 really enough of a difference to matter? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm trying to understand how much .18 Rs is.
August 22nd, 2010 at 1:15 pm
You can't simply add the Wins Lost and Losses Saved to his record. Not all of these games resulted in no decisions. Wins lost can be actual losses if the tying and go ahead runs are on base when the pitcher is removed. Losses saved can become wins when the final batter the pitcher faces concludes an inning and the team ties and takes the lead in the immediate half-inning that follows.
Also, the opposite spin on Wins lost is that these are games where the pitcher could have won had he survived longer and/or better (thus making it more difficult for the opponent to comeback against the bullpen). Losses saved are usually the result of a pitcher pitching decently and keeping the game close enough that his team has the chance to win the game - rarely are these games where the team is down multiple, especially 4+, runs. Obviously, some of these games are games where the pitcher's team let him down or picked him up. Another factor which affects these numbers is that in the NL often times the pitcher will be removed prematurely solely for offensive reasons.
August 22nd, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Evan-
Your first point is off-base. If a pitcher leaves the game with a lead but runners on and those runners score, losing the lead, he was never in line for the win. He is still the pitcher of record at that point and gets the L credited to him assuming the results stand.
August 22nd, 2010 at 2:34 pm
I never really thought Carpenter was that sharp. Sharp statistical look at his record.
August 22nd, 2010 at 2:55 pm
BSK-
The pitcher can be credited with a L and a Wlst (WIns Lost) in the same game if he leaves in a situation where he is eligible for both a win and a loss because his team is leading but the potential tying and go ahead runs are on base, e.g. the starting pitcher is removed from the game with a 3-2 lead and 2 runners on in the 7th inning, the relief pitcher gives up a home run to the first batter he faces and the team loses the game 5-3. The starting pitcher is given a loss but the Wlst stat is also triggered because he was in the position to win the game when he was removed, but the bullpen blew the game. It is possible that this hasn't happened with Carpenter because he is infrequently removed in the middle of an inning. There are examples of Carpenter being credited with a Lsv (loss saved) and a W in the same game this season. The 6 number seemed high and sparked my curiosity and I looked at the game logs. Carpenter has received no decisions in 4 games this year in which he left with a deficit. In starts 3 and 5 he was trailing when removed and was credited with a W, these are the other 2 Lsv he is credited with. If you add the Wlst and the Lsv to his actual record you will end up double counting certain games.
August 22nd, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Barkfart-
Didn't you hate all these stats when they didn't support your viewpoints?
Evan-
I didn't realize there was a formal tracking of it. I stand corrected. Obviously, there are some flaws in how those numbers are counted.
August 22nd, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Oh BSK, that was wrong.
No doubt, I'm a gut check kinda guy when it comes to baseball.
No doubt, I am almost completely at odds with so many on this board- like you and Andy.
That said, I am EXTREMELY thankful to Andy for all his efforts to keep this board a magnet for those who love baseball- whether they believe in WAR or not.
And so it seems... you would have that I remain silent- even when I agree with Andy- just so that I wouldn't have to admit that everyone gets the opportunity to be right every now and again.
Remember, even a "stuck clock" is correct twice a day.
I stand by what I said. Good job of exposing Carpenter as a very good- not great- pitcher.
barkfart
p.s. there's a reason I check back with this blog so often
August 22nd, 2010 at 7:57 pm
[...] Celebrate With Epic FailLou Piniella did the right thing by stepping down now Baseball-Reference.comChris Carpenter’s W-L record with the CardinalsMatt Stairs Passes Cliff JohnsonWhy Mark Reynolds is not the next Mike Schmidt > > > > [...]
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Barkfart,
I'm not sure what led you to draw the conclusion between Carpenter as very good vs. great from what was written above. Certainly he has had some injury problems over the course of his career, but his on field performances as a Cardinal have been at a very high level. I am curious which pitchers you consider to have performed at the great level over the past seven years because in terms of on field performance it can't be more than a handful if you are excluding Carpenter.
August 22nd, 2010 at 11:47 pm
R.A. Dickey is a great pitcher. All others are pretenders.
Here endeth the lesson.
August 23rd, 2010 at 9:10 am
I was surprised not to see Whitey Ford on this list, until I remembered he ended his career during a brief lull in their existence.
August 23rd, 2010 at 9:15 am
And as far as pretenders, I would agree with Johnny Twisto, with one extremely notable exception; Count Mullane, whom I have mentioned {several times, probably} would already be in te Hall of Fame if he could ever have behaved himself for longer than a few games at a time.
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Frank, Ford is third all-time to the two guys mentioned at the start of the post, and second to Chandler in the 20th century.
August 23rd, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Of course carp is great. no one doubts that. he has easily HOF talent and is always a CY candidate if he is healthy.
Unfortunately his career is tainted by many injuries, so that he wont make the hall. still a great pitcher.
August 25th, 2010 at 6:27 am
So the douchebags who consider Carp a pitcher who isn't great don't know baseball. Since coming over the St. Louis and missing basically 2 years with injuries, he's 82-28. He has an ERA of 2.91, and a WHIP of 1.088... he could easily have a second Cy Young since Brandon Webb stole one from either him or Oswalt in 2005 where Webb wasn't even pitching to get to the playoffs. And both had better ERAs.
Stat nerds should understand this, wins and losses are important if you have an ERA, WHIP, opposing batting average to support it. We're not talking about a guy with an ERA of 4.50 who gets 17 wins like Derek Lowe.