Dear pot, it's the kettlehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

I'll admit, my post was poorly organized and executed, which was the product of me spending roughly 30 total minutes on it spread over three days. I've been busy, which is having an adverse effect on my argumentation, which means I need to work less. But I find it funny that you felt my argument was so bad that you'd go ahead and prove it yourself.

So you're clearly right. Wins don't mean anything, Randy Johnson is average, and the entire Indians, Yankees, White Sox and Phillies pitching staffs -- including guys like Mussina, Contreras, Vazquez, Sabathia, Myers and Hamels -- are below average.

No, I don't think Mussina, Cotreras, Vasquez, Myers or Hamels are average at all. They're all above-average to really good pitchers. That's borne out by their statistics. And what did they all have in common? Low winning percentages. And what did Randy Johnson and Jon Garland have in common? Neither pitched as well as the guys you listed above, yet both won more games. Which, essentially, proves my point completely. Thank you; I was struggling to make it quite that concise.

Or maybe wins do mean something, because only good pitchers -- even with a good offense -- win 17 games. You're right about the "good pitchers with bad records" argument. But show me a statistically significant amount of bad or mediocre or average pitchers who win 17 games, regardless of offense.

I bet you can't. Which means wins are a good -- not the best, maybe, but a good -- indicator of a pitcher's value.

Correlation does not imply causality. Ignoring my pointing this out doesn't mean my argument doesn't exist. I actually stated this very clearly, with reference to wikipedia. When you were done mocking the form (cleverly, I admit) you should have actually read the entry.

You also originally argued that Freddy Garcia would "suck pretty hard" for the Phillies because Citizen's Bank is a bandbox.

I did indeed. And I believe he will, though I suppose "sucking" is relative, since you're going to look only at his win total and I'm going to look at only those things that have to do with how Garcia pitched. But, I'll make you a bet on your terms: Garcia wins more than 15 games, and I'll buy you a copy of this. I'll even get it signed, if he doesn't smell the computer on me from 100 yards out.

I hope we're done here.

Tired of standing on straw men? Yeah, we can change the subject.