Only tangentially related to the actual article (which was great, don't get me wrong!) but in the last table, am I reading correctly that the average MLB team's expected winning percentage jumps from 36% to 60% if they score (at least) the 3rd run while the starting pitcher is still in? If so, it's really remarkable that one extra run, by definition relatively early in the game, can swing the ExpW% so much!

Excellant work. I get annoyed every time that factoid is mentioned in a broadcast.

"There are three types of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics."

Ugh, yes, thank you. My old man looove this "stat" and won't listen to me when I tell him it's meaningless.

It's obvious that Zito isn't a better than average pitcher but rather that he is a much better hitter than his career -31 OPS+ would suggest. How else can you explain all those extra 7 to 9 run games? I'll bet that in games that Zito gets 1 or more hits, the Giants win some of them. :-) Having never looked at it before, I'm impressed with Zito's consistency at the plate as a Giant; 0.113 BA his first year, and then 3 years in a row at 0.118. In 2008 and 2009 he had the exact same stat line. What are the odds of that?

I am amused by the propsect that in six percent of Barry Zito's starts in which he has received 7 runs of support, he is not doing so in the major leagues. If he were pitching in the majors in those starts, after all, he would have won 100% of the time, just as all other major leaguers have.

It seems to me this is an issue not wholly unrelated to Doug Thorburn's Raising Aces today on blow-up starts. The factoid is misleading; I know that's really what the article is about. But one thing the factoid does capture, however roughly and imperfectly, is that Barry Zito rarely shits the bed when you make it for him really nicely.

I have often wondered what the standard deviation of game scores over a given season is, whether pitchers have a demonstrable consistency skill, and at what inflection point or extreme a starter's performance really becomes the driving force in determining the game's outcome. I mean, if the Giants score three or four runs with Zito in the game, it's pretty clear that not only is Zito not driving the outcome, but virtually no pitcher in baseball would be driving the outcome. Three runs scored in the first six or seven innings means the starting pitcher is not likely to factor in the decision that day, and will leave, unless he pitched really, really well or really, really badly, without having changed the win probability for his team much at all that day.

This is where I start thinking starters, while important narratively and important because teams couldn't possibly keep 12 good relievers healthy all year, are drastically overpaid, and their importance overstated. If I had to guess, I would guess that starting pitching determines the outcome of fewer than 35 percent of all games.

Another way that this factoid is misleading is that its talking about while Zito is in the game. Four runs while the starting pitcher is STILL IN THE GAME is a lot. We just see the "four runs" and think of that as average support. Considering that and the "or more" add-on that we tend to overlook, this is double the way we see $1.99 and just think of it as a buck.

Sam, this is good stuff as usual. But #3 doesn't hold water. His team won't score "or fewer" runs. But at the time the announcer utters the phrase, his team still might score "or more."

The announcers really should just say, "4 runs. The [other team] might as well go home, because even Zito doesn't blow many games when he gets that much support before getting yanked."

Your columns would be significantly more interesting if I'd always read them in their entirety as I've noticed a strong positive correlation between how much of your column I read and how interesting it is.

Your research actually demonstrates that Barry Zito is a magician. He manages to win 3% of games in which his team does not score for him.

This is the kind of article that microscopically restores my faith in the human race. There are an awful lot of tricky factoids in our world, and they all deserve to be deconstructed this way.