Sometimes, the spark comes at exactly the perfect time. After spending Saturday morning at the absolutely phenomenal Fangraphs conference (and spending some of the weekend re-reading classic Fire Joe Morgan pieces), I have been a little more keyed in to when members of the media use either flawed statistics or misuse stats to make a point on a player. Now, I know Matt Steinmetz from covering the Warriors. He is a very good reporter and has also been kind to me in the limited amount of times we have interacted. That said, Matt went on a mini-Twitter rampage about Matt Cain on Tuesday night (http://twitter.com/MSteinmetzCSN) that was so egregious it necessitated a response. In a way, it was perfect because it showcased so much of what can go wrong when focusing on the wrong statistics. Tweet: Run support is real, but also a crutch. Cain hasn't translated to wins. Lincecum has. I'd start Zito in postseason before Cain right now. Matt talks about how ?True No. 1's can turn losses into no decisions? and ?Every game starts out 0-0, and big boys find a way to win? which show how terrible wins are at projecting performance. In measuring a pitcher?s quality, the goal is to filter out the components of a game that are beyond his control. This is being done excellently with stats like Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and numerous other figures, yet wins go directly in the other direction. By any account, wins can easily be shaped by performance outside of the pitcher?s control, whether that be the bullpen blowing a game or the offense throwing a big number up (generating a win in a poor performance) or a low number up (generating a loss with a good performance). Instead of stating that simple truth, I?ll compare a season for two teammates and show part of the reason why. In 2007, both Matt Cain and Barry Zito were on the Giants. Cain had an ERA of 3.65, allowed 1.26 walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP), opponents had a batting average of .235 against him, and his Wins Against Replacement (WAR) was 4.0, 27th among pitchers. Zito had an ERA nearly one full run higher, a WHIP almost 0.1 higher, a Batting Average Against thirty-seven points higher, and was worth 1.7 wins according to WAR, which was fourth on the team, right below Matt Morris and right above Noah Lowry, who made a whopping 14 starts that season. Barry Zito went 11-13 while Matt Cain went 7-16. One major difference was run support- Zito got one full run a game more from the Giants offense than Cain did that season. Cain took a loss in SEVEN games that season where he allowed two earned runs or less and he never allowed more than four earned runs in a game he got a win for. Zito lost a whopping one game when he allowed two earned runs or less. In 2007, Cain had more starts where he allowed two earned runs or less than he did where he allowed more than that, and yet his record was 7-16. I guess it?s his fault those didn?t translate to wins. I agree that run support can be an overused stat at points, yet it is a necessary evil when the other person is using an easily biased figure like won-loss record. Tweet: A 3.46 ERA is totally fine. No doubt about it. But it's certainly not great. Um, yes it is. Cain is tied for 19th in all of baseball in ERA this season. That?s pretty close to great, unless you define greatness as the top 15 of the league or something. On top of that, he is tied with Johan Santana and above Jeff Nieman (he?s 10-3!), CC Sabathia (14-5!), and Tim Lincecum in the stat. If using ERA as a yardstick, it proves difficult to argue with merit that being top-20 is ?totally fine? but ?not great.? If you want to go on more of a long-term scale, which is not advised since runs have been dropping the last few seasons and thus bias the overall numbers, a 3.46 ERA would be 15th-best in all of baseball over the last five seasons in aggregate. Tweet: I believe Zito has postseason experience, & success no less. Not Cain This may be the most unfair argument of all. I will not argue against Zito?s post-season record, even though his most recent start then was in 2006, when Matt Cain was a 21-year old rookie. Rather, the focus here should be on criticizing Cain for his lack of a post-season record. Starters pitch every fifth day and that?s it. Unless Steinmetz is arguing that Cain needed to contribute to the wins and losses of the Giants on days he didn?t see the field (and if so, I would LOVE to hear it), let?s look at the last four years for the Giants. In 2006, the Giants finished 11.5 games out of the playoffs. Sorry Cain, you just weren?t good enough to bridge that gap and pitch in October. In 2007, San Francisco finished in last place, 19 games out of first place. Didn?t deserve it there either, Cainer. In 2008, Los Gigantes finished 12 games out of first and 18 games out of the wild card. Tough noogies, Matt. You didn?t bring enough to the table. Last season, the Giants were closer, finishing just four games behind Colorado for the Wild Card. Sorry, Matt, your 14-8 record and All-Star appearance were not enough to bridge that gap. Knocking Cain for his lack of playing time in October is like ripping on Charles Barkley for never winning a ring, if Charles played in just one quarter of each game. The biggest issue here is not even the misconceptions highlighted above. What makes this so infuriating is how easy it is to become even marginally literate in the stats that actually show pitcher quality infinitely better than wins and ERA. This does not even require going into more complicated figures like FIP or xFIP, though they are even more useful. Heck, even using ERA, Matt Cain does very well. He is 18th in ERA among pitchers with over 500 innings pitched over the last five seasons, and those have been his first five as a major league pitcher. In that same time period, he is eighth in Quality Starts and ninth among all eligible pitchers in Wins Above Replacement despite the 63-70 won-loss record that was the focus of Steinmetz?s tweets. Matt Steinmetz, you can take Barry Zito because he made the playoffs a few times when he was on the A?s five years ago and I?ll take the guy who has outpitched him every single full year he has been in the majors. I just hope that you learn to appreciate what Matt Cain has brought to the table the last five seasons, because it really has been impressive. You can email Daniel at Daniel.Leroux@RealGM.com, or follow him on Twitter @DannyLeroux.