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Are Wins a Skill?

My previous post got me thinking about how certain outliers can show skill in areas which for most players are purely luck, and I think a good case can be made for wins.

One thing a pitcher can do is pitch to the score. If he's up three runs or more, throw strikes, and don't worry if you catch too much of the plate, and the ball goes out of the park. If it's a one-run game, the maybe the pitcher takes his chances on painting the corners and risks walking a batter or two.

Another skill that leads to wins is pitching efficiency. While Tim Lincecum might be better on a per-inning basis than Roy Halladay, Halladay's low pitch counts allow him to go deeper into games and bypass the soft underbelly of the middle relief corps. If Halladay goes eight (and gets to the closer) or nine, that's a win skill apart from run support, defense, bullpen support, K-rate, HR-rate or walk rate.

There are probably other subtle situational things that some pitchers are good at and some not so good. As with BABIP, those skills might be hard to detect in the majority of pitchers, but Halladay, Brandon Webb and a few others are likely better bets for wins than their basic peripherals and team context would suggest.