Vulture Wins

As per Cam's comment in the Wilbur Wood post, here is a list of last years leaders in pitchers who blow a save but earn a win. It's kind of like convincing your best friend to break up with his girlfriend only to snake in there and starting dating her yourself. I like to refer to this phenomenon as a "snake win" but alas I am not the first person to go down this road. Thanks to folks over at the now defunct Recondite Baseball blog this situation is commonly referred to as a vulture win.


The criteria for a vulture win is relatively simple, just be the winning pitcher in a game and satisfy the following conditions:

1. He enters a game in relief and pitches at most one inning.
2. He enters a game in relief and gives up at least as many runs (earned or unearned) as complete innings pitched (i.e. 1 R in 1 2/3 IP, 2 R in 2 1/3 IP).
3. He enters a game in a save situation and blows the save.

Now this is much harsher criteria than simply blowing a save and getting the win as it takes a more pessimistic outlook on reliever wins in general. However, the point of how meaningless wins can be, especially for relievers, is made.

Now to the 2010 vulture win leaderboard:

1. Tyler Clippard (5)
2. Francisco Rodriguez (3)
3. Jeremy Affeldt (3)
4. Francisco Cordero, Billy Wagner, Jon Rauch, Jonathan Papelbon, Leo Nunez, Ryan Madson, Jose Veras, Darren O'Day. (2)

Tyler Clippard snaked his way all the way to the top of the reliever win board last season as he posted an 11-8 record in only 91 innings pitched. I am sure there are a few Washington starters who take exception to this as none of them posted more than ten wins last year.