Kerry Wood

[the alex]

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Like I said the problem isn't with his stats. Except the most important stat, WINS.

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A.) WINS are the most overrated stat for pitchers.

B.) Wood's biggest problem is his elbow. After 75 pitches, he can't throw strikes and then he goes down with an elbow injury.

Weak run support in his starts last year had him leaving a lot of games down 3-2, 2-1, and 2-0. You can't blame the Cubs missing the playoffs last year on any starter(s) or even Sammy.

No one goes to the playoffs when their closer has 4 losses and blows 9 saves and their setup man has a 4.73 ERA, 5 losses, and 4 blown saves. The Cubs only missed the playoffs by 3 games and look at those numbers. Clearly, in the modern day, too much outside of the pitchers decides whether their team wins or loses the games.

Wood had 9 losses and a 3.70 ERA in 22 starts. Clearly, it's not the runs he was giving up that factored for the majority of his losses as giving up 3 runs in 7 innings should earn you a win if you're a playoff team.

Funny how you disregarded the R. Johnson response. Look at Russ Ortiz and Andy Pettite's numbers compared to Wood in 2003 and even a lot of Kevin Brown numbers. The Cubs can't win, but Wood can if he had a bullpen that didn't force him to throw 125+ pitches a game.