Starting rotations are not evenly balanced. A quick look at a team’s depth chart will show that most rotations petter off near the back end, and some have massive gaps between ace and #5. Fans get excited to see their ace pitch, and even neutral fans may tune in to see Clayton Kershaw tear through opposing lineups. When starter #5 rolls around, fans may be hoping for the bullpen to limit the damage, and a win becomes unexpected. But which starter on your team should make fans the most excited if they just want to see a win?

Wins are a stat that many today just look past for pitchers. Whoever won the most games in not necessarily the best pitcher,  and thankfully we have moved past the days where teams and awards voters primarily used wins to determine contracts and the Cy Young Award. Wins are too heavily influenced by factors outside of the pitcher’s control, such as team offense and bullpen. However, a team’s chance of winning is determined greatly by who is on the mound at the time. To see how much a pitcher improves his team’s odds of winning, we can look at the team’s winning percentage on days where that player starts, and compare it to the team’s overall winning percentage. Below are the top ten pitchers based on the gap between their team’s winning percentage when they are starting and when they are not (minimum 10 starts):

Just as with regular wins, the top pitchers listed are necessarily not the league’s best. Hector Santiago put up a 4.25 ERA with the Angels, but the Angels bullpen pitched well in his starts and the Angels offence scored close to 6 runs a game when he pitched for them. Santiago also pitched for a poor team, making the difference between his .727 winning percentage and his team’s even bigger. Clayton Kershaw still clocks in at number 3, with the best overall winning percentage in the league, and Stephen Strasburg came in at number 10 with the second best. Below are the bottom 10 by difference (minimum 10 starts):

Poor Cody Reed runs away with it at the bottom of the list. He pitched 10 starts for the Cincinnati Reds, and the Reds lost in all of them, including two appearances of 6.0 innings with 0 ER. Anibal Sanchez makes the list with the most starts, making 26 starts for the Tigers, and pitched in the rotation for the entire year with a winning percentage worse than 2016’s 103-loss Twins.

Below is the best for each individual team (minimum 10 starts):

Oakland and Minnesota both share the dubious honor of their best ten-game starter still having a winning percentage below .500. With the exception of a few pitchers with small samples (Mat Latos beating Chris Sale) the list is mostly what you would expect as a follower of any of the teams. These pitchers had the best winning percentage on their teams, and it is mostly a list of each team’s ace.

Below is the worst for each individual team (minimum 10 starts):

Colorado’s Jon Gray has the smallest gap on this board, but his presence, like Dallas Keuchel and Chris Archer, is surprising. Archer and Keuchel had down years, but they are still considered two of baseball’s better pitching talents, and many would put Gray in there as well. Despite that, their teams all performed worse than they normally did when they were on the mound. Perhaps a bounceback year from them will see them leading their respective rotations again, and getting their fair share of wins.