Eat raven

That's right you can't. That's why Randy Winn is the best.

P.S. you pick like the two worst stats to measure pitchers by but nice job dood.

P.P.S. I expect a Giants fan of all fans to realize now that Wins are the most useless stat to measure pitchers. You freaking have Matt Cain on your team who is 2-6. Show of hands that say Cain is the worst starter on the Giants staff?

And even now he is a good pitcher.  But he has declined from excellent to very good to merely good -- and likely will decline further over the course of his contract.

IMO what we have seen from Barry thus far this season is pretty much what the Giants got. Barry's ERA+ this season is 103.  I expected a bit more than that -- but not much.

Let's put this in proper focus.  If Barry Zito can triple his career to date, he will almost certainly make the Hall of Fame.  But his days of a sub-three ERA are almost certainly gone, and his days of the sub-four ERA are likely pretty much gone, as well.  When one gives the highest contract to a pitcher EVER, shouldn't one be able to expect more?  

If the Giants had signed Johan Santana to that contract, I would be calling it arguably their greatest free agent signing EVER.  But they gave pretty close to star money for a guy whose days as a star have been gone for at LEAST three years.

Amazingly, if one looks at the won-loss record, ERA and innings pitched of Barry and of Livan Hernandez since the beginning of the 2003 season, they are virtually equal.  Even though Livan has done most of his pitching during that time for the primarily hapless Expos/Nationals, his won-loss record (59-51) is amazingly close to Zito's(61-52).  

Because Livan had a very poor 2006 season, Barry's ERA is about 15 points better over that time.  But Livan has made only one fewer start than Barry, and has actually averaged 0.43 more innings per outing than Barry, giving him an edge of about 50 innings pitched.

So essentially, the Giants got a younger, lefthanded Livan Hernandez.  Whooppee!

It's not that Barry Zito is a bad pitcher.  It's that he's grossly overpaid.  He's overpaid for how he has pitched this season, and his primary and peripheral stats have been in decline, indicating we aren't likely to see much better over the course of the contract.

Barry Bonds has earned his contract as a Giant -- and then some.  Barry Zito isn't likely to do so.

All were good pitchers, and Lolich was very, very good and Glavine great.  But eight of the ten were really good through age 28, but pretty mediocre thereafter.

Taken together, those top 10 comps averaged 98 wins and 73.  That's not too far off Barry's 102-63.  But after their age 28 seasons, those 10 guys averaged only 64 wins and 57 losses.  If we exclude Lolich and Glavine, those numbers fall to 42-44.

To be honest, in terms of wins, I expect Barry's career to approximate Lolich -- not to win only 42 games as the eight averaged.  I don't think he will approach Glavine, but Lolich could be a good career comp for wins.  And Mickey won 227 -- 115 of them after his age 28 season.

But the one discouraging thing is that both Lolich and Glavine were in their primes during their age 28 season.  Glavine started slowly and was peaking.  Lolich started strong, had one poor season and had bounced back strongly by age 28.

Zito started out like a Cy Young pitcher (and indeed won one award in his second full season.  But since then Barry has clearly been in decline.  His ERA in his Cy Young year was 2.75.  The last three seasons it has averaged 4.05 -- and sits at 4.02 so far this season, even though the average ERA in the league has come down a fair amount thus far in 2007.

If the Giants had signed the Barry Zito of his first 3 1/2 seasons, I would have celebrated wildly.  But over the past three seasons -- now nearly that same 3 1/2 -- Barry hasn't been the same pitcher.

Over his first 3 1/2 seasons, Barry posted a 3.12 ERA over 768.0 innings.  In his last (nearly) 3 1/2 seasons, Barry has posted a 4.05 ERA over 740.7 innings.

I want that first guy.  That's the guy the Giants paid for.  But they got the second guy.  And given the trend of that second guy compared to the first, over the full seven years the Giants probably didn't get the second guy.  They could easily have gotten a guy whose  average ERA will fall in the 4.50 - 5.00 range over those seven seasons.

Aren't you pleased?  While I didn't precisely answer your question -- as others did -- I came up with the pitchers who thus far have been most comparable with Barry through the age 28 season.  One of those pictures screams Hall of Fame.  One screams continuing All-Star. The other eight yell ... mediocrity.

I'm expecting Barry to be between the second-best in that group and the rest of the group ERA-wise.  Record-wise I'm expecting him to be pretty much on par with #2.

What we would wind up with is a pitcher with a career ERA of over four who wins about twice as many games as Barry has won thus far.

In his first 3 1/2 years, Barry was a stakes race horse.  His last 3 1/2 years, he has been a good allowance race horse.  It is quite possible that while Barry will have a long racing career, he will ultimately fall into the ranks of the claimers.

And by then, the Giants may be just DYING for someone to "claim" Barry and save them the cost.

as for Bill Mueller, wish i could share the enthusiasm, but when he won the batting title at Boston i saw a photo of him and he looked huge..ripped biceps/forearms that i just dont remember from him while he was here..i always thought he was fairly thin type that doesnt usually put on the bulk no matter how much they lift weights, so he is suspect in my opinion