BOWLING GREEN, OH -- Wins, a pitching number widely derided by baseball statistic aficionados, has suddenly soared to the pinnacle of referential reverence thanks to the work of a local college student.

“I discovered it by accident,” explained Brian I. Ack, a graduate student of mathematics at Bowling Green University and the president of the student chapter of the Calculation Lovers Uber-Brotherhood (CLUB). “I was analyzing the impact of pitchers' win shares divided by their opponents batting average on the team's record. That's when I noticed the trend.”

The trend was between a pitching staff's number of wins and the team's standing in its division.

“It's a shocking 100% correlation,” said Ack. “The team whose pitching staff accumulates the most wins takes its division every time.”

“Such high predictive accuracy is unheard of,” Ack continued.

Ack's discovery has sent a shock wave through the CLUB, and more discoveries appear to be just around the corner.

“My roommate and I recently had another breakthrough that I think will be just as powerful,” Ack said. “It turns out that if you look at OBP -- without adding anything to it or anything -- that you can determine how often a player reaches base.”

Ack plans to publish his findings in The Diamond Angle Baseball Magazine, on his weblog, and in haughty-sounding posts on baseball message boards across the Internet.