So, you probably know that at the moment Felix Hernandez leads the American League in ERA and strikeouts. Roy Halladay and Adam Wainwright are close to the top in both categories in the NL, but neither is leading and probably neither will lead. So mostly this focuses on King Felix.
Felix may not end up leading the league in either category. Jered Weaver is only three strikeouts behind, and he will pitch Friday. Clay Bucholz is just a few hundredths behind Hernandez in ERA and he's scheduled to go Saturday. I assume King Felix will pitch the Mariners finale on Sunday, but I guess that hasn't been announced yet.
Anyway, I was wondering how often a pitcher who led the league in ERA and strikeouts DID NOT win the Cy Young Award. It has happened -- more often than I expected to be honest.
From my quick count 19 of the 24 times a pitcher has led his league in strikeouts and ERA since 1966 (the first year they gave out Cy Young Awards to each league), the pitcher did win the Cy Young Award. These would be:
Roger Clemens 4 times (1986, 1991, 1997, 1998)
Randy Johnson 4 times (1995, 1999, 2001, 2002)
Johan Santana 2 times (2004, 2006)
Pedro Martinez 2 times (1999, 2000)
Jake Peavy (2007)
Mike Scott (1986)
Dwight Gooden (1985)
Tom Seaver (1973)
Steve Carlton (1972)
Bob Gibson (1968)
Sandy Koufax (1967)
But that still leaves five pitchers who led their league in ERA and Ks who did not win the Cy Young. See if you can come up with them ... I was able to come up with one off the top of my head, and scrambled to come up with another. But I missed the other three. They are:
2002: Pedro Martinez lost the Cy Young to Barry Zito. I eventually remembered this one. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) suggests voters got it right. Zito (6.5 WAR) made five more starts and pitched 30 more innings than Pedro (5.7 WAR).
1987: Nolan Ryan finished fifth in Cy Young voting. This is the one I remembered right off the top of my head ... Ryan famously finished 8-16 this year despite leading the league in ERA and strikeouts. The Cy Young choice -- Steve Bedrosian -- was absolutely brutal, one of the worst choices ever I think. How do you pick for Cy Young a closer with 86 innings pitched and a higher ERA than Ryan had as a starter? Ryan's WAR (5.5) was more than twice Bedrosian's (2.6) -- simply a swing and a miss by the voters. Then again, Ryan might not have been the best choice either. Orel Hershiser led the league in WAR with a 6.7 -- the guy threw 264 innings that year.
1979: J.R. Richard finished third in the Cy Young voting behind Bruce Sutter and Joe NIekro. Sutter really did have a great year as a closer (though not as good a year as he had in 1977, when HE probably had a better year than Cy Young winner Steve Carlton). But Richard also finished behind Joe Niekro? Just weird. That was pure wins talking. The odd thing is the guy who had the highest WAR in the league that year was PHIL Niekro, who went 21-20 and finished 6th in the voting.
1971: Tom Seaver finished second in the Cy Young voting to Ferguson Jenkins. This, at the time, was actually a pretty famous snub. Seaver had a 1.76 ERA, a full run better than Jenkins. But WAR suggests that the voters probably got it right -- or anyway it was a toss-up. Jenkins made four more starts, pitched 40 more innings (a staggering 325 innings total) and they had identical WAR totals of 9.2. The feeling seemed to be that Jenkins, who had won 20 the previous four seasons without fanfare, was deserving of recognition, and Jenkins really did have a great year. Of course that feeling may have been influenced by the fact that Jenkins won four more games than Seaver.
1970: Tom Seaver finished seventh int he Cy Young voting. This was a strange year -- Seaver led the league in ERA and strikeouts, yes, but he only went 18-12 which doomed his Cy Young chances. And WAR suggests, once more, that the writers got it right. They gave the award to Bob Gibson, who did indeed lead the league in WAR. And second place was Gaylord Perry who was indeed second in the league in WAR. The voters messed up sometimes, yes, but I find it interesting how often their choices match up with WAR even though, obviously, they had no access to the statistic when they were voting.
You know whats cool? Reading a Joe Post, clicking the back button, and finding he's posted another one in the meantime. Thanks Joe!
ReplyDeleteThe exact same thing just happened to me. Truly a shame it doesn't happen all the time.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Joe, when do you find time to write all this stuff? I presume you have a real, non-Joe Blog life to attend to.
Anyway, thanks always!
Seems fitting, seeing as the most remarkable thing about Cy himself was the sheer volume of work he produced, rather than his perfection in any particular stat.
ReplyDeleteI hope my pedro loving roommate's head doesn't explode when he reads that Joe Posnanski defended Zito winning the Cy Young in 2002. He thinks that was the greatest injustice since the persecution of Galileo
ReplyDeleteI am amazed at the prolific nature of Joe Pos. Thanks for keeping me informed and entertained every week Joe.
ReplyDeleteJoe seems to equate highest WAR = deserving of Cy Young. While I think there is an argument to be made that WAR is one decent indicator, I don't think it is everything.
ReplyDeleteCraig...what criteria do you suggest?
ReplyDeleteThe greatest injustice since the persecution of Galileo really was the screw job that Alan Trammell got in 1987!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff as always. Koufax, however, did not play in 1967, which I confirmed. At the same tiem, I checked his Cy Young years. In three of them, 1963, 1965, and 1966, he led the entire MLB in strikeouts and ERA.
ReplyDeletefWAR for 2002:
ReplyDeletePedro: 8.3
Zito: 4.4
Basically, Zito got pretty lucky with his babip, and didn't pitch nearly as well as his era indicated. I would tend to trust fWAR more than rWAR, at least for pitchers.
The '87 NL Cy Young voting gets a lot of negative attention but really ... there was no clear-cut favorite. Even the voters were all over the place ... Bedrosian (57 pts) received 9 first place votes, Sutcliffe (55 pts) received only 4 first place votes, and Reuschel (54) received 8 first place votes.
ReplyDeleteSure, the arguments against Bedrock are plentiful ... he probably wasn't even the best closer in the NL (ahem, Todd Worrell of the NL-winning Cardinals). The Phillies weren't even NL East contenders (4th place, 15 games out).
But if you look at various candidates, who do you give the CY to? Pretty much every single starting pitcher in the running had mediocre numbers after the All-Star Break.
Sutcliffe. Led NL in wins (18), 6th in IP (237.1), 6th in K's (174). But outside top 10 in ERA (3.68) and 1.386 WHIP is pretty ghastly. Also faded in the second half after a strong start (6-6, 3.92 ERA, 1.45 WHIP).
Big Daddy Reuschel. Split time with Pirates and NL-West winning Giants. 4th in ERA (3.09) but "only" 13 wins. Actually was mediocre after joining the better team (5-3, 4.32 ERA with SF). Faded in the second half (6-5, 4.15 ERA post-AS break).
Hershiser. 3rd in ERA (3.06) and 1st in IP (265). Won 16 games but also lost 16. Great start (10-8, 2.42 ERA) but poor second half (6-8, 3.84 ERA). Probably wasn't even the best pitcher on his team with Welch and Fernando.
Gooden. Coming out of rehab so really no chance ... only 25 starts and zero sympathy votes.
Nolan Ryan. Led NL in K's and ERA but won 8 games (33% winning pct). Also 0 CG or SHO.
Mike Scott. Reigning CYA winner. Looked like a solid bet at the AS break (10-5, 2.76 ERA, 148 Ks in 137 IP) but faded in the second half (6-8, 3.82).
So I dunno. I guess the NL CYA should have gone to Todd Worrell. 4 less saves than Bedrosian. More wins, IP, K's ... better team. But the dude didn't even get a single vote.
Joe, if anything this article should have made you ask the question HOW THE HECK did Gibson have a 8.7 WAR with a 23-7 record, a 3.12 ERA, 294 innings, 262 Hits, 88 Walks, 274 Ks, while Tom Seaver had a 6.0 WAR with an 18-12 record, a 2.82 ERA, 290.2 innings, 230 hits, 83 Walks, and 283 Ks. Bob Gibson's WAR was 50% higher...why...because he won the Gold Glove as well??? So you mean to tell me Gibson's defense was worth 50% more WAR? Doesn't that make the WAR a little meaningless when it comes to pitchers???
ReplyDeleteNever let it be said that Joe wouldn't go to WAR for his readers. Ever.
ReplyDeletePedro Martinez lost to Zito only because the writers were bored with voting for him. And because Pedro sat out his last start of the year after Boston had been eliminated, which was simply the most disgraceful disgrace in the history of disgracity.
ReplyDelete"Zito (6.5 WAR) made five more starts and pitched 30 more innings than Pedro (5.7 WAR)."
ReplyDelete"Orel Hershiser led the league in WAR with a 6.7 -- the guy threw 264 innings that year."
"Jenkins made four more starts, pitched 40 more innings (a staggering 325 innings total)"
And Felix Hernandez is leading the league in innings pitched.
When it comes to giving awards like the Cy Young and the MVP, how much should we consider luck?
ReplyDeleteIf we are projecting future success, I think you have to consider luck. If a pitcher has an obscenely low babip, then you should expect a drop the next season, and you should be upset if your favorite team overpays him.
But when it comes to awards, I think you give it to the guy that had the best year, even if he was lucky. You can take into account park effects and defense and such, but if a guy had a great year due to a fluky babip, it doesn't change the fact that he had a great year and probably deserves the award.
Thank you Logan. Probably my biggest pet peeve with stats like fWAR. It is clearly being misused for determining an award winner. Future results? Obviously it is a better way to go, but the fact that Zito got luckier shouldn't hurt him. Awards are about results, not how you should have done
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else, the snub of Tom Seaver in 1970 and 1971 should lay to rest the oft-repeated assertions that New York players receive too many awards, due to East Coast Media Bias.
ReplyDeleteYes, but those results are not because of anything you did. If you have a .250 babip, the odds are very low that that is all because of you. babip variation is mostly luck (meaning random variation), with a little bit of skill, defense, and park factor mixed in.
ReplyDelete"The odd thing is the guy who had the highest WAR in the league that year was PHIL Niekro, who went 21-20 and finished 6th in the voting."
ReplyDelete41 decisions? That made my arm ache just reading that.
I just want to say that Johnny's solo was nowhere near as interesting or challenging as the Devil's. Happily, for the sins of pride, covetousness, and anger, he went straight to hell.
ReplyDeleteAnd his WAR was only .45.
Phil Niekro going 21-20, leading the league in both Wins AND Losses is kind of impressive. I wonder how many other simultaneous 20 game winners and losers there have been. Off to B-R . . .
ReplyDeleteGalileo had it coming, as did Pedro.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to make comparisons between Hernandez' 2010 and Greinke's 2009. The big difference to me is not the few more wins and few less losses. Seattle's offense is historically bad, and just finishing over .500 on this team is amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that is amazing about Greinke's 2009 is that he led the league in ERA while pitching for the worst fielding team in the major leagues! This quite simply does not happen. ERA is adversely affected by bad fielding teams as the fielding goes beyond the unearned runs and allows more earned runs to score. I don't think we will ever see that again.
I was going to make the same comment about Phil Niekro's 21-20 record - that's the one thing from Joe's article that jumped out at me the most. I feel on pretty solid ground in saying that we will NEVER, EVER AGAIN see a pitcher with 41 decisions in a season.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Logan above
ReplyDeleteWhen you are giving out awards for the current season, you look at the current season. If Pitcher A gets a .100 BABIP and walks off with the ERA title, (and has other stas close to the top in important categories) then by all means, give it to him. Who cares if he got "lucky." Luck is a significant part of reality. Otherwise we'd just give it to Halladay every year this decade, and Clemens/Maddox every year last decade.
Taking a step past Logan, I'll extend this logic to park effects too. A homerun is just as valuable (1 run) no matter which park it was hit in. If Adrian Gonzo gets shafted in PETCO every year, well, thats just bad luck for him. Luck is part of reality. Awards should be given based on what actually happens in reality.
If you are a GM looking to hire one of these guys next year, then you definitely should be looking at BABIP and park effects and FIP and so on. Those stats are incredibly important for people with money on the line in the future. But for awards this year, you give the award to the guy who helped HIS team win. Not the guy who theoretically could have helped win if he played elsewhere, or had a better defense, etc...
Maybe I'd accept using those stats as a tiebreaker. If, say, Pitcher A and Pitcher B were exactly tied in like the top 10 pitching categories, then I'd give it the one with the worse defense, or BABIP or something. But in the absense of a tie scenario, I don't think we should give awards to pepole based on "expected" stats.
@Barack Obama:
ReplyDeleteI disagree that a "homerun is just as valuable no matter which park it was hit in." If it is harder to score in one park vs. another, then you should need fewer runs to win (because the opposition will score fewer runs), and thus the marginal impact of each run is higher.
Since writers and the media seem to be obsessed with wins (on 'Around the Horn' and 'PTI' yesterday, there was barely a mention of anything else in their AL CY arguments, with Wilbon being especially egregious), is there any thought to considering differences in pitcher's win % and team's win %? I mention this because of KHAZAD's comment about how amazing it is for Felix to finish over .500 for the Mariners (in the interest of disclosure, I believe Felix is by far the best pitcher this year).
ReplyDeleteTo cruncher some numbersons (pitcher's W-L, team's W-L, % difference including pitcher's record, % difference without pitcher's record--higher the number, the better):
Sabathia: 21-7, 94-65, .159, .193
Bucholtz: 17-7, 87-71, .157, .186
Lester: 19-8, 87-71, .152, .185
Price: 19-6, 94-64, .165, .200
Lee: 12-9, 72-86*, .115, .127
Hernandez: 13-12, 61-97, .134, .159
Liriano: 14-9, 93-65, .020, .024
Verlander: 18-9, 80-78, .161, .194
*Compiled from the time he spent on each team.
Now, I think wins are a stupid way to evaluate pitching performance, but you're going to use them, you should also look at each pitcher's wins relative to their team's wins (both with and without the pitcher in question's W-L included), to see how much a pitcher's W-L is hamstrung or helped by the team they play for. Using this extremely rudimentary analysis, it seems as though Felix's record is among the LEAST impressive relative to his Cy Young candidate peers. Of course, this doesn't include run support, so perhaps these numbers are meaningless.
Any thoughts?
I wish I had the transcript, but I could have sworn on PTI yesterday that Kornheiser said he didn't trust all these advanced sabermetric stats such as QUALITY STARTS!
ReplyDeleteQuality starts?
...is too advanced a stat?
@Mike in Hawaii(ABR): I saw that, too! Not only is Tony not using advanced stats to evaluate pitching, he doesn't even know what advanced stats are. In analogy terms, 'quality starts' are to 'advanced stats' as 'Banquet TV dinners' are to 'high-end cuisine'.
ReplyDelete@ Stephen:
ReplyDeleteI think it's more instructive to look at ERA+ and then calculate league average run support in order to remove a pitcher from the sullying context of his team. King Felix's 174 ERA+ and 63 earned runs implies a league average of roughly 110 runs. A pitcher whose teams scores 110 while he allows 63 should be in the .750 range, or 19-6 over 25 decisions. Couple that with leaderships in innings and strikeouts, and I think we have our Cy Young winner.
Addendum:
ReplyDeleteI found it illuminating to look at Dennis Martinez's seasons of 1985 and 1990 to put that "wins above team" canard to rest.
Felix Hernandez beats Sabathia in IP, ERA, ERA+, hits, HR, walks, strikeouts, complete games, shutouts, WHIP, and K/BB. Sabathia beats Felix in wins, losses and runs support. These are not advanced stats. I don't know how anyone could use a general mistrust of advanced stats to dismiss Felix's case.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't totally like WAR for this, as a counting stat, the way to accumulate more WAR is...make more starts. Once you reach 200 innings, I feel the difference depends more on team usage and luck than anything else. Also, has anyone ever looked at park factors as they relate to IP?
ReplyDeleteHey Joe, I think this illustrates how much easier it is to visually qualify the skill of pitcher, versus the war waging with fielding metrics. During a couple of those five seasons, the voters correctly identified a great seasons by a players who didn't distinguish themselves with their numbers at the top of the leaderboard. Zito had such Zen-like command of his curveball, it's still difficult to grasp the concept that when he drops 7 IP, 3 hits and no runs, people are shocked. He "looked" that good in 2002.
ReplyDeleteMark -- I'd argue that (for statophobes at least) ERA+ is an advanced stat. It's not a simple counting stat, like K, hits allowed, etc. And it's not a simple average like ERA or even K/BB.
ReplyDeleteFor those who embrace math as a way to better understand the game, ERA+ is a simple but effective tool. For those who think pitcher wins is an important stat, ERA+ is one of those crazy things stat geeks cook up in their mother's basement.
I always thought that 1981 was the year Seaver got jobbed by NL Cy Young voters: he was 14-2 with a 2.54 ERA and lost to Valenzuela's 13-7, 2.48 (he was fourth in WAR, but nobody knew that in 1981).
ReplyDeleteBut now I learn he lost twice despite winning the Double Crown.
I learn something new from Joe every visit...
The fiddle question is awesome. I always thought the Devil was so much more innovative and ahead of his time adn sounded much cooler. I know nothing about fiddlin' so i thought I was missing something. Well after further advance analysis the Devil's WAR was 3.9 and Johnny's was 2.8. So apparently the Devil basically had that golden fiddle stolen from him. Boy let me tell ya what!
ReplyDeleteNonsense, Dan. The Devil was added by a band of demons, which clearly impacted his ability to perform a more complicated arrangement of music. Johnny, on the other hand, was going solo - he didn't have a great lineup to protect him.
ReplyDeleteIf you adjust their stats for a neutral location and neutral back-up band support, you'll clearly see why Johnny won the golden fiddle. And, in fact, given that the Devil bowed his head in shame, he knew this to be true.
Johnny had a choir singing with him. Probably a pack of cheatin' angels. No singing was to be involved in the contest.
ReplyDeleteThe Devil bowed his head to hold back his bile at getting jobbed by the writers.
The Devil's WAR, as always, was 6.66.
I was bothered by Johnny deciding to change the rules and sing during his fiddle playing, while the devil merely played the fiddle accompanied by the bone-rattling bass of demon Charles Hayward.
ReplyDeleteThe situation was similar to Steve Martin's 1980 Olympic Diving Finals sketch, especially his final dive at the 3:20 point on the below link. Once the trick is pulled, imitation just looks cheap, and will prove unsuccessful. The devil knew this, so he gave up the golden fiddle while maintaining his dignity. Johnny proved to be a bad sport in the end, though, insulting the devil's mother. Golden fiddles can't buy class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeVr_ploUZI
Again, I disagree. Johnny has intangibles that can't be measured by stats you guys invented in your mom's basement. How does all this take into account his leadership skills? Clearly, the band of demons *had* to play for the devil, but the angels singing backup clearly *wanted* to play for Johnny. That counts. And what about his clutchiness? Your fancy stats don't account for Johnny's clutchiness. He knew exactly what it would take to deliver the decisive victory and went out and did it. He played to the score, damn it!
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteIt asos appears there may be an * necessary in this contest. When the devil first met Johnny apparently the he was playing (sawing) the fiddle HOT. Clearly an indication that instrumental PEDs were being used. I am not sure if they were outlawed by the fiddlin' league at the time, anyone? It would also present that Johnny had already sold his soul because he may or may not have been involved in BALCO...there are rumors. So he may not even had the proper backing to even pay off the debt had he lost.
Also, Johnny used props...Fire, Mountains, Chickens, bread pans, dough...seems outside of the realm of fair competition.
But... doesn't using granny and her dog as a prop mitigate the use of the other props?
ReplyDeleteLooking at that list, I wonder if Mike Scott's peak deserves some good words at some point. I got interested in baseball right around the time where pulling his card in a pack created a groan or, worse, the indifferent toss into the pile. For his place in history all I know are the stats and some comments in Mets (Jeff Pearlman's I think) books that he scuffed the ball. What was he like, his mannerisms at the peak. Maybe it's more about his sort of player and less who, unless they are a personal favorite of a writer (Duane Kuiper), fade away and have no little to no presence in a generation's mind.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, Johnny didn't have the benefit of a backup band. Sure, The Devil may have led the league in wins, but he had TREMENDOUS run support.
ReplyDeleteRumor has it that Johnny's Golden Fiddle turned up at the same auction as O.J.'s Heisman, Jack Clark's Ferrari, Lenny Dykstra's World Series ring and Uncle Bob's belt buckle.
ReplyDeleteI'd be greatly disillusioned if Duane Kuiper's bat turned up at an auction.