Cy Young Predictions 2010

The calendar says September 24th and according to the standings, most teams have only 8 or 9 games remaining which means that the October picture is coming into focus and, at least for this season, the awards picture is only getting murkier.

The MVP races have front-runners (Joey Votto for the NL and Josh Hamilton for the AL) and dark horses that could make some noise if they can lead their team to the postseason or simply finish the season with an exclamation point (Troy Tulowitzki in the NL and Miguel Cabrera in the AL).

That, however, is much clearer than the Cy Young Award races which seem more and more confusing by the day. In short, who deserves to win; the ace of a 95-win team that is almost guaranteed to make the postseason or the ace from a 95-loss team that has all the sabermetricians going nuts?

Well, since I haven’t attempted to quantify who has pitched the best before (yeah, right) I’m going to try yet again and this time, I think I just might have a winning formula in this age of sabermetrics.

Obviously, I am a big fan of Bill James’ Game Score formula and that metric will feature prominently in my analysis. The other two factors that go into this magic formula are ERA+ and simple innings pitched. While it may not seem fair to include something like innings pitched, I would pose to you this question; all else being equal, let’s say a 20-5 record, a 2.50 ERA, and a 150 ERA+, which is more impressive, the pitcher who throws 200 innings or the one who throws 250 innings?

To me the answer is obvious. Statistically speaking, the larger the sample size, the better the representation of a player’s true skill are. If a pitcher throws 10 innings and strikes out 26 batters, it’s not a good representation of what this pitcher can do because he’s thrown so few innings.

For the Game Score metric, I did a little bit more number crunching. I took the average GS for the pitchers in my group and divided their average GS by the highest 9 inning GS possible. If you were somehow able to throw a nine inning perfect game and strike out all 27 batters, your GS would be 114. Therefore, if you have an average GS of 57, your GS percentage (if you will) is 0.5.

After that, I simply multiplied the GS% by the ERA+ value (divided by 100) and then multiplied that value by the number of innings pitched.

Basically, what this formula calculates is the ability of a pitcher to prevent runs given his opponents and where they’re pitching (ERA+), the ability of a pitcher to maximize good results while minimizing bad results (GS%), and the ability of a pitcher to consistently put forth results (IP).

THE RESULTS

According to this formula, Felix Hernandez and Roy Halladay would be in line to win the Cy Young Awards. This isn’t really anything new though since many different metrics have those two leading the Cy Young charge, despite Hernandez’s team trying to hold him back (he is currently 12-12).

What is more surprising is where the other leading candidates fall. While Felix Hernandez leads the AL with a mark of 224.9, CC Sabathia is currently 4th with a score of 147.0 and David Price is 6th at 139.8. So who is second? Despite only throwing 165.2 innings so far this season, Clay Buccholz is second with a score of 150.3 largely due to his league leading ERA+ of 182, an incredible 74.7 points behind Hernandez.

In the NL, things are much closer. Halladay’s score of 210.1 is just a little better than Adam Wainwright’s mark of 198.0. Even while pitching in one of the worst pitcher’s parks in the league, Ubaldo Jimenez has come down from his pre All-Star break high and is currently well behind the leaders in 4th at 166.2.

The most striking part of these standings to me is where the scores fall given the league that these players pitch in. While Hernandez leads the entire league in this metric, the next six pitchers down the line are all in the National League. You could easily say that a large part of this is due to the fact that AL pitchers have to face nine hitters while NL pitchers get to face a pitcher every time through the order, but I would say that it has more to do with the fact that the best pitchers in the league right now happen to pitch in the National League. The talent in baseball cycles through the divisions and the leagues and right now, the cream of the starting pitching crop is in the NL.

HISTORY LESSON

So the next obvious thing to do with this metric is to see if there is any validity in using this method to predict Cy Young voting. Of the past ten Cy Young Awards handed out (from 2005-2009), seven times the winner led their respective league in this metric and in 2008, Roy Halladay had a slight edge over Cy Young winner Cliff Lee (196.90-196.34) but I would say it’s safe to call that a tie and say that the leader has won eight of the past ten awards.

So why did I only go back five years? Simply because before that, it feels like the voters went more for the wow factor and were a little less concerned with who actually pitched the best in that given season. Lately (and especially in 2009), the voters have been able to look past the relatively pedestrian win totals of Tim Lincecum (15) and Zach Greinke (16) to realize that they pitched head and shoulders better than anyone else that season.

THE VERDICT

To tell the truth, I would have a hard time saying that Adam Wainwright wouldn’t deserve to win the Cy Young Award this year. However, Roy Halladay has just been a little bit better in a few more innings… and he did throw a perfect game this year…

In the American League, the only choice is Felix Hernandez and it will be a huge blow to the voters credibility if he does not win. The record isn’t flashy and he pitches in a wonderful pitcher’s park, but his ERA+ is still second best in the AL and third best in the entire league. So what’s the difference between him and those other two? He’s thrown 58.0 more innings than league leader Josh Johnson and 76.0 more innings than AL leader Clay Buccholz.

Now all we need is for the Cy Young voters to read this and (more importantly) believe me.



No, I’m not holding my breath.