Cy Young Award Race Update

When last we checked, Jered Weaver wasn’t just leading the race for the 2011 American League Cy Young Award; he was running away with it. Despite Justin Verlander’s brilliance, Weaver had just been flat out better and his margin in my prediction formula was sizeable. In the senior circuit, Roy Halladay (surprise, surprise) was putting up the best numbers but in a shocker, Jair Jurrjens was giving him a good run for his money.

So where do we stand now that we’re about halfway through August with an average of 119 games in the books for each team?

Roy Halladay is still the best pitcher in the National League. His score of 148.4 is nearly ten points ahead of the second best starter in the NL (teammate Cole Hamels at 139.3). He is 15-4 with a 2.51 ERA, a 1.05 WHIP, an average GS of 62.6 (2nd best in the NL), and a strikeout to walk ratio of 7.76:1. However, there is one guy who can say that he’s actually pitched better than Halladay this year.

Johnny Cueto of the Reds is just 8-5 but his 1.94 ERA leads the Major Leagues and his ERA+ (adjusted for opponent’s and park factors) is a full 31 points ahead of Jered Weaver’s second best mark (205-174). So why is Cueto just over 16 points behind Halladay in third place in the NL Cy Young standings? Simple; innings pitched.

Cueto has thrown 120.1 innings and the last time I crunched these numbers, he wasn’t even among the qualifiers because he hadn’t thrown enough innings. By contract, Cole Hamels has thrown 172.0 innings and Halladay is tied for the NL lead in innings with Clayton Kershaw at 175.2. You can argue the merits of including something like innings pitched in a formula like this but in my view, it’s simple. The difference between Halladay and Cueto is 55.1 innings and 23 earned runs, which would come out to an ERA of 3.74. Considering that the league-wide ERA this year is 3.90, to match Halladay’s production the Reds need a reliever that can pitch roughly 5% above league average. That may not sound like much but when you consider that that is a decent workload for your average reliever, the Reds need an extra pitcher on their roster while the Phillies can use that roster spot for another position player.

That, in my opinion, is where the value of innings pitched comes in. Granted, if Halladay wasn’t pitching as well as he is, those innings wouldn’t be nearly as valuable but the fact remains; every inning he pitches is an inning that the Phillies bullpen doesn’t have to pitch. Come October when every inning and every pitch is so terribly important, the Phillies could very well have the freshest bullpen in the league. What is that worth in the time of year that every pitch is thrown at 110% and pitchers get tired faster?

Now that you’ve had a chance to think about the importance of innings pitched (especially when they are quality innings) think about this. So far this year, 13 pitchers have thrown more than 170 innings and the lowest average of innings per start in that group is Ian Kennedy at 6.8 innings per start. With the exception of Chris Carpenter (who ranks 38th) all of these pitchers also rank in the top 20 in my Cy Young Formula (out of 111 qualifying pitchers). There are only two teams that have more than one pitcher on this list and both teams have THREE pitchers with this many innings. It’s not too surprising that the Angels have hung around with the Rangers despite not having a great year; the trio of Jered Weaver, Dan Haren, and Ervin Santana have thrown that team on their back and carried them to where they are now, ten games above .500 and just three games behind the Rangers. Then there is the trio in Philadelphia who have predictably pitched very well but when you compare them to each other, it’s closer than you might think.

The Angels trio has combined to go 35-19 with a 2.88 ERA and a WHIP of 1.04. Those numbers for the trio of Halladay, Hamels, and Lee are 40-18, 2.65, and 1.04. The won-loss record difference is easily explained by the fact that the Phillies are on pace to be a historic team in terms of wins and losses while the Angels will be lucky to win 90 games. When you compare the per-game averages of the two trios, they are nearly indistinguishable.

Team-IP-H-R-ER-BB-K
GS

LAA-7.0-5.8-2.4-2.3-1.5-6.3
61.1

PHI-7.1-6.2-2.2-2.1-1.2-6.8
62.3

My entire point here is to say that even though the Phillies have been very good in the starting pitching department. The Angels have been nearly as good due to the emergence of Ervin Santana as a #3 pitcher. But is Jered Weaver the best pitcher in the AL?

At this point, not anymore.

A month and a half ago, Jered Weaver and Justin Verlander ranked 1st and 2nd, respectively, in the league in my Cy Young Formula. Today, they are still 1-2, just not in the same order. In some small ways, Jered Weaver has come back to the pack and Justin Verlander has pitched about the same. At the beginning of July, their core numbers looked like this:

Name: W-L, ERA, WHIP, IP, CYF
Weaver: 10-4, 1.92, 0.92, 131.1, 147.5
Verlander: 11-3, 2.32, 0.86, 135.2, 130.2

This is what those same numbers look like today.

Weaver: 14-6, 2.13, 0.97, 181.1, 179.9
Verlander: 17-5, 2.35, 0.87, 195.0, 189.8

Now this is really starting to split hairs between two starters having great years but soon enough the voters will have to do it as well. The only real differences are the margin in ERA and innings pitched. In July, Weaver’s lead in ERA was four tenths of a run and now that is down to 0.22 runs, just over half what it was. Six weeks ago, the innings pitched was practically a wash with Verlander having pitched 4.1 more. Today, that margin has increased to 13.2. When you add those up, along with Verlander’s overall brilliance and higher strikeout totals, that has led to more than a 27 point swing in the Cy Young Formula.

I know that it seems simplistic to break down the AL Cy Young race to two pitchers but before you start spouting the case of any other pitcher, consider this; the next highest ranked AL pitcher is CC Sabathia but the formula gives him only 144.3 points, drastically behind both Weaver and Verlander. This is the definition of a two horse race.