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.
Showing posts with label Roy Halladay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roy Halladay. Show all posts
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Starting Rotations
Much has been made of the pitching rotation that General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. has assembled in Philadelphia. Between Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels, they came into this season with a career record of 481-275 with an ERA of 3.42, a WHIP of 1.20, and 141.7 combined Wins Above Replacement (WAR). They have won 3 Cy Young awards (Lee in ’08 and Halladay in ’03 and ’10) and have been named to a combined 13 All-Star games.
Perhaps more importantly than all of that, these four have combined for a record of 20-8 with a 2.98 ERA in the playoffs. They have pitched a total of 240.0 innings and have allowed just 196 hits with a K/BB ratio of 220:52.
In other words, these guys are good. Where will they rank among the all-time greatest pitching rotations? Obviously this is a question that cannot be answered until October or November but there’s no reason we can’t look ahead at the task that they have in front of them.
Currently, these four have combined for 5.0 WAR with Halladay leading the way with 2.1. Given the accuracy of the WAR values (only accurate to the tenth of a win) and the fact that these numbers don’t necessarily project to over a full season, these figures need to be taken with a grain of salt.
If they did project well, this is where they would end up.
Roy Halladay – 10.6
Cole Hamels – 7.1
Cliff Lee – 4.6
Roy Oswalt – 3.0
Roy Oswalt has only pitched 27.0 innings thus far, compared with at least 40.2 for any of the other three pitchers. Due to the tornados ravaging the area that he grew up in, he has been away from the team and hasn’t pitched as often as he would have. However, once he sets his affairs in order and rejoins the team, it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for all four of these pitchers to end up with a WAR value greater than 4.0. As a rule of thumb, according to baseball-reference.com (where I get these WAR values) this is a good way to judge how good WAR values are.
0-2 – Bench Player
2-5 – Starter
5-8 – All-Star
8+ - MVP
According to that metric, their rotation is made up of an MVP caliber player (or a Cy Young caliber pitcher), an All-Star, a borderline All-Star, and a decent starting pitcher.
We’ve been hearing about this rotation ever since Cliff Lee shocked everyone and signed with them instead of the Rangers or Yankees but what does this mean historically? How many other teams have ever had a combination of starters this good? To answer this question, first I need to set a few criteria. First of all, I only looked at pitchers who started at least 60% of their games and qualified for the ERA title. Given that this means they would have pitched at least as many innings as team games played (162 for most years) and that at least 3/5 of their appearances would have had to be starts, this effectively eliminates relievers from this conversation. Secondly, I only looked at pitchers who put forth better than 4.0 WAR. When I got the results from this search for the all-time best rotations, I didn’t want (for instance) the 2001 Diamondbacks cluttering my data. They did have one of the best 1-2 punches ever in Randy Johnson (8.4 WAR) and Curt Schilling (7.3). However, after that, they dropped down to Brian Anderson (-0.8 WAR), the only other pitcher who qualified under these criteria.
So, to ask the question again, how many rotations had this many good pitchers?
Not too many. Since 1901, 81 teams have had three pitchers with better than 4.0 WAR. Of those, only 5 had four pitchers who crossed that threshold. Of the 76 teams with three pitchers matching these criteria, the 1909 Chicago Cubs were the best, when Mordecai Brown (8.7), Orval Overall (7.1), and Ed Reulbach (5.5) combined for 21.3 WAR. Only four other rotations in the past 110 years have crossed the 20.0 WAR barrier:
1956 Cleveland Indians (21.2)
Early Wynn (8.2)
Herb Score (7.6)
Bob Lemon (5.4)
1969 Chicago Cubs (21.1)
Bill Hands (8.8)
Fergie Jenkins (7.6)
Ken Holtzman (4.7)
1904 New York Giants (20.8)
Joe Mcginnity (10.2)
Christy Mathewson (6.1)
Dummy Taylor (4.5)
1915 St. Louis Terriers (20.3)
Dave Davenport (9.0)
Eddie Plank (6.7)
Doc Crandall (4.6)
These are the five rotations that have featured four different starters with better than 4.0 WAR.
1912 Boston Red Sox (24.1)
Smoky Joe Wood (9.6)
Buck O’Brien (5.3)
Ray Collins (5.1)
Hugh Bedient (4.1)
1991 Atlanta Braves (20.9)
Tom Glavine (7.4)
John Smoltz (4.7)
Steve Avery (4.5)
Charlie Liebrandt (4.3)
1997 Atlanta Braves (20.9)
Greg Maddux (7.3)
Tom Glavine (5.0)
John Smoltz (4.5)
Denny Neagle (4.1)
1913 New York Giants (20.9)
Christy Mathewson (6.8)
Rube Marquard (5.1)
Jeff Tesreau (5.0)
Al Demaree (4.0)
1967 Cincinnati Reds (20.7)
Gary Nolan (6.8)
Mel Queen (4.9)
Jim Maloney (4.7)
Milt Pappas (4.3)
Clearly, if Oswalt were to increase his performance and everyone else were to maintain their current paces, this rotation can easily go down as one of the best in baseball history.
To go a little bit further, let’s raise the WAR threshold a bit. The cutoff that b-r.com uses between a starter and an All-Star is 5.0 WAR so let’s go ahead and throw that number in. How many rotations have had three starters who have all produced more than 5.0 WAR?
Only 11 but these must come with a caveat. 6 of these 11 occurred between 1907 and 1913. Since 1920 (the widely accepted beginning of the live ball era) only 5 rotations have had three All-Star caliber starting pitchers. The best of those five live ball rotations was the 1956 Cleveland Indians (see above). However, there is another metric that I have to bring in here. ERA+ takes into account many things, including the opponents and the ballpark and how easy or difficult it is to pitch in that particular park in that particular year. Again, taking these ERA+ values and simply averaging them is problematic but it gives a snapshot of how good these rotations were when their numbers are normalized for the era in which they played. Of these 11 rotations, the best in terms of average ERA+ was the 2005 Houston Astros, featuring Roy Oswalt (2.94 ERA, 5.3 WAR, and 144 ERA+), Andy Pettitte (2.39, 5.8, and 177), and best of all, Roger Clemens (1.87, 7.2, and 226). This again illustrates the point that while the raw pitching numbers looked better way back when, it’s sometimes more impressive what the best pitchers are able to go in an era that heavily favors the hitters.
To wrap this all up, does the Phillies rotation have a chance to join these groups? Frankly, yes they do. All of them have had seasons of better than 4.0 WAR (Halladay 7, Oswalt 5, Hamels 3, and Lee 2) and their career highs, respectively, are 7.5, 6.2, 4.8, and 7.3.
It will be interesting to see where they end up after another five months of pitching…
Perhaps more importantly than all of that, these four have combined for a record of 20-8 with a 2.98 ERA in the playoffs. They have pitched a total of 240.0 innings and have allowed just 196 hits with a K/BB ratio of 220:52.
In other words, these guys are good. Where will they rank among the all-time greatest pitching rotations? Obviously this is a question that cannot be answered until October or November but there’s no reason we can’t look ahead at the task that they have in front of them.
Currently, these four have combined for 5.0 WAR with Halladay leading the way with 2.1. Given the accuracy of the WAR values (only accurate to the tenth of a win) and the fact that these numbers don’t necessarily project to over a full season, these figures need to be taken with a grain of salt.
If they did project well, this is where they would end up.
Roy Halladay – 10.6
Cole Hamels – 7.1
Cliff Lee – 4.6
Roy Oswalt – 3.0
Roy Oswalt has only pitched 27.0 innings thus far, compared with at least 40.2 for any of the other three pitchers. Due to the tornados ravaging the area that he grew up in, he has been away from the team and hasn’t pitched as often as he would have. However, once he sets his affairs in order and rejoins the team, it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for all four of these pitchers to end up with a WAR value greater than 4.0. As a rule of thumb, according to baseball-reference.com (where I get these WAR values) this is a good way to judge how good WAR values are.
0-2 – Bench Player
2-5 – Starter
5-8 – All-Star
8+ - MVP
According to that metric, their rotation is made up of an MVP caliber player (or a Cy Young caliber pitcher), an All-Star, a borderline All-Star, and a decent starting pitcher.
We’ve been hearing about this rotation ever since Cliff Lee shocked everyone and signed with them instead of the Rangers or Yankees but what does this mean historically? How many other teams have ever had a combination of starters this good? To answer this question, first I need to set a few criteria. First of all, I only looked at pitchers who started at least 60% of their games and qualified for the ERA title. Given that this means they would have pitched at least as many innings as team games played (162 for most years) and that at least 3/5 of their appearances would have had to be starts, this effectively eliminates relievers from this conversation. Secondly, I only looked at pitchers who put forth better than 4.0 WAR. When I got the results from this search for the all-time best rotations, I didn’t want (for instance) the 2001 Diamondbacks cluttering my data. They did have one of the best 1-2 punches ever in Randy Johnson (8.4 WAR) and Curt Schilling (7.3). However, after that, they dropped down to Brian Anderson (-0.8 WAR), the only other pitcher who qualified under these criteria.
So, to ask the question again, how many rotations had this many good pitchers?
Not too many. Since 1901, 81 teams have had three pitchers with better than 4.0 WAR. Of those, only 5 had four pitchers who crossed that threshold. Of the 76 teams with three pitchers matching these criteria, the 1909 Chicago Cubs were the best, when Mordecai Brown (8.7), Orval Overall (7.1), and Ed Reulbach (5.5) combined for 21.3 WAR. Only four other rotations in the past 110 years have crossed the 20.0 WAR barrier:
1956 Cleveland Indians (21.2)
Early Wynn (8.2)
Herb Score (7.6)
Bob Lemon (5.4)
1969 Chicago Cubs (21.1)
Bill Hands (8.8)
Fergie Jenkins (7.6)
Ken Holtzman (4.7)
1904 New York Giants (20.8)
Joe Mcginnity (10.2)
Christy Mathewson (6.1)
Dummy Taylor (4.5)
1915 St. Louis Terriers (20.3)
Dave Davenport (9.0)
Eddie Plank (6.7)
Doc Crandall (4.6)
These are the five rotations that have featured four different starters with better than 4.0 WAR.
1912 Boston Red Sox (24.1)
Smoky Joe Wood (9.6)
Buck O’Brien (5.3)
Ray Collins (5.1)
Hugh Bedient (4.1)
1991 Atlanta Braves (20.9)
Tom Glavine (7.4)
John Smoltz (4.7)
Steve Avery (4.5)
Charlie Liebrandt (4.3)
1997 Atlanta Braves (20.9)
Greg Maddux (7.3)
Tom Glavine (5.0)
John Smoltz (4.5)
Denny Neagle (4.1)
1913 New York Giants (20.9)
Christy Mathewson (6.8)
Rube Marquard (5.1)
Jeff Tesreau (5.0)
Al Demaree (4.0)
1967 Cincinnati Reds (20.7)
Gary Nolan (6.8)
Mel Queen (4.9)
Jim Maloney (4.7)
Milt Pappas (4.3)
Clearly, if Oswalt were to increase his performance and everyone else were to maintain their current paces, this rotation can easily go down as one of the best in baseball history.
To go a little bit further, let’s raise the WAR threshold a bit. The cutoff that b-r.com uses between a starter and an All-Star is 5.0 WAR so let’s go ahead and throw that number in. How many rotations have had three starters who have all produced more than 5.0 WAR?
Only 11 but these must come with a caveat. 6 of these 11 occurred between 1907 and 1913. Since 1920 (the widely accepted beginning of the live ball era) only 5 rotations have had three All-Star caliber starting pitchers. The best of those five live ball rotations was the 1956 Cleveland Indians (see above). However, there is another metric that I have to bring in here. ERA+ takes into account many things, including the opponents and the ballpark and how easy or difficult it is to pitch in that particular park in that particular year. Again, taking these ERA+ values and simply averaging them is problematic but it gives a snapshot of how good these rotations were when their numbers are normalized for the era in which they played. Of these 11 rotations, the best in terms of average ERA+ was the 2005 Houston Astros, featuring Roy Oswalt (2.94 ERA, 5.3 WAR, and 144 ERA+), Andy Pettitte (2.39, 5.8, and 177), and best of all, Roger Clemens (1.87, 7.2, and 226). This again illustrates the point that while the raw pitching numbers looked better way back when, it’s sometimes more impressive what the best pitchers are able to go in an era that heavily favors the hitters.
To wrap this all up, does the Phillies rotation have a chance to join these groups? Frankly, yes they do. All of them have had seasons of better than 4.0 WAR (Halladay 7, Oswalt 5, Hamels 3, and Lee 2) and their career highs, respectively, are 7.5, 6.2, 4.8, and 7.3.
It will be interesting to see where they end up after another five months of pitching…
Friday, September 24, 2010
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.
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.
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