Weebly



My brother recently Tweeted that it would be a “crime” if Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom didn’t win the National League Cy Young award. But is that the case? We’ll take a look. In my opinion, the three main candidates for the NL Cy Young this year are deGrom, Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals, and Aaron Nola of the Philadelphia Phillies. Honorable mentions go to Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Miles Mikolas of the St. Louis Cardinals, and Patrick Corbin of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Take a look at the chart below to see how each of these 6 players compare in baseball’s main pitching metrics: *any pitcher with a stat in the top 10 of the NL has his ranking listed in parenthesis* PitcherERA WinsStrikeoutsWAR for pitchersHits/9 IPBB/ 9 IPTop 10sJacob deGrom1.70 (1)10269 (2)9.6 (2)6.304 (3)1.908 (4)5Max Scherzer2.53 (3)18 (T-1)300 (1)8.8 (3)6.118 (1)2.080 (7)6Aaron Nola2.37 (2)17 (T-4)224 (4)10.4 (1)6.316 (4)2.458 (10)6Clayton Kershaw2.73 (4)91553.47.81.618 (2)2Miles Mikolas2.83 (5)18 (T-1)1464.1 (9)8.31.301 (1)4Patrick Corbin3.15 (9)11246 (3)4.6 (7)7.32.160 (8)4To start with determining my Cy Young winner, I will rank each pitcher by adding up his total ranking for each statistic compared to the other 5 pitchers. To give credit for finishing in the top 10 of a category, the number of top 10s is subtracted from the ranking totals. That way players that finish 6th among the top 6 pitchers and 6th in the league overall finish better than players who finish 6th among the top 6 pitchers but 30th in the league overall. See the table below for the carrying out of this process: PitcherERA RankWins RankKs RankWAR RankHits/9 IP RankBB/9 IP RankTotal (Rank totals – Top 10s)deGrom15222315 – 5 = 10Scherzer3T-1131413 – 6 = 7 Nola23413619 – 6 = 13 Kershaw46565228 – 2 = 26 Mikolas5T-1656124 – 4 = 20 Corbin64344526 – 4 = 22This way finds that Scherzer, not deGrom, should be this year’s NL Cy Young winner. However, it only uses 6 pitching statistics and assumes that they are all valued equally. Taking more stats into consideration, we find that Scherzer also comes first in Walks & Hits per IP, Strikeouts per 9 IP, Situational Wins, Shutouts (tied), and Strikeouts / Base on Balls. On the flip side, deGrom also leads the NL in ERA+, Adjusted Pitching Wins, Base-Out Runs Saved, Base-Out Wins Saved, Adjusted Pitching Runs, Fielding Independent Pitching, and Win Probability Added (WPA). You, and me as well, don’t know what most of these stats even measure or mean, but the main idea is that deGrom leads the NL in many complex metrics that I didn’t take into consideration. In the most traditional sense, Scherzer is the leader of wins and strikeouts, while deGrom is the leader of ERA. However, deGrom leads the league in ERA by far. His 1.70 is the lowest ERA in the NL since Zack Greinke’s 1.66 in 2015. Though Greinke didn’t win the Cy Young that year, it is important to note that the winner that year – Jake Arrieta – was very close behind at 1.77. The next time 1.70 or better was done was Greg Maddux’s 1.63 in 1995. He did win the Cy Young that year, largely because the next lowest ERA was 2.54 by Hideo Nomo. To sum it all up, if your ERA is absurdly lower than the rest of the competition (we’ll define “absurdly” as around .50 or more), then you deserve, and often times do end up receiving, the Cy Young award. Let’s look at how this phenomenon has worked over time: YearERA Leader (ERA)ERA Runner-Up (ERA)ERA DifferenceCy Young? If not, why?2014 (NL)Clayton Kershaw (1.77)Johnny Cueto (2.25).48Yes2007 (NL)Jake Peavy (2.54)Brandon Webb (3.01).47Yes2005 (NL)Roger Clemens (1.87)Andy Pettitte (2.39).52No – Chris Carpenter (2.83), 21-5 vs Clemens’ 13-8, 213 K’s vs Clemens’ 1852001 (NL)Randy Johnson (2.49)Curt Schilling (2.98).49Yes1996 (NL)Kevin Brown (1.89)Greg Maddux (2.72).83No – John Smoltz (2.94), 24-8 vs Brown’s 17-11, 276 K’s vs Brown’s 1591995 (NL)Greg Maddux (1.63)Hideo Nomo (2.54).91Yes1994 (NL)Greg Maddux (1.56)Bret Saberhagen (2.74)1.18Yes1981 (NL)Nolan Ryan (1.69)Bob Knepper (2.18).49No – Fernando Valenzuela (2.48), 13-7 vs Ryan’s 11-5, 180 K’s vs Ryan’s 140 K’s1968 (NL)Bob Gibson (1.12)Bobby Bolin (1.99).87Yes1966 (NL)Sandy Koufax (1.73)Mike Cuellar (2.22).49Yes2017 (AL)Corey Kluber (2.25)Chris Sale (2.90).65Yes2004 (AL)Johan Santana (2.61)Curt Schilling (3.26).65Yes2003 (AL)Pedro Martinez (2.22)Tim Hudson (2.70).48No – Roy Halladay (3.25), 22-7 vs Martinez’s 14-4, 204 K’s vs Martinez’s 2062000 (AL)Pedro Martinez (1.74)Roger Clemens (3.70)1.96Yes1999 (AL)Pedro Martinez (2.07)David Cone (3.44)1.37Yes1995 (AL)Randy Johnson (2.48)Tim Wakefield (2.95).47Yes1990 (AL)Roger Clemens (1.93)Chuck Finley (2.40).47No – Bob Welch (2.95), 27-6 vs Clemens’ 21-6, 127 K’s vs Clemens’ 2091978 (AL)Ron Guidry (1.74)Jon Matlack (2.27).53Yes1975 (AL)Jim Palmer (2.09)Catfish Hunter (2.58).49Yes1962 (AL)Hank Aguirre (2.21)Robin Roberts (2.78).57No – Don Drysdale (2.84), 25-9 vs Aguirre’s 16-8, 232 K’s vs Aguirre’s 1561958 (AL)Whitey Ford (2.01)Billy Pierce (2.68).67No – Bob Turley (2.97), 21-7 vs Ford’s 15-7, 168 K’s vs Ford’s 145As the table above shows, of the 21 times that a league’s ERA leader was at least .47 lower than the rest of the pitchers, that pitcher won the Cy Young 14 times. However, since the Cy Young wasn’t given to both leagues until 1967, we can ignore the instance in 1962 since an NL pitcher won the award. We can assume Whitey Ford would have won the AL Cy Young award that year had there been such a thing. Therefore, 14 out of 20 times, or 70% of the time, a pitcher with an ERA .47 or lower than the rest of the league wins the Cy Young. In years where this is not true, the winning pitcher generally had significantly more wins and strikeouts than his low ERA adversary. The 1990 and 2003 awards are exceptions to this – I believe the voters got the award wrong for those years. Since deGrom’s ERA of 1.70 is .67 than the rest of the league, we can say that there’s roughly a 70% chance he takes home the Cy Young this year. Since his difference is higher than most and his ERA is lower than most as well, we can expect this percentage to be higher as well. Scherzer’s 300 strikeouts on the season are certainly impressive – but just last year Chris Sale also reached that mark and came up short to the ERA leader Corey Kluber. To put it all to rest, I’ll state it here: Jacob deGrom deserves and should be this year’s NL Cy Young winner. However, a victory for Scherzer is not totally out of the question as the win – strikeout combo has been favored before despite the fact that a pitcher has had such a lower ERA than everyone else. Thank you for reading as always,Aaron SpringerSources: (1967%E2%80%93present) ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download