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Click here for the American League ballot
Primer:
-Team performance is irrelevant. This is an individual award and a player should not be punished for being in a worse situation than a fellow competitor. Making the playoffs gives no extra value.
-I am not evaluating solely on WAR. I will look at every statistic that I feel is significant. I have listed these below with an explanation as to why.
-I use K% and BB% instead of the 9 inning rates because it better captures the true talent level of a pitcher. Using K/9 or BB/9 gives an advantage to pitchers that allow more base runners, which is obviously a bad thing, since they face more batters.
-I put more weight into FIP than ERA. FIP only incorporates things the pitcher can control: Homers, strikeouts and walks, whereas ERA is highly dependent on fielding. Note that WAR uses FIP in its formula and RA-9 WAR uses ERA.
-“FIP-” compares a player’s FIP to a league average of 100. Each point below 100 represents 1% above average. So a pitcher with a 90 FIP- was 10% better than league average. The important factor of this statistic is that it is adjusted for ballpark and league.
My Ballot:
1. Clayton Kershaw
2. Johnny Cueto
3. Adam Wainwright
4. Madison Bumgarner
5. Stephen Strasburg
There’s hardly any suspense leading up to this award, as Clayton Kershaw put forth one of the best seasons in the last 15 years and will win in a landslide despite missing the first month of the season. Kershaw posted a 1.77 ERA on route to his 4th straight ERA title. It was the lowest ERA since Pedro Martinez put up a 1.74 in 2000, which is absolutely insane considering that was the height of the steroid era. To put Pedro's performance into perspective, here some league averages and totals for 2000 and 2014.
Slugging Percentage:
2014: 0.386
2000: 0.437
Home Runs:
2014: 4186
2000: 5692
ERA:
2014: 3.74
2000: 4.74
Ok, so it was absolutely ridiculous for Pedro to put up those numbers considering the meatheads he was facing blasted over 1500(!!) more home runs that season. Its considered one of the best pitching seasons ever. You may be asking why I’m giving Pedro all the attention when Kershaw just wrapped up another dominant season. Well, the reason I’ve included FIP- in the leaderboard table is because it is adjusted to league average, so you can compare it across different seasons and run scoring environments. So we have established that Pedro’s season was amazing, right? Here’s how it compares to Kershaw's in FIP-:
2000 Pedro Martinez: 46
2014 Clayton Kershaw: 51
Its obviously much easier to be a pitcher now than it was 15 years ago. But don’t let that take away from Kershaw’s historical season. Not only is Kershaw one of the best pitchers of his generation, he is one of the best ever. Sometimes you’ve just got to remind yourself to appreciate that we are witnessing one of the all time greats in the middle of his prime.
The second spot came down to Wainwright and Cueto. If you read my American League Cy Young Ballot, you’ll may think that my decision to go with Cueto here is hypocritical.
As mentioned on my other ballot, one of the main reasons I went with Kluber over Felix is because of his better FIP. In this case, Wainwright’s FIP of 2.88 is far lower than Cueto’s 3.30. So why aren’t I giving Cueto the same treatment? I’ll explain with the help of a few graphs I created.
Primer:
-Team performance is irrelevant. This is an individual award and a player should not be punished for being in a worse situation than a fellow competitor. Making the playoffs gives no extra value.
-I am not evaluating solely on WAR. I will look at every statistic that I feel is significant. I have listed these below with an explanation as to why.
-I use K% and BB% instead of the 9 inning rates because it better captures the true talent level of a pitcher. Using K/9 or BB/9 gives an advantage to pitchers that allow more base runners, which is obviously a bad thing, since they face more batters.
-I put more weight into FIP than ERA. FIP only incorporates things the pitcher can control: Homers, strikeouts and walks, whereas ERA is highly dependent on fielding. Note that WAR uses FIP in its formula and RA-9 WAR uses ERA.
-“FIP-” compares a player’s FIP to a league average of 100. Each point below 100 represents 1% above average. So a pitcher with a 90 FIP- was 10% better than league average. The important factor of this statistic is that it is adjusted for ballpark and league.
My Ballot:
1. Clayton Kershaw
2. Johnny Cueto
3. Adam Wainwright
4. Madison Bumgarner
5. Stephen Strasburg
There’s hardly any suspense leading up to this award, as Clayton Kershaw put forth one of the best seasons in the last 15 years and will win in a landslide despite missing the first month of the season. Kershaw posted a 1.77 ERA on route to his 4th straight ERA title. It was the lowest ERA since Pedro Martinez put up a 1.74 in 2000, which is absolutely insane considering that was the height of the steroid era. To put Pedro's performance into perspective, here some league averages and totals for 2000 and 2014.
Slugging Percentage:
2014: 0.386
2000: 0.437
Home Runs:
2014: 4186
2000: 5692
ERA:
2014: 3.74
2000: 4.74
Ok, so it was absolutely ridiculous for Pedro to put up those numbers considering the meatheads he was facing blasted over 1500(!!) more home runs that season. Its considered one of the best pitching seasons ever. You may be asking why I’m giving Pedro all the attention when Kershaw just wrapped up another dominant season. Well, the reason I’ve included FIP- in the leaderboard table is because it is adjusted to league average, so you can compare it across different seasons and run scoring environments. So we have established that Pedro’s season was amazing, right? Here’s how it compares to Kershaw's in FIP-:
2000 Pedro Martinez: 46
2014 Clayton Kershaw: 51
Its obviously much easier to be a pitcher now than it was 15 years ago. But don’t let that take away from Kershaw’s historical season. Not only is Kershaw one of the best pitchers of his generation, he is one of the best ever. Sometimes you’ve just got to remind yourself to appreciate that we are witnessing one of the all time greats in the middle of his prime.
The second spot came down to Wainwright and Cueto. If you read my American League Cy Young Ballot, you’ll may think that my decision to go with Cueto here is hypocritical.
As mentioned on my other ballot, one of the main reasons I went with Kluber over Felix is because of his better FIP. In this case, Wainwright’s FIP of 2.88 is far lower than Cueto’s 3.30. So why aren’t I giving Cueto the same treatment? I’ll explain with the help of a few graphs I created.
This is a graph of Johnny Cueto’s ERA, FIP, and BABIP from 2011-2014. The first thing we want to look at is the ERA/FIP relationship. Its pretty clear that Cueto has consistently outperformed his FIP by a large margin.
Now here is Felix’s data. He is the opposite of Cueto; his FIP is usually better then his ERA… except for this year. Now if you direct you’re attention to the BABIP line, you will see that Felix was unusually fortunate on balls in play this year. This is a result of mostly luck, and explains why he outperformed his FIP this year.
But wait, you say, Cueto also had an extremely low BABIP this year. The difference is that he has consistently been putting up these low numbers, with 2012 being an outlier. When more often you do something, the less likely that is a result of luck. So we must look for other explanations as to why Cueto significantly outperforms his FIP.
One reason is because he allows very weak contact, explaining the low BABIPs. While the hard/soft hit data isn’t public, his PITCH/FX profile shows that hitters have a 67 wRC+ against his fastball and an insanely low 15 wRC+ against the change up (85% below league average).
The other way a pitcher can outperform his FIP is controlling the base paths. Cueto is arguably the best in baseball at this. This year, he allowed only 6 stolen bases compared to Felix’s 20. In 2013, Cueto allowed only 2 stolen bases in 509 “stolen base opportunities”, easily the best in baseball. Worst in that category? You guessed it, Felix Hernandez, who allowed 48 in 665 opportunities.
TL;DR: Cueto is one of the few exceptions when it comes to outperforming FIP. His 2.25 ERA is not fluke, and for that reason he edges out Wainwright for the second spot.
Madison Bumgarner was a fairly easy choice for 4th place for me, despite being penalized in WAR for pitching in the friendly confines of AT&T Park. But the battle for 5th was much closer than I anticipated, with Strasburg, Greinke, Zimermann, and Hamels all having very excellent and indistinguishable seasons.
In the end, Strasburg gets the slight edge for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he paced the 4 starters in innings pitched with 10 more than Cole Hamels. Secondly, his K%-BB% was easily the best at 22.9, which actually is the same as Kluber’s and slightly better than Felix, for comparisons sake.
Strasburg also has his share of poor luck this year with a 13.1% HR/FB rate, up from his career average of 11.3%. We can determine if this was simply luck or a result of balls getting hit harder by looking at his batted ball distances. His 2014 average fly ball distance was 291.67 feet against lefties and 282.57 feet against righties. In 2013, it was 288.66 feet against lefties and 294.31 feet against righties. So despite giving up slightly less distance this year, he allowed more home runs. While I hate to chalk up another result to luck, or lack thereof, you can’t argue with the numbers.
But wait, you say, Cueto also had an extremely low BABIP this year. The difference is that he has consistently been putting up these low numbers, with 2012 being an outlier. When more often you do something, the less likely that is a result of luck. So we must look for other explanations as to why Cueto significantly outperforms his FIP.
One reason is because he allows very weak contact, explaining the low BABIPs. While the hard/soft hit data isn’t public, his PITCH/FX profile shows that hitters have a 67 wRC+ against his fastball and an insanely low 15 wRC+ against the change up (85% below league average).
The other way a pitcher can outperform his FIP is controlling the base paths. Cueto is arguably the best in baseball at this. This year, he allowed only 6 stolen bases compared to Felix’s 20. In 2013, Cueto allowed only 2 stolen bases in 509 “stolen base opportunities”, easily the best in baseball. Worst in that category? You guessed it, Felix Hernandez, who allowed 48 in 665 opportunities.
TL;DR: Cueto is one of the few exceptions when it comes to outperforming FIP. His 2.25 ERA is not fluke, and for that reason he edges out Wainwright for the second spot.
Madison Bumgarner was a fairly easy choice for 4th place for me, despite being penalized in WAR for pitching in the friendly confines of AT&T Park. But the battle for 5th was much closer than I anticipated, with Strasburg, Greinke, Zimermann, and Hamels all having very excellent and indistinguishable seasons.
In the end, Strasburg gets the slight edge for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he paced the 4 starters in innings pitched with 10 more than Cole Hamels. Secondly, his K%-BB% was easily the best at 22.9, which actually is the same as Kluber’s and slightly better than Felix, for comparisons sake.
Strasburg also has his share of poor luck this year with a 13.1% HR/FB rate, up from his career average of 11.3%. We can determine if this was simply luck or a result of balls getting hit harder by looking at his batted ball distances. His 2014 average fly ball distance was 291.67 feet against lefties and 282.57 feet against righties. In 2013, it was 288.66 feet against lefties and 294.31 feet against righties. So despite giving up slightly less distance this year, he allowed more home runs. While I hate to chalk up another result to luck, or lack thereof, you can’t argue with the numbers.