Lately, baseball analysts, writers and bloggers, and even current players and managers have engaged in a heated discussion concerning this season's American League Cy Young Award race. While everyone agrees that the award should be given to the league's "best" pitcher, nobody can agree on exactly how to define "best." What criteria, or stats, should be considered when evaluating a pitcher's season? And how much does each metric weigh in relation to one another? Perhaps no Cy Young discussion has called upon these questions more than the one in our midst today. Although you could arguably make a case for a handful of pitchers, two of those guys, Seattle's Felix Hernandez and New York's C.C. Sabathia, have received the brunt of the attention.
By now, everyone knows the story. King Felix dominated hitters all season long en route to leading the league in a plethora of pitching statistics. However, despite the gaudy numbers, Hernandez only won 13 games. Sabathia, on the other hand, collected 21 victories while posting strong, but not dominant, numbers. Regardless of which side of the argument you fall on, one thing is clear: the discussion requires us to examine how we define success for starting pitchers. In other words, how much weight should we assign to wins and losses, and how much weight do we give to other statistics, such as innings pitched, strikeouts, earned run average, etc.?
Historically, the baseball world has judged starting pitchers based on wins. In terms of individual career accomplishments for pitchers, the 300-win club is second to none. Of the thousands of pitchers who have ever toed the rubber, only 24 of them have reached the 300-win milestone. Of those 24, twenty (20) have been eligible for Hall of Fame induction, and all 20 have been enshrined. For the record, the four to be determined are Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Tom Glavine; three of those four guys are no-brainer first-ballot dudes, and the fourth is a juice-head. But for a variety of reasons, we may never see another 300-game winner, and because of that, voters and fans from this day forward must alter the way they judge pitching careers.
Well, the same adjustment must be made when we examine individual season accomplishments. The Cy Young, the pinnacle of single-season success for pitchers, has long trended toward pitchers with high win totals; from 1967 through 1990, only six (6) starting pitchers won the Cy Young Award after winning less than 20 games that season. From 1991 through the present day, that number skyrocketed to 17 starting pitchers who have won the award after winning less than 20 games. In recent years, the trend has been strongest, with eight of the past ten winners across both leagues winning the prestigious award with less than 20 wins. I do not believe that voters are purposely devaluing win totals, but instead they are placing less weight on win totals because they understand that, in the new era of innings limits and pitch counts, wins are simply tougher to secure.
Not only are wins tougher to come by, but the sabermetric movement has convinced many that wins are a misleading statistic. Anyone that watches baseball can tell you that wins depend on a variety of factors: the starting pitcher must pitch deep enough into the ball game to qualify for a decision, the pitcher must exit the game while his team is ahead, and the bullpen must keep that lead and win the game, to name a few. But, to prove a point, the difficulty in obtaining a win can be illustrated using a recent example. Only July 1, 1990, Andy Hawkins of the New York Yankees pitched a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox but lost the game. A baserunner reached on an error, and after Hawkins walked the next two batters to load the bases, a fielder committed another error that allowed all three runs to score. The guy did not allow a single hit over the course of eight innings (he was the visiting pitcher), and not only did he not win, but he lost. This tells us that a perfect storm is required to win a game; there are dozens of factors outside of his control that can increase or decrease his chances on a given night. Thus, wins are products of opportunity, much like saves. Granted, pitchers have more control over wins than closers do over saves, but you get the picture.
Sabermetric stats have tried and succeeded, as much as possible, to separate those outside factors from a starting pitcher's performance. Complete isolation is never possible, but with stats such as fielding independent pitching, wins above replacement, and batting average on balls in play, we can more accurately gauge a pitcher's performance minus the "other stuff." I urge you to explore sabermetric stats on your own on the internet at various websites, such as this one.
Ultimately, any award must involve a holistic examination of the candidates. You cannot simply look at wins just as you cannot simply look at earned run average or any more intense isolated stat. Having said that, I believe Felix Hernandez deserves the Cy Young more than C.C. Sabathia. I think the decision is not as hard as it seems and can be concluded simply by having watched the two pitch all year. But if you want the numbers, then search around because you will find breakdowns and analyses everywhere. I'll leave it up to you to research, but for now I just wanted to hone in on why we're arguing over the merits of the two great pitchers; that is, because we're transitioning from old to new perspectives on pitching greatness.
By now, everyone knows the story. King Felix dominated hitters all season long en route to leading the league in a plethora of pitching statistics. However, despite the gaudy numbers, Hernandez only won 13 games. Sabathia, on the other hand, collected 21 victories while posting strong, but not dominant, numbers. Regardless of which side of the argument you fall on, one thing is clear: the discussion requires us to examine how we define success for starting pitchers. In other words, how much weight should we assign to wins and losses, and how much weight do we give to other statistics, such as innings pitched, strikeouts, earned run average, etc.?
Historically, the baseball world has judged starting pitchers based on wins. In terms of individual career accomplishments for pitchers, the 300-win club is second to none. Of the thousands of pitchers who have ever toed the rubber, only 24 of them have reached the 300-win milestone. Of those 24, twenty (20) have been eligible for Hall of Fame induction, and all 20 have been enshrined. For the record, the four to be determined are Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Tom Glavine; three of those four guys are no-brainer first-ballot dudes, and the fourth is a juice-head. But for a variety of reasons, we may never see another 300-game winner, and because of that, voters and fans from this day forward must alter the way they judge pitching careers.
Well, the same adjustment must be made when we examine individual season accomplishments. The Cy Young, the pinnacle of single-season success for pitchers, has long trended toward pitchers with high win totals; from 1967 through 1990, only six (6) starting pitchers won the Cy Young Award after winning less than 20 games that season. From 1991 through the present day, that number skyrocketed to 17 starting pitchers who have won the award after winning less than 20 games. In recent years, the trend has been strongest, with eight of the past ten winners across both leagues winning the prestigious award with less than 20 wins. I do not believe that voters are purposely devaluing win totals, but instead they are placing less weight on win totals because they understand that, in the new era of innings limits and pitch counts, wins are simply tougher to secure.
Not only are wins tougher to come by, but the sabermetric movement has convinced many that wins are a misleading statistic. Anyone that watches baseball can tell you that wins depend on a variety of factors: the starting pitcher must pitch deep enough into the ball game to qualify for a decision, the pitcher must exit the game while his team is ahead, and the bullpen must keep that lead and win the game, to name a few. But, to prove a point, the difficulty in obtaining a win can be illustrated using a recent example. Only July 1, 1990, Andy Hawkins of the New York Yankees pitched a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox but lost the game. A baserunner reached on an error, and after Hawkins walked the next two batters to load the bases, a fielder committed another error that allowed all three runs to score. The guy did not allow a single hit over the course of eight innings (he was the visiting pitcher), and not only did he not win, but he lost. This tells us that a perfect storm is required to win a game; there are dozens of factors outside of his control that can increase or decrease his chances on a given night. Thus, wins are products of opportunity, much like saves. Granted, pitchers have more control over wins than closers do over saves, but you get the picture.
Sabermetric stats have tried and succeeded, as much as possible, to separate those outside factors from a starting pitcher's performance. Complete isolation is never possible, but with stats such as fielding independent pitching, wins above replacement, and batting average on balls in play, we can more accurately gauge a pitcher's performance minus the "other stuff." I urge you to explore sabermetric stats on your own on the internet at various websites, such as this one.
Ultimately, any award must involve a holistic examination of the candidates. You cannot simply look at wins just as you cannot simply look at earned run average or any more intense isolated stat. Having said that, I believe Felix Hernandez deserves the Cy Young more than C.C. Sabathia. I think the decision is not as hard as it seems and can be concluded simply by having watched the two pitch all year. But if you want the numbers, then search around because you will find breakdowns and analyses everywhere. I'll leave it up to you to research, but for now I just wanted to hone in on why we're arguing over the merits of the two great pitchers; that is, because we're transitioning from old to new perspectives on pitching greatness.
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