In the spirit of “Blind Resume,” and at least partly inspired by what I like to call the evolution of Cy Young voters, we introduce the first installment of “Cy Young Hindsight.”
What we’ll be doing here is anonymously presenting the top candidates for the Cy Young award from a prior year, and asking you to tell us who you’d vote for. If you recognize the statistics for any of the candidates, please refrain from guessing or suggesting who they are, or the year in question.
Here are the top six in the voting from the Cy Young award in question:
Pitcher A:
W-L 16-16, ERA 3.06, ERA+ 131, IP 264 2/3, SO 190, HR 17 (0.58 per 9 IP), WHIP 1.213, SO/BB 2.57, CG 10, ShO 1, Team W-L% .451
Pitcher B:
W-L 5-3, Sv 40, ERA 2.83, ERA+ 151, IP 89, SO 74, HR 11 (1.1 per 9 IP), WHIP 1.202, SO/BB 2.64, Team W-L% .494
Pitcher C:
W-L 18-10, ERA 3.68, ERA+ 116, IP 237 1/3, SO 174, HR 24 (0.91 per 9 IP), WHIP 1.386, SO/BB 1.64, CG 6, ShO 1, Team W-L% .472
Pitcher D:
W-L 8-16, ERA 2.76, ERA+ 142, IP 211 2/3, SO 270, HR 14 (0.60 per 9 IP), WHIP 1.139, SO/BB 3.10, CG 0, ShO 0, Team W-L% .469
Pitcher E:
W-L 13-9, ERA 3.09, ERA+ 131, IP 227, SO 107, HR 13 (0.52 per 9 IP), WHIP 1.097, SO/BB 2.55, CG 12, ShO 4, Team W-L% .508
Pitcher F:
W-L 15-7, ERA 3.21, ERA+ 119, IP 179 2/3, SO 148, HR 11 (0.55 per 9 IP), WHIP 1.197, SO/BB 2.79, CG 7, ShO 3, Team W-L% .568
Pitcher B is a relief pitcher. Pitcher E is the only player whose team made the playoffs, although he was traded from a non-contender late in the season, so his Team W-L% is a weighted average.
Glossary
ERA+ is park-adjusted and league-adjusted ERA, expressed as a percentage compared to the average pitcher (100 is average, above 100 is better than average).
WHIP – baserunners allowed per inning (walks plus hits divided by innings pitched).
SO/BB – strikeout-to-walk ratio.
CG – complete games.
ShO – shutouts.
Team W-L% is the won-loss percentage of the pitcher’s team.
Again, the idea here is to tell us who you think should have won the award, rather than guessing who did or revealing the identity of the candidates.
Who gets your Cy Young vote?
Did ANY of those guys deserve a Cy Young Award? 16-16 record is a finalist? I’m going with the reliever, only because I have to believe this came in an area when 40 saves was beyond belief and also because no starter impresses me, with wins or ERA.
I’m leaning toward D, who looks like a great pitcher on a bad team, or a team that couldn’t score runs.
i hear ya, Pete.
I’m going to hold off on adding my opinion beyond that, for now, but since Pete raises a couple good points, I thought I should share some league leader info:
Pitcher C led the league in wins, but there were six other guys with 15 or more.
Pitcher B led the league in saves, but there were three other guys over 30. I don’t think this is going back as far as you think, but unfortunately blown saves statistics are not available.
Pitcher D led the league in ERA. He was the only pitcher with a sub-3.00 mark, although as you can see from the stats, there were a couple guys just over 3.00.
Pitcher D led the league in strikeouts. There was one other guy with 233 Ks, but he finished 7th in Cy Young voting. Nobody other than those two guys topped 200.
Pitcher A led the league in innings pitched. There were two other guys over 250. One of them finished 8th in the voting.
I would love to see Pitcher D’s run support statistics, Bill, because the team wasn’t that bad, but he was obviously a hard-luck pitcher.
I’m scratching my head with Pitcher B. Okay, he led the league in saves, but 2.83 is high for a reliever/closer. And he has the highest HR:Innings pitched. His number of saves carried him in the voting.
Agreed Casey. Actually, I would say 2.83 is solid for a closer, but isn’t dominant. His high home run rate bothers me too, especially considering I can’t get my hands on blown saves stats. 11 home runs allowed by a closer…a little scary.
Quickly scanning the top 10 in saves in both leagues this year, the worst I could find were Ryan Franklin (7 HR in 65 IP) and Jonathon Papelbon (7 HR in 67 IP).
Chas – great idea.
I’d go with Pitcher F. I think I’m swayed by his winning team even though they didn’t make the playoffs, but they had to be close. 15 wins but his stats make me think his team put up some good offensive numbers.
Interesting. So far, we have one vote for Pitcher B, one for Pitcher D and one for Pitcher F. No love for A, C and E?
Still hoping to hear from Wally and Smitty.
It just occurred to me that this year’s numbers are influencing me. Pitchers had the upper hand this past season, so I’m struggling with the above resumes.
I’m going with E. I like his walks and hits per inning, and he kept the ball in the park better than the rest of the pitchers.
Pitcher E has a lot going for him. I’m pretty sure he has the lowest walk rate, since he has a decent 2.5 K/BB ratio with relatively few strikeouts. What I find weird about him is he pitched 12 complete games, but only 227 innings total. That means almost half his innings came from those 12 starts, unless he had a few rain-shortened CGs.
I’m curious why so little love for Pitcher D? He has the best ERA, ERA+, K/BB ratio, the most strikeouts, and his home run rate and WHIP are not that much worse than the top performers. We can’t get beyond that 8-16 record, huh? 13-12 is one thing, but 8-16 is a completely different animal, I guess.
Hey, I said I’d pick D. But I’d also have a talk with the slackers on his bench. You toss that many strikeouts and lose that many games, you’re losing a lot of low scoring games, or your bullpen hates you and is giving up everything.
For Cy Young, I’d vote for Pitcher F (agree with Rey). To me, the Cy Young is at least half about winning and/or winning %. 15-7 W-L record is very good. ERA is pretty good, too, in comparison to C.
Again … I’m biased toward wins and winning % so I may differ from a lot of the others. But I also think the Cy voters lean that way as well.
Personally I am torn between Pitcher A and Pitcher D…. probably leaning towards Pitcher A. I like the fact that this guy factored into 32 decisions in games he started. With 10 complete games, he was a workhorse and the pitcher the team could count on to give them some innings. I would like to know how many starts he made that year? If it is around 40, then he may have factored into 80% of the decisions in the games he started.
Also what was the run support he received?
Personally and it is strictly my personal opinion. The pitcher whose team has the best record counts the least for me. It is all about who is the best pitcher and if every 5th day – he is the best pitcher on the field then that who should get the award. I realize that isn’t how it works though.
Well, obviously Smitty is much more “evolved” than Wally.
Wally: I’m curious who you would have picked for this year’s Cy Young? Felix Hernandez is the reason I chose this particular Cy Young race for my first example. Pitcher D is like an extreme version of this year’s Hernandez.
Smitty: I’m happy to see some love for Pitcher A. In fact, I think we’re in agreement of our two favorites. I too like A and D, although I recall that I was not an advocate of Pitcher D back when this Cy Young race was happening.
Pitcher F? Really? 179 innings…what a workhorse. Actually, he was injured and only made 25 starts, but he’s the LSU of this group to me. Well, him or Pitcher C. I’m glad that no one picked Pitcher C.
Smitty, Pitcher A made 35 starts and two relief appearances. He also had one save, so counting that he factored into the outcome of 33 of 37 games he pitched. Pretty interesting stat.
Pitcher A had a lot of decisions and certainly appear to be a workhorse.
Pitcher D had a good year, but not winning only 8 games is not a good thing. The fact that his team sucks is obvious, but I believe it will still go against him.
Pitcher F is gonna get hurt when in voter’s minds he missed a substantial amount of time.
I believe that once you go over 3.00 the ERA is gonna carry less of an effect that if it was below 3.00. So I don’t think that the fact that Pitcher C has an ERA about .50 runs or more higher than everybody is gonna affect him less being that the only starter under a 3.00 only won 8 games. Pitcher C is still a winner, while his
I have no way of quantifying the reliever, and I don’t like his ERA.
I’m going with Pitcher C, he wins, his team doesn’t.
Why do innings pitched matter so much? It isn’t like F threw a meager 100 innings or something. And if he was injured, he’s an even better candidate than I thought.
Thanks for chiming in, Gino. Now we officially have support for every candidate, proving what a difficult decision the voters had that year.
Rey, I think there’s a definite value to eating up innings for your team. I’d certainly prefer a pitcher who pitched well over 240 innings to one who performed at an equal level over 180, wouldn’t you?
OK, I’ll level with you. Pitcher F missed the first two months of the season because he was in drug rehab, but I didn’t want to divulge that because it would have started people guessing as to who it was. Or maybe I should have revealed that. There are some details you may need to know before making your decision.
Regardless, you guys didn’t know that. I still don’t think he performed well enough over his two/thirds of a season to warrant the Cy Young, but if he had that remaining third and won 20 games…maybe a different story. Either way, I retract my mild criticism of you and Wally for picking him. He did receive one first-place vote for the actual award.
OK, I think it’s time to reveal the names and the actual results:
Pitcher B is Steve Bedrosian, the 1987 NL Cy Young Award winner.
Pitcher C is Rick Sutcliffe, who finished 2nd.
Pitcher E is Rick Reuschel (3rd).
Pitcher A is Orel Hershiser (4th).
Pitcher D is Nolan Ryan and Pitcher F is Dwight Gooden. They tied for 5th, but Gooden did receive one first-place vote.
Ryan never won the Cy Young Award. If he had any level of run support that year, he definitely should have won, because he clearly outshone all the other candidates, except in W-L record.
I’ve always thought the voters place too much emphasis on wins when picking the award, until this year when Felix Hernandez (13-12) won over CC Sabathia (21-7) and David Price (19-6). I still doubt the voters of today would have awarded the Cy to a guy with an 8-16 record, but since nobody else was that good in 1987, maybe he deserved it.
haha – I am laughing at myself. Maybe, I should reconsider some of my criticisms of Ryan.
The problem with this exercise as to compare it to what happened this year is that we see it everyday on tv. By not knowing who these pitchers are, we are less likely to favor anybody, just for the sake of a big name.
We have been hearing all year that King Felix was a great pitcher on a bad team, same as Greinke last year.
Just making a point here:
King Felix pitched on a team that lost 101 games. Greinke was on a team that lost 97.
But each of them had a record over .500.
The point I want to make is that, those teams were a lot worse that the 1987 Houston Astros. I understand that hindsight is 20-20 and I’m leaving out 99% of the actual data. I just feel that he could have had a sub 2.00 ERA and he still would have not won with his win/loss record.
Gino, I don’t see the fact that the names are removed and we’re not biased by our opinions as a problem. I think that’s the whole point of the exercise.
Your larger point about Ryan’s team being not as bad as the 2009 Royals and 2010 Mariners is correct. But, it’s still possible to pitch on a team that averages 5 runs a game when you don’t start, but 3.5 when you do. That is, you can be a hard luck pitcher on a good team.
The guy had the best ERA in the league and was 8-16. That has to be a reflection of how well his team when he pitched, at least to some extent.
Another point that I’m surprised no one made is that Ryan had zero complete games, while Hershiser had 10 and Reuschel had 12. Assuming the bullpen had something to do with his rotten luck as well, had Ryan been able to finish a few more games he probably would have won more. Despite the fact that he was 40, that has to count against him a little.
Gino
That’s the point of it all – to not know the face but to assess only numbers.
I was thinking that Gino’s point may have been lost on me and Casey. Were you trying to say that, since we didn’t witness the season in question (or didn’t know we had witnessed it), we couldn’t say “Darnit, 8-16 record or not, I saw with my own eyes that Nolan Ryan was the best pitcher in the National League this year.” .
Without that information, we don’t know whether or not he was the kind of guy who just seemed to pitch well enough to lose, or if he was truly an unbelievably great-but-hard-luck pitcher.
If that was your point, Gino, it’s a good one, but it will have to remain the Catch-22 of this exercise. I can assure you that the 1987 NL Cy Young is the most extreme example of this that I can come up with.
Chas,
Yes your last post was my point exactly. I understand that the point of the exercise was to just judge them on the statistics and not on the starpower.
(Btw, I didn’t see Nolan Ryan go 8-16. I was a baby)