Sam Mellinger details why Zack Greinke should win the Cy Young award, but I think this last bit is the most convincing:
According to advanced metrics, the Royals have the worst defense in the American League, and according to ERA, they also have the worst bullpen. Without poisoning his food, it’s hard to think of how Greinke’s teammates could’ve helped him less.
Put him on a team that can score runs and he might have won 25 games. Put him on a team that can play defense and his ERA might be way under 2.00.
Zack 16 wins – 8 losses
There has Never Been a American League Cy Young winner with that poor a record with that few of wins – EVER ! I repeat Never ! While there have been numerous pitchers with that low of an era, but they had a terrific win/loss record. Why? It starts with Wins AND Losses, and then if you have two or more pitchers that have similar records approaching 20 wins, you may look at the other stats, such as era to try to separate the two. This is not news – it is the way it has been done – forever. (* Please don’t bring up David Cone’s 16-5 record in 1994, he achieved that win total by August during a strike shortened season. *)
I absolutely agree with you, there is no comparison between Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez for this years Cy Young award, it is hands down Felix Hernandez. You would have to have your head in the sand to not see that.
Felix – 18 wins, Zack – 16 wins;
Felix – 5 losses Zack – 8 losses;
Winning percentage:
Felix – .782 Zack – .667;
Pitchers are paid to win games; if your team only scores 2 runs, then you must hold the opposition to a run or less; this is not terribly hard to understand? That is the hand you are dealt. Good pitchers find ways to win those games. The best pitchers always have. The .4 difference in era everyone wants to use to decide who wins the Cy Young award is idiotic at best, because you quite simply are not comparing apples to apples, because Zack stats are clearly achieved against inferior competition, in an inferior division:
http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2009/09/23/mlb-power-rankings-al-west-is-best/1#c21907552
Note, Greinke has a very good era, but it is a secondary stat. Felix on the other hand has a great won/loss record at nearly an .800% clip, in addition to the 2nd best era in the league; Do you realize that Felix’s 2.48 era will be the best a Cy Young award winner will have had in 8 seasons since the turn of the century.
Felix pitches in a superior division, regularly against superior competition, and has a superior record, while pitching for a team with the worst offense in the league.
Who faced Tougher Opponents:
Seattle plays regularly in a far tougher division, where the combined win loss totals of the teams is 38 games OVER .500; Kansas City plays in a division that its combined win/loss totals are 45 games BELOW .500 . How can you simply base it strictly on era, and we are not talking about a full point or point and a half separating these two but merely .4 . Better yet, ask the Yankees who they would rather face Felix or Zack this year; oh that’s right Zack never faced the likes of the Yankees in 2009.
As a GM I want a pitcher that at the end of the day will make whatever runs my team manages to score to put a W on the board, and can give a rats-a$$ if his era is .4 higher then someone who loses almost twice as often ! It’s called managing a game, its called pitching, its called being a Winner. You do not get in the Hall-of-Fame, which is an individual award for individual accomplishments achieved on the field simply for having a low era, you get in automatically with 300 wins though.
BIGGEST TEST: how do they stack up against the ‘best’ teams : Hernandez has a 10-3 record against teams with a winning record this season, a .770% clip; while Greinke is 6-4, just 2 games over .500 .
Felix Hernandez is 5-1 against probable playoff teams and Greinke is 4-2.
Please don’t even bring up run support in this argument, for Felix plays for a team that scores the fewest runs in the “Entire American League”. Hernandez plays for a team that averages 3.95 runs per game (last in the entire AL) while Greinke’s team scores an average of 4.24 runs per game.
Most baseball minds would say an Ace is a player they can depend on to give their team a win they need it the most after a loss, or a string of losses; and no one does that better than Felix, who has 15 of his wins come directly after a Mariner loss; which you sharp baseball minds know is a big thing in avoiding long losing streaks. News Media: “And he’s Seattle’s stopper, too. Twenty-three of Hernandez’s 33 starts this year have followed a Mariners loss, and he’s 15-4 in those games. “
Which player’s efforts was the bigger factor in there teams performing better this year ?
Felix has been instrumental in raising the Seattle Mariner record this year to 83-76, and 7 GAMES OVER .500, from a team that was 40 GAMES BELOW .500 last year at 61-101. That is a 47 game turnaround in the win-loss column, rarely ever seen; while how big a factor was Zack really in the Royals going from a team that was 75-87 last year to now a Royal team 29 games under .500 at 65-94 ?
Seattle’s ace has 10 no-decisions, two more than Greinke. Felix had three games where he pitched 7 innings, gave up ‘0’ earned runs, and did not receive a win for it; Greinke just 1. Hernandez, 18-5, has a 2.15 ERA in 10 no-decisions and received 2.28 runs of support in those games.
Longest Winning Streak: Hernandez’s longest winning streak was seven games, one longer than Greinke’s hottest streak
Quality Starts : Which Ace goes longer into games saving the teams bullpen : Hernandez has pitched at least seven innings 23 times, Greinke only 19 times. Hernandez turned in his 28th quality start, which leads the AL and is a Mariners record, and has lasted seven or more innings in seven straight starts; including a club-record 12 straight quality starts.Since Aug. 28, he is 6-0 with a 1.68 ERA.
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090930/BLOG05/909309968/1004/SPORTS
“Moreover, he’s 5-0 in September with a 1.59 ERA, and he’s the only pitcher in the AL to rank in the top four in the three Triple Crown statistics of wins (18, second), ERA (2.48, second) and strikeouts (211, fourth).”
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090929&content_id=7219782&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
Who would previous CY Young winner, and presently in the running for this years award, CC Sabathia vote for :
Headline: “Yankees’ CC Sabathia wouldn’t consider himself for the AL Cy Young Award”
“I told Andy (Pettitte) the other day, if I had a vote, I would vote for (Felix) Hernandez,” Sabathia said of the Mariners’ ace, who limited the Yanks to one earned run in a complete-game victory last week. “Just watching him pitch the other day in Seattle against us … against this lineup to throw a complete game and get a win. That’s the best pitcher in the league to me.”
“Greinke’s been great, and that’s what (Pettitte) said, too. But we haven’t seen him pitch,” Sabathia said of Greinke, who hasn’t faced the Yanks among his 31 starts. “I saw Felix up close the other day and I was like, ‘All right, this guy is unbelievable.’ So right now, to me, he has my vote.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2009/09/26/2009-09-26_yankees_cc_sabathia_doesnt_consider_himself_.html
ESPN.com’s Cy Young Predictor ranked Hernandez first in the AL with 181.5 Cy Young points and Kansas City’s Zack Greinke second with 175.8.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/features/cyyoung
Felix Hernandez is less than perfect – but the continued talk that Greinke is light’s out everytime out, and that the only reason Zack has lost a single game is because he has bad luck where his Royal team does not score for him on the day he pitches, is ridiculous. On the days he takes the mound the team is only two games above .500 at 17-15. The Mariner’s are 24-9 on day’s Felix pitches. That’s it – in a nutshell. They both have poor offensive teams supporting them, but one finds a way to win a much higher percentage of the time.
Even Zack would have told you in these games he lost he could have done more to get the Royals a win then he did. Try asking him yourself:
August 19th: 4 earned runs in 7 innings in Chicago 4-2 loss
Aug 3rd : 6 earned runs in 5 innings in Tampa Bay 10-4 loss
July 8 : 3 earned runs in 6 innings in Detroit 3-1 loss
July 3rd : 4 runs – 2 earned runs in 6 innings in CWS 5-0 loss
June 17th: 6 runs ( 4 earned runs) in 6 innings in Arizona 12-5 loss
June 5th: 7 runs in 5 innings (5 earned runs) in Toronto 9-3 loss
June 11th : no decision, 3 runs in 7 innings loss to Cleveland 4-3
May 31st : 4 runs (3 earned runs) in taking 7-4 loss against Chicago WS
These do not all look like some 1-0 hard-luck complete game loss as many of you try to portray. He has performed well –no doubt; But Felix has performed better.
I could bore you further and list all the previous winners, and show that Felix’s number are far more inline with those Cy Youngs, but you can look that up for yourself. Keep in mind if Pedro Martinez could not win it in 2002 with a 20-4 record even though he had the best era in the league ( 2.26 era) which was a .5 better era than Barry Zito (23 wins – 2.75 era), don’t expect Greinke to win it with just 16 wins and twice as many losses as Pedro did.
if Zack loses his final start he could end up with a record of 16-9 , and that truly is the person you believe to be the next Cy Young ?
Felix regularly pitches into the 7th inning and beyond, better than anyone in entire American League, which helps your bullpen, thus helps your team win more games in the long run. Putting a W up when your team has recently lost is a huge factor in a team’s success, and no one has done that better than Felix. But above all, finding a way to win, especially when runs are hard to come by, is the making of a true CY Young. And Felix’s winning percentage is better than even CC’s, who gets an enormous amount of run support, with a vastly inferior era. Felix has had 10 no decisions, and with any type of support he would have 26+ wins this year.
Felix’s value cannot be understated; when Bedard, their prized free agent pitcher went down yet again with injury – Felix stepped up big to fill the void. When the Mariners traded Washburn there last true veteran starting pitcher – he became a team leader. A rock, that a young rebuilding franchise found they could lean on. Felix has been hugely responsible for the Mariners improving their record from 40 games under .500, to 7 over .500. while playing in the toughest division in baseball; This is truly a rare feat as one of only a couple teams in the history of baseball to lose 100 games or more, followed by a season of over .500 ball. Zack on the hand has been so important to a Royal team, playing in the worst division in all of baseball that took a enormous step backward this year, and is now around 30 games below .500.
Both are great pitchers, and have done a super job, but Felix has put the weight of a 100 PLUS LOSS FRANCHISE from just a year ago on his back and has perfomed outstanding this year, and for which I believe makes him worthy of the CY Young Award!
Yours Truly,
Kirklandtom
I keep finding myself thinkin’ about the 8 times Greinke’s allowed 1 run or less, and didn’t get a W for it. On an average team, I suspect he’s have at least 3-5 more wins from those 8…. which would put him at minimum 19 W’s, with 1 start still to go.
kirklandtom; there is no observed evidence that pitchers differ in their ability to ‘pitch to the score’ and win games despite inadequate run support. Your position has no support backing it up. There is no pitcher in baseball, now or, indeed ever, that would have taken Greinke’s basic performance this year and magically made it turn out better for a terrible, terrible Royals team. That skillset doesn’t exist.
I bet you liked Welch’s 1990 Cy Young win over Clemens, too. That a distressing percentage of the major award voters are idiots is not news, and that they shat themselves in the 2002 AL Cy Young, and the 1990 AL Cy Young, and the 2006 AL MVP, and the 1987 AL MVP, and the 1999 AL MVP, and on and on and on, is not a reason to say that Rodriguez should win this year over a clearly superior competitor.
P.S. – Speaking as a Seattle resident, it’s hilarious that you think that trading Washburn away made the Mariners worse in any way or added to Felix’s responsibilities at all. Additionally, both the Royals and the Mariners are weak offensive teams, but the Royals are well below average defensively, where the Mariners have one of the best defensive teams in baseball history this year. Do you suppose that this ‘defense’ thing might have something to do with stats like win-loss or ERA? If not, do you believe that Ozzie Smith should be in the Hall of Fame?
King Felix certainly deserves a strong second place finish. Win-loss records can be deceiving for a pitcher. This is well known. Especially when the team you pitch for is the Royals. A pitcher’s job is to put their team in a position to win. It’s the offenses job to do the rest. Greinke was the best at putting his team in a position to win.
If you look at W-L records you end up with Bartolo Colon winning a Cy Young because he was 21-8 and Johan Santana was 16-7. You can’t tell me that was a good call.
Number’s aren’t going to persuade you of anything, but which pitcher would you rather have on your team?
2.06 ERA (212 ERA+), 1.066 WHIP, 9.6 K/9, 6 CG, 3 SHO, 4.84 K/BB
2.48 ERA (174 ERA+), 1.151 WHIP, 8.2 K/9, 2 CG, 1 SHO, 3.01 K/BB
King Felix had a Cy Young-caliber year, but he was outpitched by Greinke. The BWAA may very well give it to Felix, but it’ll just be one more in a long line of mistakes they’ve made.
It is possible that one pitcher could face tougher hitters over the course of a year than another. Here are the OPS for the teams in their respective divisions
angels 0.792
rangers 0.766
A’s 0.727
for an average of .762
twins 0.768
indians 0.757
tigers 0.749
whi sox 0.740
for an average of .754
Suppose these were the only teams Fernandez and Greinke faced and that they faced each of them in equal proportions. How much difference would it make? The relationship between runs per game and team OPS this year in the AL is
R/G = 12.75*OPS -4.93
A .762 team scores 4.79 runs per game and a a .754 team scores 4.68. So Greinke has an advantage of about .01 in ERA just based on this. Of course, their are other issues. Home/road splits, platoon issues, etc. We really need to look at every team each guy faced, how many times, who was in the lineup for those games, etc. But given that each team plays almost half their games against their own division, my guess is that Greinke does not gain much here (the AL is probably about a third). The Mariners have played 47 games against the Central, so if Fernandez’s starts were evenly distributed, then he would have pitched nearly as many games against the Central as the West.
You are comparing apples to oranges !
The central division is pathetic top to bottom and to try to compare stats with a pitcher that faces that league regularly with another who plays in the arguably the best division in the American League if not baseball is absurd.
Remember stats are only comparable if the variables are the same; and in this case they are vastly different. To exaggerate this point: If the Royals played the Yankees and Redsox everyday and another pitcher, pitcher “B” faced the likes of only the Baltimore Orioles throughout the season, could you seriously make a fair comparison of Greinke and pitcher B’s stats. If you are unsure – ask your science teacher.
Here is yet another ‘fact’ the combined win/loss record of the teams Greinke faced to amass 16 wins was -85 games under .500 . In Felix’s 18 wins they were a positive 68 games . Is there any grey area here people.
At -85 , the only question I have is why isn’t Greinke’s era even lower. Well he did beat Cleveland (29 games under .500) twice ; he did manage to beat Pittsburgh (-36), Baltimore (-37), Toronto (-9), Houston (-11), and ChiSox (-5) twice, ect …
Have Greinke face the Yankees just once please !
Central division is in ‘fact’ 45 games below .500, the AL West is in ‘fact’ 28 games above !
Are you really trying to debate that Greinke faced as tough of competition as Felix ?
“Felix pitches in a superior division, regularly against superior competition, and has a superior record, while pitching for a team with the worst offense in the league.”
There is no debate Felix is the next Cy Young !
Nothing I did was absurd. It was based on your point about facing different teams. So I attempted to measure the difference (something I don’t see you doing). When you say things like “ask your science teacher” and “there is no debate” it is hard to take you seriously.
Tell us exactly how much better the overall quality of Fernandez’s opposition has been compared to Greinke. I don’t think wins is the appropriate measure. It is how good those hitters are since we only want to measure what the pitchers do. I also don’t think that wins is a useful measure for pitchers. I have done some research on this. See “Do pitchers win the expected number of games?”
http://cyrilmorong.com/Pitwinexp.htm
When you write:
“Remember stats are only comparable if the variables are the same; and in this case they are vastly different. To exaggerate this point: If the Royals played the Yankees and Redsox everyday and another pitcher, pitcher “B” faced the likes of only the Baltimore Orioles throughout the season, could you seriously make a fair comparison of Greinke and pitcher B’s stats.”
That is what I am trying to get at by looking at the OPS faced by the two pitchers. My rough estimate is that it helps Fernandez, but not much. What is your estimate? Is it higher than .1? If so, how much and why? Explain your formulas.
Finally, I don’t believe I am comparing apples to oranges. I am taking into account the different quality of opposition the two faced. There probably is a better way to do it than I did, but you sure have not explained what that is.
Avg OPS of Batters Faced (Courtesy of Baseball Prospectus):
Hernandez: .760
Greinke: .753
Difference: .007 (The difference between Adam Kennedy, .761, and Melky Cabrera, .754)
So basically, not much difference.