The 2010 NL CY Young Candidates

As I did for the AL Cy Young candidates, here are the NL leaders by ERA, followed by a much deeper look into their stats:

Josh Johnson:  183.2 IP, 2.30 ERA, 2.43 FIP, 186 SO, 48 BB, 3.88 K/BB,  2.78 tERA  Josh Johnson has been very good this season.  If you favor traditional stats, he's leading the league in ERA and in home runs given up (just seven), though he's only won 11 games.  He's held opponents to an anemic .229/.282/.325/.607 line, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio is third behind Roy Halladay (7.50) and teammate Ricky Nolasco (4.45).  If you favor more advanced stats, Johnson ranks first in FIP, first in ERA+ (184), third in xFIP, and the lowest tERA of all starters who have pitched at least 180 innings.

Roy Halladay:  234.2 IP, 2.49 ERA, 3.01 FIP, 210 SO, 28 BB,  7.50 K/BB,  3.38 tERA  Doc is leading the league in innings pitched, strikeouts, strikeout-to-walk ratio, xFIP (2.89), complete games (8), shut outs (3), walks allowed (just 28), wins (19), oh, and he threw a perfect game earlier this year.  He has been worth either 6.4 or 6.8 WAR according to Fangraphs and Baseball-reference.com respectively, making him one of the most valuable players in all of baseball. 

Adam Wainwright: 216.1 IP, 2.50 ERA, 2.87 FIP, 199 SO, 52 BB,  3.83 K/BB,  2.95 tERA  Last season, Waino won a league-leading 19 games but lost the Cy Young to Tim Lincecum, who won just 15 games but had better peripherals.  This created quite a bit of an uproar over the role of predictive stats vs. results-based stats when it comes to awards voting.  A lot of Cardinals fans I know were not happy that Waino was, in their view, punished for having a good defense behind him in the eyes of voters.  Which is kind of understandable, I think.  Don't get me wrong, I do think Lincecum actually pitched better than Waino last year and deserved to win, but if we don't want to hold a horrible defense and a lack of run support (the common arguments against wins as a viable stat) against starting pitchers, why should we punish them for benefitting from these things?  If it isn't a starter's fault that the front office couldn't put together a good team to support him (see Hernandez, Felix), then why should we hold it against him if they do (see Sabathia, C.C.)?

It's kind of ironic, then, that Waino's peripherals have put him among the very best pitchers in the league this year, and yet he still won't win because Halladay and Johnson have been that much better.

Tim Hudson: 210.0 IP, 2.61 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 129 SO, 63 BB,  2.05 K/BB,  3.66 tERA  Hudson has had a nice comeback from Tommy John surgery, with a very low ERA, and he's tossed a lot of innings, but other than that, he hasn't been anything too spectacular. 

Honorable Mentions:

Ubaldo Jimenez: 202.2 IP, 2.84 ERA, 3.03 FIP, 192 SO, 82 BB,  2.34 K/BB, 3.95 tERA  Ubaldo looked like the runaway favorite for the award in the first half of the season, with a 0.78 ERA through the end of May, but he's come back down to earth a bit since then, posting a 3.93 ERA and 2.19 K/BB ratio since the all-star break.  Jimenez is still having a great season and is no small reason why the Rockies now sit just half a game out of first place (after sitting 11 games back just a month ago), but his case comes up a bit short against the likes of Halladay and Johnson.

Mat Latos: 168.0 IP, 2.84 ERA, 3.05 FIP, 175 SO, 47 BB,  3.72 K/BB,  2.55 tERA  Latos is also having a very good season, but he won't throw more than 190 innings this year.  Roy Halladay has similar peripherals while tossing the equivalent of seven more starts.  Latos is just 22 years old though, and looks to be a perennial Cy Young contender.

Cole Hamels: 194.2 IP, 3.01 ERA, 3.62 FIP, 201 SO, 56 BB,  3.59 K/BB, 3.71 tERA  Hamels got off to a rough start, but he's put up some pretty ace-like numbers since the all-star break.  Unfortunately, he is maybe the third-best starter on his own team. 

Roy Oswalt: 198.2 IP, 2.90 ERA, FIP, 181 SO, 52 BB,  K/BB,  3.52 tERA   Like Hamels, Oswalt has put forth a good performance this season, but he isn't even the best starter on his own team.  On a related note, how scary is Philadelphia's starting rotation?  I will be very surprised if the Phillies don't reach the World Series this year.

It's really a very close race between the top three starting pitchers in the National League.  Josh Johnson was probably the best starting pitcher in the NL, and maybe even in all of baseball, but he's been shut down for the rest of the season due to back problems, and coupled with the fact that the Marlins aren't in contention, voters aren't likely to go for J.J.  Roy Halladay, meanwhile, has been eating the National League alive, while pitching for a contender in a hitters' park in the NL's toughest division on top of it.  If I had a vote I would probably give it to Doc, but Johnson and Wainwright aren't terrible choices, either.

The 2010 AL Cy Young Candidates

I'm going to do this much like I did the All-Star Game selections: going through the list of viable Cy Young, MVP, ROY, and MOY candidates in each league, and then picking who I think deserves to win and who probably will actually win. I'm going to try to crank out one of these per week, with separate posts devoted to both the AL and NL candidates, but I'm really busy with school and my other project, so who knows when I'll get these posted. I hope to at least get these done by the end of the World Series.  Without further ado, the AL Cy Young candidates:

C.C. Sabathia:  209.0 IP, 3.14 ERA, 3.62 FIP, 170 SO, 66 BB, 2.58 K/BB, 3.39 tERA
His ERA might be a bit inflated compared to others on this list, but according to fangraphs, C.C. has been worth 4.0 wins above replacement this season.  He is second in the league in both innings pitched and third in complete games, while putting up numbers worthy of a front-line starter.  He's also leading the league in wins, with 19, and will probably finish the season with the most wins in the AL.  Wins are hardly the best indicator of a pitcher's performance, but with few other pitchers in the league projected to win 20 games (the only other starters with a decent shot at 20 are David Price and Carl Pavano, and maybe teammate Phil Hughes), it is worth noting.  And he's done all of this while pitching in a very tough division and a noted hitters' park.

Felix Hernandez:  219.1 IP, 2.30 ERA, 2.95 FIP, 209 SO, 60 BB, 3.48 K/BB, 2.92 tERA
Felix Hernandez is leading the league in innings pitched, second in strikeouts, complete games, shutouts, well, he's either leading the league or second in the league in just about everything that he, himself, the pitcher, has complete control over.  Of course, he only has 11 wins, but like 2009 Cy Young winner Zach Greinke, that's because he has the lowest run support in the league.  This Mariners team is averaging just 3.23 runs per game, making them potentially the worst offense since the dead ball era.  Also, while Safeco is very much a pitchers' park, the King's road stats are still much better than most starters' home stats: 2.47 ERA, 1.71 WHIP (proofreading is important: that should have been 1.17, but it's now up to 1.184), 3.38 FIP, and 2.72 K/BB ratio.

David Price:  178.2 IP, 2.87 ERA, 3.50 FIP, 163 SO, 71 BB, 2.38 K/BB, 3.38 tERA
David Price has been the ace of a very good Tampa Bay team, but, to be honest, he probably isn't the best pitcher in his division. He is the only other pitcher besides Sabathia with a good chance at winning 20 games though, if you're into that sort of thing.  However, he's pitched about 50 fewer innings than King Felix while striking out 46 fewer batters and allowing 11 more walks.

Jon Lester:  182.1 IP, 3.26 ERA, 3.09 FIP, 196 SO, 68 BB, 2.88 K/BB, 3.19 tERA.  Probably the best pitcher in his division, Lester has put up great numbers while pitching in an even more extreme hitters' park than Yankee Stadium.  If anyone has a better case for the Cy Young than Felix Hernandez, it would be Lester, though Hernandez has a slight edge in wins above replacement (5.9, compared to Lester's 5.1).

Jered Weaver:  197.0 IP, 3.06 ERA, 3.12 FIP, 211 SO, 51 BB, 4.14 K/BB, 2.77 tERA
The league leader in strikeouts is having a very good season.  He, like Felix, has been the lone bright spot on a pretty craptastic team, and there's little doubt that he would have more than wins if he had better run support (the Angels have scored just 3.57 runs per game in all of his starts this season).  Most seasons, Weaver's line might be good enough to win the Cy Young, but unfortunately for the Angels and their fans, he isn't even the best pitcher in his division this year.

Cliff Lee: 184.1 IP, 3.37 ERA, 2.62 FIP, 161 SO, 12 BB, 13.42 K/BB, 2.70 tERA
Before the trade deadline, Lee was probably the front-runner in the Cy Young race.  It was like he was pitching in the deadball era, with a 2.34 ERA, 1.81 FIP, and unreal 14.83 K/BB ratio.   He's come down to earth a bit since being traded to Texas; with a 4.69 ERA, 3.14 FIP, and 12.00 K/BB ratio, though he's still given up the fewest walks of all qualified starters in the league.  However, like Francisco Liriano and his uncanny ability to keep the ball in the ballpark, being the best pitcher in the league at one particular thing does not necessarily make him the best pitcher in the league.

Honorable mentions: 

Francisco Liriano:  172.1 IP, 3.24 ERA, 2.37 FIP, 182 SO, 52 BB, 3.50 K/BB, 2.64 tERA
Liriano bears some consideration because his peripherals are out-of-this-world good.  He's only allowed four home runs this season.  That's right, four, the fewest allowed, by far, in the American League and the fewest allowed in either league since 1994.  However, his Cy Young case is pretty weak compared to the guys ahead of him, especially when one ignores predictive stats and focuses only on his results.  His ERA is pretty good, as are his strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio, but these stats combined make him barely good enough to crack the top five.  The Twins should be very pleased with F-bomb's performance, especially considering how much he struggled last year, but there's no way he deserves to win over King Felix.  He definitely deserves the comeback player of the year award, though.

  

Trevor Cahill:  172.2 IP, 2.61 ERA, 4.15 FIP, 98 SO, 56 BB, 1.75 K/BB, 3.99 tERA
Only one person so far seems to think that Cahill has a viable Cy Young case, but I feel he's worth mentioning because he's the perfect example of how deceptive ERA can be in evaluating pitcher performance.  Sure, Cahill has the third-best ERA in the league, but he's striking out just 5.11 batters per nine innings, though he has a very good 2.92 BB/9 rate.  He does have a .222 batting average on balls in play, which is some 80 points below the league average, and it isn't as though the AL West is home to the most potent offenses in the league.  Cahill's low ERA is probably due to a combination of luck, good defense behind him (Oakland has a 42.8 UZR and league-leading 0.716 defensive efficiency rating), and the relatively poor quality of batters faced, rather than his actual talent as a pitcher.

Clay Buchholz: 152.2 IP, 2.53 ERA, 3.67 FIP, 104 SO, 60 BB, 1.73 K/BB, 3.95 tERA
Some might argue that Buchholz, with his 2.53 ERA while pitching in an extreme hitters' park in a very difficult division, is one of the best pitchers in the AL. A closer look at his peripherals, however, suggests that this is not the case. Buchholz is a groundball machine, with a 50.3 % ground ball rate and 1.63 GB/FB%, so his mediocre K/BB ratio probably shouldn't be held against him.  Still, he won't finish the season with at least 200 innings pitched, so it's hard to consider him as viable a candidate the first three pitchers on this list.

Should win:  King Felix. Still not convinced?  Well here is how Felix has fared against the toughest offenses in the AL:

Yankees: 0.35 ERA, 26.0 IP, 31/8 K/BB ratio, 2 CG.  King Felix has given up just one run in three starts against the best offense in the American League this season, a solo homer to Nick Swisher on July 10th.

Red Sox: 1.23 ERA, 7.1 IP, 2 runs allowed, 9/1 K/BB ratio. 

Twins:  2.40 ERA, 15.0 IP, 13/2 K/BB ratio.  King Felix has allowed just four runs on twelve hits in two starts against the Twins, who boast the third-best wOBA in the league (.338), behind only the Yankees (.349) and Red Sox (.345).

Rangers: 6.38 ERA, 24.0 IP, 18/9 K/BB ratio.  OK, so the Rangers have had a bit of success against the King this year, though mostly in their own ballpark, where they have pasted him for ten runs on fifteen hits in three starts.

Compared to Lester:

Yankees: 2.95 ERA, 18.0 IP, 17/8 K/BB ratio.

Red Sox:  Uh, nope.

Twins:  3.21 ERA, 14.0 IP, 14/3 K/BB ratio.

Rangers: 1.69 ERA, 16.0 IP, 11/3 K/BB ratio.

and C.C.:

Yankees:  Oh, yeah.

Red Sox: 3.96 ERA, 25.0 IP, 17/8 K/BB ratio. 

Twins: Captain Cheeseburger hasn't faced the Twins yet this season, but he's been a notorious Twin killer in his career.  He's held left handed hitters to a .266/.328/.359 line this year, so his numbers would probably be comparable to the King's.

Rangers:  1.50 ERA, 6.0 IP, 9/0 K/BB ratio.  So, Sabathia hasn't even faced two of the toughest offenses in the league, New York and Minnesota, and he still hasn't been as effective as either Lester or King Felix this year.  That isn't to say that C.C. has been terrible this year; on the contrary, he's pitched rather well.  It's just that Lester and Hernandez have both pitched better, no matter how you look at it.

Will win:  Sabathia.  He will probably be the only 20-game winner in the AL this season and the voters aren't going to overlook that, especially since King Felix has lost nearly as many games as he's won (11-10 record).  Probably the only real shot King Felix has at the Cy Young is to win every single one of his remaining starts (unlikely, given his lack of run support), while hoping C. C. loses every single one of his. 

Next up in this series:  the NL Cy Young candidates.  Hopefully sometime later this week.

Damn

Fun Fact: Ndamukong means "house of spears" in ethnic Ngemba (his father is originally from Cameroon).  Brett Favre will see him twice this year.  That should be fun.

I don't write much about the Vikings because I'm not really much of a football fan.  I don't really know much about it, and to be honest, it isn't really one of my favorite sports.  For me, football is a distant third behind baseball and hockey; I will of course spend all Sunday watching football (and Saturday, I like to watch college football too), but I don't get all that emotionally involved in the games and if I have a choice between Twins tickets and Vikings tickets, well, that is a no-brainer, even when both teams still played at the Metrodome.  The Twins have always been my favorite team, and yeah, the fact that they've won two world championships in my lifetime while the Vikings have never even made a Super Bowl appearance has a little to do with it.  But just a little though, because baseball is, and probably always will be, my favorite sport.

Well, maybe that isn't quite true.  I have to admit, after the strike in 1994 and all of those sucktastic seasons that followed until 2001, I was a little disillusioned with baseball.   And the Vikings at that time were really good.  This was the John Randle era, the Randy Moss era, the Cris Carter era, the last time I really believed the Vikings had a shot at winning the Super Bowl era.  It was hard to not get sucked into the excitement surrounding that team.  Most of the time there's this (I don't know how else to describe it) nagging sense of impending doom hanging over the Vikings' season.  I used to watch every game and wonder how they were going to lose it.  Maybe they would make it close, then lose in the final minutes on a fumble or interception or something.  Maybe they would just plain get blown out.  Or maybe they would surprise me and actually pull out a win.  I think the 1998-1999 season was the only one in which I didn't feel like something bad was going to happen.  I really felt like that team was going to win every game, and as the season progressed and they kept winning and winning and winning, I thought that this was it.  This was the team that would finally get the Super Bowl monkey off its back. Obviously, it didn't turn out that way, and it wasn't too long afterwards that the Twins started to get good again.  So it was back to baseball for me.

I still think that team was the Vikings' best chance to win the Super Bowl.  I thought last year's team was really fun to watch, and I admit I got caught up in all the hype surrounding Brett Favre and co., but I didn't really think they were going to make it that far.  The Saints looked like the class of the NFC long before the championship game and the Vikings, at least to my untrained eye, just didn't look quite as good.  It's a credit to the team that they made so many mistakes and still hung in there against New Orleans, but you can't fumble the ball a billion times, throw a back-breaking interception, and commit one of the dumbest coaching penalties in NFL history and expect to win the Super Bowl.  I don't think they're going to make it this year either, even with Favre.  The NFC North is a much tougher division and I don't think the Vikings are going to steamroll all over it like they did last year.  It wouldn't surprise me if the Packers won the North, though I think the race will be very close.  And that's a shame because they probably won't ever win one now.  The Metrodome lease expires in 2011 with no deal for a new stadium in place, and with all of the budget crises and economic woes facing the state, it will be very difficult to get public financing for a new one.  It makes me sad that the Vikings might just up and leave for a more lucrative market without winning a Super Bowl, but I guess it would be a fitting end for a team that is most famous for ripping out and stomping on the hearts of its fanbase.