Perhaps the most fascinating of this year’s award debates is the National League Cy Young race. Johnny Cueto, RA Dickey, Gio Gonzalez, and Clayton Kershaw all have compelling cases, and if voters are looking for dominance over accumulated value, Ar

oldis Chapman, Craig Kimbrel, Kris Medlen, and Stephen Strasburg are worth discussing as well.

A quick look at fangraphs’ pitching WAR leaderboard suggests that Cliff Lee may have a place in this conversation as well. Lee ranks third in fWAR, just .6 wins behind Kershaw and .5 behind Gonzalez. Baseball-reference ranks Lee eighth, bunched up with five other pitchers behind Kershaw, Cueto, and Dickey at the top. After the jump, I’ll examine 12 candidates based on some key numbers.

[table id=70 /]

I included wins in the chart, not because they say anything about a pitcher’s talent or award-worthiness, but because they’ve had an overwhelming impact on past votes and because Lee’s six wins will probably keep him off most voters’ five-man ballots. My goal here is not to pick my Cy Young winner (I’ll let John tackle that in a future post), but to assess just how realistic it would be to put a starting pitcher with six wins at or near the top of a ballot.

Several numbers from the above chart jump off the page, and a few of them belong to Kimbrel. In just 62 2/3 innings, Kimbrel was as dominant as any pitcher has ever been in any role. I wouldn’t hold it against a voter who threw Kimbrel a first-place vote on the the basis of his sub-1 FIP, near-1 ERA, and 8+ strikeouts for every walk, but I think it’s nearly impossible to be the most valuable pitcher in the game without pitching 100 innings.

Similarly, Medlen’s 1.57 ERA, accumulated mostly as a starter, is a remarkable feat, but he only threw about twice as many innings as Kimbrel and less than 60% as many as Dickey.

Lee, on the other hand, struck out 7.39 times as many batters as he walked over 211 innings. If not for a bit of a home run problem (he gave up 26, though many came in a park that inflates homers by about 9%), he may have been the most dominant starting pitcher in baseball this year. Normalize his home run/fly ball rate, as xFIP does, and he leads all qualified pitchers at 3.06. Even with all those homers counting 13 times in his FIP (you can find the FIP formula here), he trails only Gonzalez, Kershaw, and Adam Wainwright (who pitched fewer than 200 innings with an ERA near four) among qualified pitchers. Gonzalez owes much of his success to minimizing home runs, giving up just nine. Bring four just-enough homers back on the field for Lee and he’s the best pitcher in the NL from a fielding-independent standpoint.

I think it’s important that voters (or just debaters) establish a framework in evaluating candidates and are consistent in staying within the framework. Otherwise, a single pitcher’s narrative may cause the voter to neglect another pitcher’s stronger candidacy. If a voter values run prevention and high volume of innings, Kershaw or Dickey is the pick. A voter who prefers dominance over a shorter timeframe would take a closer look at Kimbrel and Medlen. A FIP loyalist would likely vote for Gonzalez, or Kershaw, whose FIP was a tick behind Gio’s in 28 more innings.

The framework within which one can justify Lee as the best pitcher in the National League this season would look something like this:

-Wins are a team statistic and do little to measure a pitcher’s contribution to his team’s success.

-Striking out hitters and avoiding walks are the two most important things a pitcher can do.

-BABiP shouldn’t be held against a pitcher, since it’s more a measure of defense and randomness.

-Home runs are also random to some extent, since they’re affected by park dimensions and weather factors and fluctuate more than strikeouts and walks.

-Relievers don’t throw enough innings to deserve the Cy Young, but additional volume shouldn’t be a deciding factor if several candidates throw 200+ innings.

I listed the five points above in descending order of reasonableness. The last two are, shall we say, less than scientific, and it seems unlikely that a voter of any ilk would consistently apply these five tenets to any Cy Young consideration. Any voter who really does put Lee at the top of his ballot is probably making a somewhat outlandish statement about the worthlessness of pitcher wins.

Remove the last line from the framework, though, and Lee’s probably second to Kershaw, who threw almost 17 more innings. Remove the last two lines and your framework is essentially fWAR, where Lee finished third. I’m not saying I would, but it would be perfectly reasonable for a voter to place Cliff Lee second, third, or fourth on a Cy Young ballot.

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Perhaps the most fascinating of this year’s award debates is the National League Cy Young race. Johnny Cueto, RA Dickey, Gio Gonzalez, and Clayton Kershaw all have compelling cases, and if voters are looking for dominance over accumulated value, Aroldis Chapman, Craig Kimbrel, Kris Medlen, and Stephen Strasburg are worth discussing as well.
A quick look at fangraphs’ pitching WAR leaderboard suggests that Cliff Lee may have a place in this conversation as well. Lee ranks third in fWAR, just .6 wins behind Kershaw and .5 behind Gonzalez. Baseball-reference ranks Lee eighth, bunched up with five other pitchers behind Kershaw, Cueto, and Dickey at the top. After the jump, I’ll examine 12 candidates based on some key numbers.

[table id=70 /]

I included wins in the chart, not because they say anything about a pitcher’s talent or award-worthiness, but because they’ve had an overwhelming impact on past votes and because Lee’s six wins will probably keep him off most voters’ five-man ballots. My goal here is not to pick my Cy Young winner (I’ll let John tackle that in a future post), but to assess just how realistic it would be to put a starting pitcher with six wins at or near the top of a ballot.
Several numbers from the above chart jump off the page, and a few of them belong to Kimbrel. In just 62 2/3 innings, Kimbrel was as dominant as any pitcher has ever been in any role. I wouldn’t hold it against a voter who threw Kimbrel a first-place vote on the the basis of his sub-1 FIP, near-1 ERA, and 8+ strikeouts for every walk, but I think it’s nearly impossible to be the most valuable pitcher in the game without pitching 100 innings.
Similarly, Medlen’s 1.57 ERA, accumulated mostly as a starter, is a remarkable feat, but he only threw about twice as many innings as Kimbrel and less than 60% as many as Dickey.
Lee, on the other hand, struck out 7.39 times as many batters as he walked over 211 innings. If not for a bit of a home run problem (he gave up 26, though many came in a park that inflates homers by about 9%), he may have been the most dominant starting pitcher in baseball this year. Normalize his home run/fly ball rate, as xFIP does, and he leads all qualified pitchers at 3.06. Even with all those homers counting 13 times in his FIP (you can find the FIP formula here), he trails only Gonzalez, Kershaw, and Adam Wainwright (who pitched fewer than 200 innings with an ERA near four) among qualified pitchers. Gonzalez owes much of his success to minimizing home runs, giving up just nine. Bring four just-enough homers back on the field for Lee and he’s the best pitcher in the NL from a fielding-independent standpoint.
I think it’s important that voters (or just debaters) establish a framework in evaluating candidates and are consistent in staying within the framework. Otherwise, a single pitcher’s narrative may cause the voter to neglect another pitcher’s stronger candidacy. If a voter values run prevention and high volume of innings, Kershaw or Dickey is the pick. A voter who prefers dominance over a shorter timeframe would take a closer look at Kimbrel and Medlen. A FIP loyalist would likely vote for Gonzalez, or Kershaw, whose FIP was a tick behind Gio’s in 28 more innings.
The framework within which one can justify Lee as the best pitcher in the National League this season would look something like this:
-Wins are a team statistic and do little to measure a pitcher’s contribution to his team’s success.
-Striking out hitters and avoiding walks are the two most important things a pitcher can do.
-BABiP shouldn’t be held against a pitcher, since it’s more a measure of defense and randomness.
-Home runs are also random to some extent, since they’re affected by park dimensions and weather factors and fluctuate more than strikeouts and walks.
-Relievers don’t throw enough innings to deserve the Cy Young, but additional volume shouldn’t be a deciding factor if several candidates throw 200+ innings.
I listed the five points above in descending order of reasonableness. The last two are, shall we say, less than scientific, and it seems unlikely that a voter of any ilk would consistently apply these five tenets to any Cy Young consideration. Any voter who really does put Lee at the top of his ballot is probably making a somewhat outlandish statement about the worthlessness of pitcher wins.
Remove the last line from the framework, though, and Lee’s probably second to Kershaw, who threw almost 17 more innings. Remove the last two lines and your framework is essentially fWAR, where Lee finished third. I’m not saying I would, but it would be perfectly reasonable for a voter to place Cliff Lee second, third, or fourth on a Cy Young ballot.
If only he had the grit to bear down and win games, he might have added another trophy to his mantle this year.
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