Cy Young voters have moved passed a pitcher's win-loss record. Or have they?
Perception is everything, but more often than not, it's deceiving and it leads people into making blank statements without properly analyzing the facts, the subject I'm about to address, really represents that well.
We are in 2018, and the consensus around the MLB community is that we've moved past the point of using a pitcher's win as an accurate measurement of their performance. While for the most part that is true, when you look at the data, it becomes clear that part of that is perception.
I decided to go back to the beginning of the decade (2010-18), at all the Cy Young winners for both leagues since, and analyze if the most deserving pitcher actually won it and if he didn't, did their win-loss record have anything to do with it.
Obviously looking back at the winners of the 20th century would not be fair, as it wasn't until the early 2000's with the Moneyball revolution and all of the sabermetricians that this really took off and people started acknowledging it.
So let's begin.
2010 Cy Young Award Winners.
AL: Felix Hernandez
NL: Roy Halladay
Nothing major here, analyzing that year, in the AL, Cliff Lee, Justin Verlander and "The King" were all very close, but Hernandez probably the better candidate, significantly more innings, the better ERA, ERA-, xFIP, and neither won 20 games, Hernandez and Lee at 12, Verlander at 18.
Over to the National League, Roy Halladay won the award getting every single first-place vote, and it's understandable.
He had a 21-10 record, 2.44 ERA, 250.2 IP, highest FG WAR among NL pitchers at 6.1, highest BR WAR overall at 8.6
Josh Johnson and Ubaldo Jimenez had very good seasons, but ultimately fell short, Johnson pitched almost 70 fewer innings, Jimenez close to 30 fewer innings.
2011 Cy Young Award Winners:
AL: Justin Verlander
NL: Clayton Kershaw
In this particular season both pitchers won the Triple Crown, and while Verlander was clearly the deserving pitcher in the AL, on the other league things were interesting, or at least should've been.
In the NL, Kershaw was awesome but Halladay was just as awesome, and the Triple Crown gave number 22 the edge, a big part of it, is the wins.
Analyze their seasons.
ERA:
Kershaw: 2.28. Halladay: 2.35
K-BB%:
Kershaw: 21.3. Halladay: 19.8
FIP:
Kershaw: 2.47. Halladay: 2.20
WPA/LI (Wins Probability Added/Leverage Index)
Kershaw: 4.21. Halladay: 3.82
FG and BR WAR respectively:
Kershaw: 7.1 and 8.9 Halladay: 8.3 and 8.6
Overall very close, and had Halladay finished with 21 wins and Kershaw with 19, no Triple Crown and i'm pretty sure Halladay wins it, just based on the 20+ wins, if voted by a complete sabermetric community, it'd be very close, my guess Halladay wins it by a vote or so, with this we found our first wins related winner, but honestly it's a coin flip.
2012 Cy Young Award Winners:
AL: David Price
NL: R.A. Dickey
This year is very interesting as neither winner was the deserving one and it's clear both won solely on the 20 win nonsense.
First let's go through the AL, where Price edged out Verlander by one vote, 14 to 13.
Look at the numbers, Justin Verlander led him in:
IP: 238.1 to 211.0
K-BB%: 18.7 to 17.5
AVG: .215 to .224
FIP: 2.94 to 3.05
BR WAR: 7.8 to 6.9
FG WAR: 6.8 to 5.0
In all fairness, Price had a slightly better ERA, 2.56 to 2.64, but that's a very slim difference, 0.08 run per 9 Inning, how much does that matter.
The reason why Price won it, was that he had a 20-5 record and Verlander a 17-8, if it's the other way around, Verlander wins it, unquestionably.
Moving on the NL, it's the same story, Dickey won the award, because he had 20 wins, even while Kershaw led the NL in
Both WAR versions, FG and BR
ERA, ERA-, WPA/LI, RE24 (Run Expectancy)
RA9-WAR
2nd in FIP and AVG to Gio Gonzalez
And Dickey got 27 first-place votes.
Unlike the 2011 situation in the Nl, that's very debatable, in 2012, the pitchers that should've won were Kershaw and Verlander.
2013 Cy Young Award Winner:
AL: Max Scherzer
NL: Clayton Kershaw
Part of the reason why Scherzer won was the 21 wins, but it's acceptable, in part because the other 2 who had a case were Anibal Sanchez and Hisashi Iwakuma, with Iwakuma i don't even consider, yes he was better at run prevention, but he got pretty lucky, 3.44 FIP, hence only a 3.9 FG's WAR.
Now with Sanchez, you can make a case but he only pitched 182 Innings, and his ERA and FIP were only slightly better, and his K-BB% was worse, to overtake someone with much more IP, you have to be significantly better across the board.
In the NL, Kershaw was the only candidate, should've won it, and did, nothing to say.
2014 Cy Young Award Winner:
AL: Corey Kluber
NL: Clayton Kershaw
In the AL very close two-horse race, between Kluber and Hernandez, it could've gone either way, neither pitcher reached that 20 win number so i can't point to that, but overall Kluber was slightly better and deserved the award.
In the NL one of the all-time great seasons by Kershaw, won the MVP, nothing to say.
2015 Cy Young Award Winners.
AL: Dallas Kuechel
NL: Jake Arrieta
Another interesting case where both winners weren't necessarily the best pitchers and benefited greatly from the 20 win plateau.
First, let's go through the AL, Dallas Kuechel won the award, his only competitor was David Price, and truth be told, there's no big gap here, but looking at the numbers, Price led the AL in:
ERA-, ERA, FG WAR
2nd in FIP to Chris Sale.
All things considered, Kuechel was pretty close and Price's xFIP at 3.24 shows he got pretty lucky with his home run to flyball percentage, Kuechel's number was 2.75, and Kuechel had better run expectancy numbers.
Addressing the topic of the article, it is very clear that a big factor was the 20 win plateau, Keuchel had a 20-8 record, Price finished at 18-5, I'd bet anything that had Price won the 20 games, and Keuchel only 18, Price wins the award.
Looking at it objectively, a case for Keuchel is just as strong and I'd probably lean slightly towards him, but there is such a thing as bad process, good result, and the reason why he won it and the reason why he should have won it, are different.
Over in the NL side, it was a phenomenal race, Kershaw, Greinke, and Arrieta put on a show and all 3 pitched around the same number of innings, so no big difference there.
The intriguing fact is this, Kershaw had the best peripherals:
Led in K%, K-BB%, FIP-, xFIP-, FIP, xFIP, FG WAR, SIERA, SwStr%.
All of these categories, he was number 1.
And you can say, well Arrieta had the edge in the run prevention,
1.77 ERA to Kershaw's 2.13
9.4 RA9-WAR to 7.9
8.7 BR WAR to 7.5
But Zack Greinke was better than Arrieta in all of those categories, he had a 1.66 ERA, 10.0 RA9-WAR, and 9.3 BR WAR.
The stat that probably gave Arrieta the award:
He went 22-6.
Greinke fell one win short at 19-3, Kershaw had a 16-7 record. Objective analysis shows you that the winner should've been either Kershaw or Greinke, Kershaw was historically great on the peripherals, Greinke on the run prevention, Arrieta somewhere in the middle.
Had one of them won 20 games instead of Arrieta they take the award handily
2016 Cy Young Award Winners.
AL: Rick Porcello
NL: Max Scherzer
Starting with the AL, can someone tell me how one pitcher receives 8 1rst place votes and another one receives 14 1rst place votes and the first one gets the award due to the total vote points, it makes no sense.
Moving over to the award, it was close, the field actually was very weak, but across the board, Verlander and Kluber were slightly better in every aspect, honestly, Zach Britton was so unreal you can make the argument for him an 804 ERA+ is insane, so he deserved some consideration.
Addressing the topic at hand again, Verlander should've won it and had him or Kluber finished off with Porcello's record of 22-4, they win it, without a doubt.
In the National League, it's clear Kershaw would've won it, had he been healthy, Fernandez and Syndergaard had better numbers, not by much, but better, their problem is lack of innings, 182.1 and 183.2, but if you are going to vote for them, you're better off voting for Kershaw, just on how dominant he was, a 237 ERA+ for a starter is unheard of.
Kershaw had virtually the same RA9-WAR as Scherzer 6.8 to 6.9, on 79.1 fewer innings, it's unbelievable if he pitches 70 mediocre innings instead of missing them, he undoubtedly wins the award, and while Scherzer probably won despite of the 20 wins, it helped put him over the top.
2017 Cy Young Award Winners
AL: Corey Kluber
NL: Max.Scherzer
Not much to talk about here.
Corey won it and deserved it, neither he nor Sale won 20 games so it wasn't a factor.
In the NL, while Scherzer was better, it's an example of how it's about the 20 wins, Kershaw missed time, but he pitched 175 Innings and Scherzer only had 200.2 as he also had injury issues, the Dodger hurler had an 18-4 record and Scherzer 16-6, I'm sure had Kershaw won 2 more games and finished at 20, he wins the award.
Summing it all up, in this decade (10-17), 6 pitchers won the award based a lot on the fact they won 20 games, 5 depending on how you interpret the NL in 2011, they were all good, but there were more or as deserving candidates.