Cy Young Predictor II: A Close One

Tim Lincecum and Zack Greinke. To say the least, these two pitched spectacularly throughout the season. At a minimum, they both put themselves in a position to possibly win a Cy Young Award, given to the best pitcher in each league, in 2009. The voters agreed, giving Lincecum his second straight award and Greinke his first. However, do the numbers truly support the voting tallies? Thankfully, there's a formula out there to help us figure that out. Starting last year, out of boredom I decided I wanted to calculate the winners for myself and compare them to the votes.

The formula was published in Rob Neyer and Bill James' The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers as a way of determining not only who's the most deserving of winning the Cy Young Award for a league in a given year, but also who's most likely to be chosen by the voters as the winner. It incorporates a pitcher's wins, losses, saves, shutouts, strikeouts, runs saved (an equation based on the pitcher's ERA and innings pitched), and a 12-point victory bonus for "leading his team to a division championship." For my calculation, I also gave pitchers on wild card teams the victory bonus as well; wild card playoff teams are no worse off than the division winners when they reach the playoffs. Enough with the background; let's get to the formula's winners!

First, the American League...

Player	W	L	K	SV	ERA	INN	POINTS
Hernandez	19	5	217	0	2.49	238.7	189.68
Greinke	16	8	242	0	2.16	229.3	175.57
Sabathia	19	8	197	0	3.37	230	169.19
Nathan	2	2	89	47	2.10	68.7	167.06
Rivera	3	3	72	44	1.76	66.3	163.85
Halladay	17	10	208	0	2.79	239	162.11
Verlander	19	9	269	0	3.45	240	160.75

A very legitimate argument could be made for Seattle's Felix Hernandez. King Felix shared the league lead in wins while on an 85-77 team. He pitched primarily in the AL West, against opponents who were 2nd, 7th, and 9th in the AL in runs scored. Greinke, on the other hand, pitched mostly against the 4th, 10th, 12th, and 13th best run scoring teams in the AL (out of 14 teams). Greinke finished 16-8 on a Royals team that was a full 20 games worse than the Mariners. Even though he played on the worst scoring team in the AL, Hernandez actually received nearly a full run of run support more than Greinke (5.66 to 4.83). As you can see from the table, Greinke leads Hernandez in many of the more well-known statistics, including shutouts, which I didn't include in my small table. Therefore, I tend to agree with all but 3 of the voters who voted for Greinke. 1 pitcher certainly does not make a team, so Greinke should not be harmed in voters' eyes by "only" winning 16 games while receiving far less run support than many other star pitchers in the AL.
Detroit workhorse Justin Verlander, perhaps boosted by the one voter who gave him a first place vote, finished 3rd in the actual voting; he was 7th here. Had Detroit won the one-game playoff against Minnesota at the end of the season, he would have finished 3rd in my predictor's standings.

Now let's move to the National League...

Player	W	L	K	SV	ERA	INN	POINTS
Wainwright	19	8	212	0	2.63	233	189.11
Carpenter	17	4	144	0	2.24	192.7	178.04
Broxton	7	2	114	36	2.61	76	169.72
Lincecum	15	7	261	0	2.48	225.3	162.94
Bell	6	4	79	42	2.71	69.7	157.29
Franklin	4	3	44	38	1.92	61	149.56
Vazquez	15	10	238	0	2.87	219.3	141.69

Wow, the actual winner finished 4th by 26-and-change points. Granted, without the division winner bonus, Lincecum would have leapfrogged Carpenter and Broxton to finish 2nd. Looking at Wainwright (who actually received the most 1st place votes) vs. Lincecum feels very similar to my previous discussion of Hernandez vs. Greinke, except the situation is further compounded with the addition of Chris Carpenter to the discussion. Cardinal teammates Wainwright and Carpenter were backed by the NL's 7th best run-scoring offense, while Lincecum's Giants were only 13th. Carpenter and Lincecum actually received nearly identical run support, respectively 5.84 & 5.83 runs per outing, while Wainwright's support was at 7.07. The statistics I listed above note some differences that could give each pitcher's supporters a valid argument for the Award. Wainwright was both extremely effective and the best innings-eater in the league, but definitely received help from his Cardinal teammates in the win column. Carpenter had the same help, but his ERA was superior to his competitors; did the fact that he was hurt and missed some starts also hurt his chances of winning? Lincecum was a beast on the mound, dominating opponents and did not receive the same help from his weaker Giant offense, but should the Giants' lack of a division title be counted against him? It's not too hard to see why the difference in vote points among the 3 of them was a mere 10, and I think for the reasons listed above (and others) Tim Lincecum was a highly justifiable choice for the award. No gripes here.

And that's a wrap on the Predictor for this year. Let the discussion begin, or continue. Sorry I failed to publish this sooner; blame the crazy rigor and stress that surrounds 1L fall semester final exams primarily. Although you can also probably blame my usual slacker laziness as well...

I have some great ideas for posts in the very near future, so I hope you stick around my site at least for a little while longer! Catch you all (haha, baseball pun) later!

*statistics were either implemented or calculated using those provided on Baseball-Reference.com, except for run support which came from ESPN.com.

Coming Soon...

Now that both leagues have decided their Cy Young Award winners, I will shortly post my version of the Cy Young Predictor. This year's award, according to the formula, was much more hotly contested than last year. As a sneak preview, I'll tell you now that unlike last year, where there were two much more clear-cut winners in both the voter's eyes and the formula's determination, neither of the formula's winners won this year...

The law school portion of my life seems to be moving along smoothly right now. The one graded exam I have taken went very well. With memos and such out of the way, I'll be focusing on wrapping up my classes, outlining for the imminent doom also known as 1L finals, and taking said finals. If only laziness were actually an option for a while before needing to study for finals...

That about wraps up my happenings for now. I'll make sure to get my big Cy Young post up ASAP. The Irish were robbed. Nice catch, Henry.

Why It's Possible to Do the Unthinkable

Just minutes from now, the 2009 version of the World Series will be underway in the Bronx. The series features two of the larger-market teams in baseball, the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies. A great deal of non-Phillies/non-Yankees fans I know with any slight interest in the Series have been going through the following thought process in deciding who they want to root for:

"I don't really want the Phillies to go back-to-back, and I don't like their fanbase, but I REALLY hate the Yankees. So, I guess I'll cheer for the Phillies."

Like these people, I am interested in checking out this World Series, but neither team is the one I root for full-time. However, I'm finding myself much less inclined than others to hate the Yankees going into this World Series, the 40th in which the Yanks are appearing. On that note, as a non-Yankee fan, I'm going to shock the world by attempting to justify cheering for the Bronx Bombers. I've broken my arguments down into what I call the 3 P's...

1. Payroll
As a fan of a small-market team, why on earth would I want the team with a payroll many times larger than mine to win it all? For fans of these teams, it looks like with a payroll currently exceeding $200 million, the Yankees are trying to "buy championships." Well, if the team that's throwing the most money into team salary continually wins the World Series, then perhaps in the near future, there will be a higher possibility of more attempts to level the playing field among the 30 MLB teams. If a team that is being resourceful with a low payroll can't win the World Series, then the one who splurges on re-signing players, making trades and signing for marquee players deserves the championship. It's painful to cheer for a team that is harming the equality of the teams in the league, but with them winning more and more, more calls for change could be on the horizon.

2. "Parity"
If my team can't win in back-to-back seasons, then I don't want anyone's team to repeat. Believe it or not, the Yankees haven't won a World Series since the unfortunately over-hyped 2000 Subway Series with the Mets. Thus, if you're a strict fan of parity in professional sports, you probably want the Yankees to take this one, despite this being possibly their 27th World Championship. Also, if the Yankees win, perhaps they can officially regain their famous swagger throughout the organization and fanbase that they've held for decades. With that swagger that everyone loves/hates, maybe baseball can grow again. Or at least other baseball fans can be even more justified in hating the Yankees.

3. Power Players
Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, and Hideki Matsui are just a few of the names on the Yankee roster without rings to their name. I don't expect you to love all of them (I wonder which one of those three is liked the least...), but I at least find their style of play to be very exciting on most nights. Seven of their starters hit at least 20 home runs this year (Derek Jeter also had 18). The Phillies certainly have a great deal of bats that can match up with the Yankees, but if you love the offensive slugfests in baseball, no one scored more runs in Major League Baseball this season than the Bronx Bombers.
If you want to define "power players" even more broadly, you could throw in the many power arms included in the Yankee pitching staff. CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Mariano Rivera, and even young guys like Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes bring some serious heat from the mound.
Also, who can write about the Yankees and not include the Steinbrenners? As owners, their aggressive approach to winning and getting the pieces necessary to win games put this year's team in a great position to take home the trophy. I think a lot of non-Yankee fans, especially fans of small-market teams, would trade their owners for ones as dedicated personally and financially as the Steinbrenners have been over the years.

To tell you the truth, that was somewhat painful to write. However, it does make me feel a little better about being a neutral fan this time around. Hopefully, if you're in the same boat as I am, this at least eased your hatred of the Yanks a little bit. Enjoy the Series...

Assistance

Surprise! My first actual post here isn't going to be about something sports-related. I've just returned from the law building to finish typing this out.

A couple of years ago, while still attending the University of Delaware as an undergrad, a friend of a friend and his parents were touring the campus when they randomly ran into my friend and me. As a result, I ended up basically advertising the school to him and his parents through my take on what the environment was like at UD. The next fall, I found out that he indeed chose to go to Delaware, and I felt very pleased that I very likely had a substantial role in his decision.

With that being said, I invite anyone (and anyone who knows someone) who has questions about the University of Delaware, going to law school, and Pitt Law School to send your questions my way. I am more than willing to help you out with any concerns or points of interest you might have concerning each. I will give you one fair warning though: especially relating to Pitt Law, I might not have quite the requisite amount of experience to give you a solid opinion about it, but I'll do my best to explain what I know.

Essentially, I'm talking up my abilities to give a realistic perspective for others to use however they want. What I can tell you very quickly right now is that I certainly do not regret attending the University of Delaware. For the LSAT, you're probably not the kind of person who can just walk into the testing room and post a big-time score, so you'll have to take it from me and make sure you budget a decent amount of time to preparing for the different sections. I have no idea whether the approach I took in applying to various law schools would work for you as well, so if you're applying now, I can tell you what I did and what I'd probably do differently were I to do it again. As for law school, I'd be lying if I told you it's been easy so far, but the experience has been very rewarding intellectually and I've made friends very easily with many of my classmates. I'm thankful that my law school hasn't (at least not yet) served to be a cutthroat environment with professors willing to make class time extremely rough on students. Again, as for anything else you would like to know, feel free to let me know.

I think that about covers the basics regarding my invitation to give advice to those who seek it. Whether you use it or not, I wish the best to everyone who at least took the time to read this. Expect my first sports post to come just after the World Series ends; I have an interesting project of sorts planned...

New Blog Site?!

Hey, I've decided to move from the old blogging site to a brand new one. Here, I hope to start anew. I promise not to set out plans for this site that I will not back up in the end; the 9-part examination of the Pirates is a perfect example of this.

The original blog site was intended to be a collaborative effort among a few friends, but we instead decided to do our own separate things on blogs. Currently, each of us are blogging, or lack thereof, at our own pace and leisure, and none of us are disappointed in our decision. Thus, instead of using the remnants of the old blog, I have decided to move on to a new space to journal.

At this new blog space, I intend to do mostly what I set out to do in the old site, but without pressuring myself to write articles by certain dates. This will be a much more leisurely and relaxed undertaking than in the past, so hopefully you do not expect me to write within specified dates. As usual, I will have plenty to say about things in the sports world that are of particular interest to me, but I also might use this space to show you some other things that have also sparked my interest. Post lengths will definitely vary, as well as the amount of research and time I will put into posts.

Hope I have fully informed you what's happening right now and what to expect from this blog. I hope I can keep your interest here very high! 'Til we meet again, peace out.

-E