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.