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November 16, 2010

Predicting the Cy Young and MVP winners

In The Hardball Times Annual 2009, I built a model for predicting the winners of the MVP and Cy Young Awards. My model(s) have historically done pretty well (note: in-sample testing), getting the winner right around two-thirds of the time (a little worse for the MVP and a little better for the Cy Young). Last year, the model was two-for-four, correctly guessing the MVPs but whiffing on both Cy Youngs. I figured I would take a look at what the model is thinking this year before the awards actually get handed out.

(Note that the model hands out MVP and Cy Young points on a 1,000 point scale, with 1,000 points indicating a player who should win unanimously. Also, please remember that it is exponential, so small differences can get magnified at the high-end, as they tend to be in awards voting.)

AL MVP
Josh Hamilton | .359 BA | 32 HR | 100 RBI | 434 MVP
Robinson Cano | .319 BA | 29 HR | 109 RBI | 237 MVP
Miguel Cabrera | .328 BA | 38 HR | 126 RBI | 201 MVP

Hamilton looks like the clear favorite in the American League. Cabrera would have been slightly favored had the Tigers made the playoffs, but without that he has little chance.

NL MVP
Joey Votto | .324 BA | 37 HR | 113 RBI | 322 MVP
Roy Halladay | 21-10 W/L | 2.44 ERA | 250.2 IP | 299 MVP
Albert Pujols | .312 BA | 42 HR | 118 RBI | 204 MVP

If the Cardinals had made the playoffs, Pujols would be the hands-down favorite for a third-straight MVP. Instead, it looks like Votto will take the prize this season, though the model also really likes Halladay. I don't think the voters will see it as quite such a close race.

AL Cy Young
CC Sabathia | 21-7 W/L | 3.18 ERA | 237.2 IP | 357 Cy Young
David Price | 19-6 W/L | 2.72 ERA | 208.2 IP | 292 Cy Young
Jon Lester | 19-9 W/L | 3.25 ERA | 208.0 IP | 127 Cy Young

If Felix Hernandez wins the Cy Young Award this season that will be a strong sign that the Cy Young model needs to be re-calibrated for a new, more intelligent era of voting. Last season, it whiffed on both Cy Youngs, thinking voters wouldn't pick a 15 and 16-game winner when there were candidates with 19 wins and good numbers to choose from as well. In the past, this race would definitely have gone for Sabathia, but I'm not so sure that will happen this time around.

NL Cy Young
Roy Halladay | 21-10 W/L | 2.44 ERA | 250.2 IP | 982 Cy Young
Adam Wainwright | 20-11 W/L | 2.42 ERA | 230.1 IP | 384 Cy Young
Ubaldo Jimenez | 19-8 W/L | 2.88 ERA | 221.2 IP | 287 Cy Young

Halladay is the only player to completely run away with one of the awards, as far as the model sees it. From start to finish, he had a truly fantastic season in 2010.
Posted by: David Gassko

September 30, 2010

Justin Verlander: Pitching on the edge of Cy Young

Last night in Cleveland, Justin Verlander made his final start of 2010. His stuff was outstanding and he located his big curveball for called strikes. He gave up seven hits and ended up allowing four runs in seven innings, but there was something else.

Verlander did something in that game that was as impressive as anything I've seen this year, a year that's been full of excellent pitching. After getting the first out of the seventh inning, he loaded the bases with two singles and a walk. He then faced Cleveland left-handed hitters Trevor Crowe and Shin-Soo Choo. He knew this was going to be his last inning of the year, and he struck out both of them, on his last eight pitches of a game total of 121. Seven of those last eight pitches were fastballs ranging from 99 to 102 mph.

The impressive performance capped off another terrific season, and while he will not win the Cy Young Award this year, he's probably closer than many think.

His ERA (3.37) is good enough to rank among the top 10 best starters in the American League. However, it is about a full run higher than that of 2010 leaders Felix Hernandez (2.27) and Clay Buchholz (2.33). He's among league leaders in wins, but so are CC Sabathia, Phil Hughess, David Price and Jon Lester. He ranks highly in WHIP (1.16), but not as high as Hernandez and Weaver. He is topping 200 strikeouts for the second straight season, but Weaver, Hernandez and Lester should all finish ahead of him.

While he clearly has posted another great year, most measures Cy Young voters will likely use put the Detroit Tigers pitcher just outside of serious consideration.

On the other hand, a couple of advanced metrics actually rate Verlander as not just lurking on the outer edge of the league's best pitchers for 2010, but rather right in the middle of them.

Verlander's Fielder Independent Pitching is 2.98. FIP is a metric designed to focus more on what a pitcher actually controls. In other words, batted balls and defense are taken out of the equation. Verlander's FIP is very competitive with the mainstream Cy Young candidates this season. In fact, he's as good as anyone beside Cliff Lee and Francisco Liriano. The latter has also had a season that, while terrific, has been slightly under the radar as far as Cy Young talk goes.

Verlander also compares favorably to Lee, Liriano and Hernandez in Fangraphs' Wins Above Replacement.

Verlander's getting a lot of love in some of the advanced metrics, like FIP, because he's keeping a few extra fly balls in the park this year. Some of that may be attributed to luck, as his 5.6 percent HR/FB rate is a little below his career average, which is also a little below league average, by the way. But, while he may have had some additional flies stay in the park and help his numbers, his 41 percent groundball rate is up five points from last year, so I'll give him a little credit for posting such a strong number.

His difference in ERA this year, most notably from contemporaries like Buchholtz and Hernandez (while besting them both in FIP), may just mean those guys have a little better defense behind them or that a few extra balls have fallen in the gaps on Justin.

About a month ago, Verlander says he finally got a good feel for his curveball. His results in September have shown what a difference getting a feel for his curve makes, as he's struck out 51 batters and allowed only six walks in September.

Fangraphs shows that Verlander has also started replacing some of his fastballs with sliders this year. He started working that fourth pitch in last season, perhaps at the expense of his change-up, throwing it 2.3 percent of the time. That number is up to 7.0% this year and is quickly becoming yet another reliable option to keep batters off balance. I first read about Verlander toying with this fourth pitch here last season, and I think that author's suspicion about the Tiger ace adding a fourth pitch is certainly confirmed now that Verlander is liking the slider enough to use it in place of his dominant fastball more often.

Verlander has followed up his amazing 2009 season in fine manner, and while his strong finish this year has him just outside Cy Young discussion, his past two seasons mean he should seriously contend in 2011. Had Zack Greinke not been so otherworldly last year, Verlander may have already earned the award. In fact, Verlander's 2009 looks like it could have been even better if a few things had gone his way. For some reason he held batters to only a 36 percent GB/FB rate, a number quite a bit lower than his 41.4 percent career average going into last year. He struck out 269 batters in 240 innings. His WAR ranked just behind Greinke.

Now, Verlander wasn't ignored last year: He finished third in voting. Had he repeated his 2009 K rate this year, he may have forced his way into the debate instead of relying on me to build a haphazard case for him.

Justin Verlander has pitched well enough to be in the discussion for 2010 Cy Young consideration. He's been just shy of Lee and Hernandez in WAR this season, but has outperformed Buchholz, Price and Sabathia by a good margin. Another year of durability and success under his belt and the addition of a reliable fourth pitch may take him from Cy Young also-ran to Cy Young winner soon.
Posted by: David Wade

June 01, 2010

Two months in, who are the Cy Young and MVP contenders?

One of my favorite things to do with THT Forecasts is to look at how projected end-of-the-year leaders change as real numbers begin to pile up, and projections both evolve and start to play a smaller role. Two months into the season, I thought it would be fun to look at which players are on-pace to capture the MVP and Cy Young awards, using the model I developed in The Hardball Times Annual last year.
Click for more...

Posted by: David Gassko

November 23, 2009

Greinke and fly balls

In God we trust. All others bring data. -W. Edwards Deming

Along with Zack Greinke's 2009 American League Cy Young Award came a widely-circulated article by Tyler Kepner in the New York Times. In the article, Brian Bannister is quoted, "So a lot of times, Zack would pitch for a fly ball at our park instead of a ground ball, just because the zone rating was better in our outfield and it was a big park."

There's quite a bit to digest in Kepner's article besides that one excerpt from Bannister, but it was one piece that I thought would be easy to check. What did I find?

           Road    Home
Bunt         5%      2%
Fly         30%     33%
Ground      36%     41%
Liner       21%     16%
Popup        8%      8%

The batted ball type comes from the MLB Gameday data. The results don't really line up with what Bannister what saying. It may be that Greinke was pitching for more fly balls at home but not necessarily getting them, but that's a question for another day.

Update: Here's the batted ball log by game.

 Date   Park   Fly  Ground  LD   Pop   Bunt
   4/8  cha      0     8     2     1     1
  4/13  kca      3     4     5     0     0
  4/18  tex      6     9     7     1     1
  4/24  kca      4     9     3     1     2
  4/29  kca      9     6     2     1     0
   5/4  kca      7     8     2     4     0
   5/9  ana     10     9     2     0     2
  5/15  kca      8     7     5     1     0
  5/21  kca      5     8     2     1     1
  5/26  kca      3    13     3     3     0
  5/31  kca      7    11     2     1     0
   6/5  tor     11     3     6     2     0
  6/11  cle      3     8     5     2     3
  6/17  kca     11     7     1     0     1
  6/23  hou      6    14     3     0     3
  6/28  pit      4     4     8     4     1
   7/3  kca      5     9     3     2     0
   7/8  det      7     6     2     0     1
  7/14  sln      0     0     0     1     0
  7/18  kca      4    11     2     3     0
  7/24  kca      3    10     1     1     0
  7/29  bal      6     3     4     3     0
   8/3  tba      1     8     4     0     2
   8/8  kca      6     8     5     3     0
  8/14  det      6     4     5     3     0
  8/19  cha      7     5     4     3     0
  8/25  kca      7     4     1     1     0
  8/30  sea      9     9     2     3     0
   9/5  kca      9     4     8     1     1
  9/11  cle      6     9     2     1     0
  9/17  det      1     3     5     0     0
  9/22  kca      8     3     2     2     0
  9/27  kca      6     8     5     0     0
  10/3  min      7     7     3     0     1

Posted by: Mike Fast

October 06, 2009

Your vote for the AL Cy Young

At the end of my article on Friday discussing the five contenders for the AL Cy Young Award, we ran a poll asking for your vote. With a good response - we had 775 votes - we can safely call this one a landslide:



The huge margin for Zack Greinke meant I had to combine third through fifth place finishers to make the pie chart legible. So for simplicity sake, here is a list of the final percentages of all the candidates:

Greinke - 85%
Hernandez - 6%
Halladay - 4%
Verlander - 3%
Sabathia - 1%
Other - < 1%

Something tells me if we did another poll where we asked who should finish second in the Cy Young balloting, those results would be much closer.

Thanks to everyone who cast their vote.
Posted by: Craig Brown


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