With a month to go, who are this year’s Cy Youngs and MVPs?

It’s been awhile since I took a look at who Oliver projected to win the big year-end awards, so I figured I’d check-in with some numbers. Last time, we saw Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera winning their leagues’ MVP awards with Roy Halladay and Shaun Marcum as the Cy Youngs. Needless to say, three months later things have changed.

To be clear, I am using Oliver’s projected end-of-season numbers as of today (August 30), and plugging them into my MVP and Cy Young model, as described in The Hardball Times Annual 2010. Listed below are each player’s triple-crown stats and his projected points on a 1,000 point scale, as per the model. Remember that the model is exponential, meaning that small differences can sometimes be magnified, as they often are in actual award voting.

AL MVP
Josh Hamilton | .348 | 36 | 112 | 621
Miguel Cabrera | .338 | 41 | 132 | 377
Robinson Cano | .317 | 29 | 106 | 202

In the American League, Josh Hamilton looks like the clear leader as we enter September. It’s incredible how great an effect making the postseason has on MVP voting—if we projected the Tigers to come back and make the playoffs, Cabrera would easily be in the lead with 927 points.

NL MVP
Joey Votto | .320 | 38 | 114 | 320
Albert Pujols | .320 | 42 | 117 | 228
Adrian Gonzalez | .296 | 33 | 106 | 117

Here again it is the playoffs which make all the difference. Votto and Pujols have just about the same exact projections, and yet Votto is comfortably ahead because we expect the Reds to make the playoffs, while the Cardinals miss the postseason. Another point working in Votto’s favor is that the writers are probably itching to give the MVP to anyone but Pujols after voting for him each of the past two years.

AL Cy Young
CC Sabathia | 20-6 | 3.16 | 194 | 312
David Price | 17-7 | 3.10 | 184 | 109
Clay Buchholz | 16-6 | 2.51 | 128 | 103

The American League has not had any great pitching performances this year, so a 20-win season from Sabathia should easily clinch the Cy Young.

NL Cy Young
Roy Halladay | 19-10 | 2.33 | 222 | 574
Adam Wainwright | 20-10 | 2.41 | 212 | 471
Ubaldo Jimenez | 20-6 | 2.80 | 197 | 468

Halladay may not win 30 games this season, or even 20, but he’s still put together a pretty incredible year, and should win on the strength of all his quality innings. Wainwright has been almost as good, but might have to settle for another top-three finish for the second straight year. Meanwhile, Ubaldo Jimenez has slowed down quite a bit in the second half, and now looks like a clearly inferior candidate. For those wondering Josh Johnson is, he gets hurt by his projected 13-6 year-end record and 0 year-to-date shutouts (Oliver doesn’t project shutouts so I just used year-to-date numbers). He has just 83 Cy Young points as it stands.


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Jacen
13 years ago

Timmy Hudson gets no love…24/27 quality starts just doesn’t cut it. 

It’s cool though; the other guys’ teams are all in first place in their divisions…

David Gassko
13 years ago

Hudson is actually fourth with 275 points. The model is based on how writers vote for these awards; when it comes to the Cy Young, the writers (rightfully) don’t care about the pitcher’s team’s performance, only the pitcher himself.

Chris
13 years ago

I don’t think it’s true that the writers don’t care about a pitcher’s team’s performance – Wins are highly dependent on team (offense & bullpen) and are quite often the deciding factor…

David Gassko
13 years ago

Yes, writers do care about wins (and losses) and that’s included in the model. What I meant is that writers don’t care about whether or not a pitcher’s team makes the playoffs when voting for the Cy Young (though it does matter when voting for the MVP).

MikeS
13 years ago

David, you say the writers should give the Cy Young to the best pitcher and you also say that the writers take team performance into account for the MVP. Do you think they should? Personally, I agree with the writers. I think there may be a difference between the “best” player – whether measured by WAR, wOBA or whatever – and the one “most valuable” to his team.