Another 14 K's, no runs in 7 IP. There's very little separating them, although I still feel that Verlander is the sentimental favourite of the voters (i.e. we owe him for past years when he could have/should have won).
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, 25 September 2019 08:38 (four years ago) link
it's going to be a close one though right now i think Verlander has the edge. He's way ahead in bWAR, and a bit behind in fWAR.
both of them have one more start, and considering how well both have pitched over the past month it might only wind up making the choice more difficult for anyone who's on the fence.
if it stays as it is, it'll be Verlander/Cole/Bieber/Morton/and....idk, Rodriguez or Giolito? In that order.
i think DeGrom wins it in the NL, and i suspect the voting will be something like DeGrom/Scherzer/Ryu/Strasburg/Flaherty in that order.
Greinke is the forgotten man in the Cy voting due to league splitting, but he might wind up w/18 wins and impressive stats all around. He gets the honorable mention plus the extra HOF bonafides.
― omar little, Wednesday, 25 September 2019 17:50 (four years ago) link
the Mike Minor arguments are kinda interesting but i don't entirely buy them.
― omar little, Wednesday, 25 September 2019 17:52 (four years ago) link
cole has more strikeouts, fewer homers allowed and a significantly better FIP/xFIP
verlander has more innings and better WHIP. verlander also has (among qualifiers) the highest LOB% (88.5) and far and away the lowest BABIP (.218 -- next-lowest is samardzija at .238; cole's is .277)
i think that explains why cole leads in fWAR -- verlander seems to have been luckier -- but i don't really understand why verlander is so far ahead in bWAR when their outcomes are so similar
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 25 September 2019 18:50 (four years ago) link
verlander's BABIP, for a season, is the 11th-lowest ever for a qualified pitcher
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 25 September 2019 18:57 (four years ago) link
regarding the BABIP thing, a full 25% of the hits he’s allowed have been home runs. idk how that measures historically, but it seems absurd, and certainly could give the false impression that he’s gotten lucky
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 25 September 2019 22:04 (four years ago) link
They seem so close across the board. One edge to Verlander is that Cole's given up seven unearned runs, Verlander only two. I doubt these guys get pulled mid-inning very often, but how many bequeathed runs have they been charged with?
― clemenza, Wednesday, 25 September 2019 22:16 (four years ago) link
a full 25% of the hits he’s allowed have been home runs
that is pretty crazy, but his HR/FB is, at 15.5%, roughly average (and actually lower than cole's 17.3%). if he induced more grounders or strikeouts -- something more in his control than BABIP -- he'd have given up fewer homers. i think the 25% is because he should theoretically have allowed more base hits rather than that he theoretically should have yielded fewer homers
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 25 September 2019 23:16 (four years ago) link
anyway, while i like JV, i'm rooting for cole because it makes the pirates look even worse. and fuck them
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 25 September 2019 23:19 (four years ago) link
JdG seems to have locked it down tonight
― omar little, Thursday, 26 September 2019 02:29 (four years ago) link
Not even close anymore. In the space of 3-4 weeks, it's gone from a coin flip to deGrom winning near-unanimously. Scherzer still leads in a couple of categories--FIP and K/BB--otherwise, it's hard to make a credible case for him.
― clemenza, Thursday, 26 September 2019 16:25 (four years ago) link
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jacob-degroms-remarkable-run/
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, 27 September 2019 15:23 (four years ago) link
If deGrom adds a third Cy Young to the one he'll win this year, I think he's a definite HOF candidate. As I mentioned above, I think that 10-15 years down the road, the criteria for starters will have continued to evolve to a point that looks very different from what we're used to. Without even getting into newer stats, If deGrom has three Cy Youngs, ~150 wins, and a very low lifetime ERA, I think that'll make for a good case. There a few two-time winners not in the Hall, but everyone with three or more is in. I don't think voters will really hold a late start against him, not if he continues to pitch really well into his mid-late '30s, and a low win total because he never got any run support won't mean anything. There might be a possible comparison to Santana, but, "narrative"-wise, I think a career that's basically over at 31 is a bigger obstacle to overcome than a late start and excellence in your 30s.
And who knows? He might win four Cy Youngs.
― clemenza, Friday, 27 September 2019 17:47 (four years ago) link
It all depends on ligaments and hips.
Four Cy Youngs might never happen again!
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 27 September 2019 17:58 (four years ago) link
My questions for the NL CY is if Strasburg and Corbin are going to get votes, what a trio. Wouldn’t want to face them in the post-season.
― Van Horn Street, Friday, 27 September 2019 18:00 (four years ago) link
Strasburg is def gonna get a decent number of votes. Beginning to wonder if he may rise up to #2 in the end, due to having a very excellent season along w/recency bias in terms of his past month (vs the performances of Scherzer and Ryu).
― omar little, Friday, 27 September 2019 18:05 (four years ago) link
strasburg leads the majors in baseball prospectus WARP
― mookieproof, Friday, 27 September 2019 18:10 (four years ago) link
But that's one area where usage patterns don't matter at all--there's got to be a Cy Young winner every year.
I was wondering, though--as starters pitch fewer and fewer innings, will closers again become more of a factor in Cy voting? If the main argument that sent them into exile is they pitch so many fewer innings than starters--certainly true when the gap was, say 250+ innings to 70--will the same argument hold if it's 170 innings vs. 70 high-leverage innings?
― clemenza, Friday, 27 September 2019 19:03 (four years ago) link
Semien MVP?
― timellison, Saturday, 28 September 2019 21:16 (four years ago) link
I've been saying all through this thread that Trout has it clinched, but a couple of days ago Posnanski said he's sure that Bregman will win. The main point of the piece was that, while Trout has lost three or four MVP votes he could've/should've won, he's at least lost every time to an MVP-caliber season--no Morneaus or Dawsons in there. He thinks Bregman will continue that pattern.
― clemenza, Saturday, 28 September 2019 23:01 (four years ago) link
Verlander did almost everything he needed to do to clinch--300th/3000th strikeout, win, 12 K and no walks--but, what else, two of the four hits he gave up were HR, so he got dinged for three runs. I honestly think there's an opening for Cole to take it tomorrow if he throws up another 90+ Game Score-type start.
― clemenza, Sunday, 29 September 2019 05:04 (four years ago) link
soon enough -- maybe not today; maybe not tomorrow -- we're gonna look back and wonder why trout didn't win like seven MVPs
― mookieproof, Sunday, 29 September 2019 05:54 (four years ago) link
not playing full seasons is going to be the story. bergman is a deserving winner this year
― k3vin k., Sunday, 29 September 2019 13:59 (four years ago) link
bregman
― k3vin k., Sunday, 29 September 2019 14:00 (four years ago) link
If Trout supplied more value in less time (not clear), it makes no sense to penalize him.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 29 September 2019 14:10 (four years ago) link
Catch-22: Houston's piling on runs today and Cole's pitching well, but in terms of what he needs to have a chance at the Cy, the extra runs may hurt more than help. He'll get the win, but I figure he needs eight dominant innings, and he'll probably be pulled after six.
― clemenza, Sunday, 29 September 2019 20:37 (four years ago) link
cole with 10+ strikeouts in mlb-record ninth straight outing
― mookieproof, Sunday, 29 September 2019 21:41 (four years ago) link
bregman: 8.4 bWARtrout: 8.3semien: 8.1
― mookieproof, Monday, 30 September 2019 14:38 (four years ago) link
WAR's great for narrowing the field, but once you have, and it's that close--surely within the margin of error--I'd discard it and look at everything else.
― clemenza, Monday, 30 September 2019 15:08 (four years ago) link
I would still pick Trout for MVP, despite the missed time.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 30 September 2019 15:51 (four years ago) link
and look at everything else
Including ballpark factors wrt Semien/Oakland Coliseum!
― timellison, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 00:28 (four years ago) link
park factors are in WAR, right?
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 00:47 (four years ago) link
That's what I meant--WAR has taken park, position, etc. and determined that these three guys essentially provide equal value. So you look elsewhere in deciding your vote, things that aren't factored into WAR. I know I don't get a lot of agreement here, but in a close vote, I'd want to weigh when the player was at his best against, for instance, when the team took hold of a pennant race. Rendon was fantastic when the Nationals surged in August or whenever it was; I know Bellinger will likely win, but I think there's an argument to be made for Rendon. (And stepping into the breach after Harper's departure, that counts in my mind too.) In the AL, the fact that Bregman overtook Trout when Trout was hurt (and playing for a team going nowhere anyway), while Bregman's team had long since more or less clinched their division, that's an argument for Trout.
I know it drives some people up the wall when I post about such stuff. But I don't think that's any more specious than deciding player A deserves the award over player B because player A had a 0.3 edge in WAR (while player B might have had the edge in someone else's WAR calculation).
― clemenza, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 00:59 (four years ago) link
Interesting fact re. Semien - led the team in RBI as their leadoff hitter
― timellison, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 05:00 (four years ago) link
clem, I don't think that's unreasonable, but to me breaking down by parts of the season gets a little too arbitrary -- all the games count. I am more ok with rewarding a player for playing on a better team actually, for the reason that more of their games were meaningful. but as you say, they provided equal value and you have to pick your tiebreakers somehow, and they're all imperfect
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 1 October 2019 13:16 (four years ago) link
i think Trout wins, it's similar to clem's Verlander/Cole argument that Bregman didn't necessarily do anything absurd to set himself apart from Trout. I think it'll be somewhat close, though maybe he suffers from being on the same team as a couple of HOF starting pitchers and a guy who seems on the road to being one, not to mention some other MVP-caliber batters.
I think Verlander edges out Cole but it'll be maybe even closer than the MVP race.
DeGrom and Bellinger seem like total locks in the NL.
― omar little, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 16:30 (four years ago) link
is Bellinger really that amazing a fielder to boost his WAR so much? Yelich has Cody (and the rest of the NL) handily beat in AVG, OBP, SLG and OPS+, way more SB and only trails him by 3 home runs. this would look like an easy choice for Yelich, until you hit WAR.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 16:55 (four years ago) link
I saw him make a helluva throw/assist vs Mets.
I think you may be forgetting that Dodger Stadium is a "pitcher's park" (still, I think).
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 16:58 (four years ago) link
This is very hard for me to type, because I know it is a controversial metric that will get a lot of blowback on here, but the ILB Fantasy League rates Yellich's 2019 > Bellinger's.
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 16:58 (four years ago) link
For direct comparison between player seasons, raw counting stats (and basic rate stats) aren't helpful. Gotta keep those Rockies hitters away from the hardware.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 17:00 (four years ago) link
I didn’t realize how big the bref war gap was between Yelich and Bellinger.
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 17:06 (four years ago) link
ah - park factor was something i hadn't considered. tho, doesn't OPS+ account fo that, or am I mistaken?
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 17:07 (four years ago) link
It does.
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 17:09 (four years ago) link
High school counsellor voice*
There are no wrong answers
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 17:11 (four years ago) link
... or they are *all* wrong!
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 17:14 (four years ago) link
my calculations find that greg garcia is once again the MLB leader in WAR, once adjusting for team-playerness and grit
― It is my great honor to post on this messageboard! (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 17:17 (four years ago) link
some discussion here of defense in comparing trout and bregman (none of it definitive, of course)
(Given how well we can measure defense, Mike Trout’s 0.1 WAR lead over Alex Bregman is not large enough to be the foundation of an argument to give Trout the MVP over Bregman.)— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) October 1, 2019
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 17:17 (four years ago) link
I **love** how Eno confuses "well" with "poorly" in his first tweet.
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 17:34 (four years ago) link
Top NL outfielders by defensive Win Shares:
Victor Robles - 4.9Lorenzo Cain - 4.3Cody Bellinger - 4.3Harrison Bader - 4.0Kike Hernandez - 4.0Kevin Pillar - 3.9Ronald Acuna - 3.8Harold Ramirez - 3.7
Yelich is 2.4. You have to divide Win Shares by three, so the difference between Bellinger and Yelich (1.6) is basically a half Win Share.
― timellison, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 18:43 (four years ago) link
Strike Hernandez from that - he earned a lot of his playing second base this year
― timellison, Tuesday, 1 October 2019 18:44 (four years ago) link