Stay Healthy, Please: The Clayton Kershaw Thread

So that was Kershaw's second-worst outing of the year, maybe?

I was going to say that, after that back-and-forth from a couple of days ago, he of course goes out today and picks up his first unimpressive win of the year--first time where run support clearly made a difference. It's like he's mocking my most excellent research.

his 20th win in his 26th start. ridic.

uhhh Kershaw just destroyed the wins theory today, even clemenza noticed.

cheap wins are a thing, tough losses are a thing (Braves starters demonstrating the hell out of that this year), everybody drop your guns or the kid gets it

it doesn't prove his mastery of all creation, but it *is* both rare and ridiculous

In the end isn't every number just made up anyway, makes u think

Yesterday didn't destroy didn't destroy the wins theory. There was no theory in the first place, just the idea that Kershaw's 19-3 record, in this specific instance, did not exaggerate his excellence. Today, Kershaw's 20-3 record does not exaggerate his excellence.

on his triple he looked like a horse galloping out of a burning barn

We all know W-L records can be misleading, but when people quote run support, do they account for the fact that that can be misleading too? Nine runs were scored for Kershaw while he was the pitcher of record last night, so his average run support will be adjusted accordingly. What that doesn't tell you is that a) seven of those runs were superfluous, and b) the game was still 1-1 going into the bottom of the sixth.

SweetSpot's David Schoenfield, who I think is very good and fairly mainstream: "Let's not make the MVP debate more complicated than it needs to be: Clayton Kershaw is the best, and most valuable, player in the National League. There shouldn't really need to be a debate."

I wouldn't go that far--there's a debate there; LuCroy's been great, Stanton was right there until the injury (perhaps leading), there's McCutchen and Rendon--but I do agree with the middle part of that quote.

McCutchen will def be the focus of the "not enough innings" crowd now, but meh who cares

In those narrative factors ILB hates--that was the first word I learned on ILB: "narrative"--I'd say McCutchen benefits from the admirable-superstar factor, and is hurt by the won-one-already factor. So a wash.

unless he gets 3 hits a day in the remaining games and the Bucs win the Central

i think it's mostly kershaw vs giancarlo now, tho both seem way too unconventional to be frontrunners

what's unconventional about Stanton?

Stanton is almost a too-trad candidate, but i think the writers don't want to be perceived as giving him any sort of pity vote, and at 24 they think he can improve on 37hr 105rbi when he's with the Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers.

now can we bail on awards and anticipate Kershaw's LDS start?

as it stands it'll probably be Kershaw vs Wainwright.

Um...he'll pitch well? There's so much more room to wander around when it comes to award talk.

By the way, if McCutchen did come up with 12 more hits--he's the only guy left who's candidacy isn't frozen--and the Pirates caught the Cards, I think you'd have a very close vote, and I'm not sure who'd win.

stanton is super-unconventional. incomplete season on a losing team. after the trout/cabrera war of 2012 in which the losing team argument was used 50 million times, passionately, you'd think they wouldn't just let a guy slip in unless it's a season for the ages. he's missing less time than kershaw but missing it at the end is a lot more noticeable than missing it at the beginning.

er, 2012 wasn't a losing team argument but literally a losing out on the playoffs argument, jfc

I really don't get the playoff contention argument yeah. Also, Stanton missed (almost) as many games as McCutchen and Rendon, Lucroy is a catcher, and when it comes to WAR they all had similar numbers. What an odd season in that regard.

yeah, i thought stanton missed more than he had.

but if they aren't willing to vote for mike trout's amazing 2012 because the angels had only 89 wins, it'd be a bit surprising if stanton got in with a less impressive year on a team that didn't even get to .500. it's silly. of course the playoffs thing was mostly just an excuse in 2012 but still. i've already heard the argument that stanton deserves it because the marlins were "closer to contending than anyone thought" which, rmde. poor, poor trout, my heart weeps for thee etc

kershaw had a season for the ages but it seems equally unconventional voting for a pitcher who missed 6 starts. maybe the most unconventional win since eck? still rooting for him but it wouldn't surprise me if cutch sneaks in for tradition's sake.

btw kershaw has 0.4/0.5 batting fWAR/rWAR which everyone always forgets about

watching a video of Bumgarner two grand slams*

wait was that you said?

He has a 3.72 ERA in 17 starts vs people wearing Cardinal laundry

First time ever a guy's given up seven runs in back-to-back post-season starts. He has out-Joaquined Joaquin.

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/52236/that-happened-eight-runs-off-kershaw

Talk about a faulty memory; I knew Andujar didn't start game 7 of the '85 Series, but amazingly, he only pitched to two batters:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA198510270.shtml

I think many people, like me, associate that meltdown with Andujar. I guess what we're remembering is the way he flipped out.

Russell Carleton: The Cardinals Do Not Own Clayton Kershaw

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=24798

IIRC, in G6 of the NLCS last year there were a lot of soft hits and balls that fell just in front of the outfielders. The comeback on Friday wasn't luck -- he made bad pitches and the Cards were ringing line drives all over the place.

wouldn't argue with that, but it was, as they say, just one start.

healthy!

https://twitter.com/charliewiddoes/status/530475272249044992

are those cookies? if so you earned em buddy, we still luh you

Ah, Facebook...Koufax vs. Kershaw thread on a discussion group, and it's essentially me on one side(about equal during the regular season, obvious edge to Koufax in the postseason) and 20 other people who believe that it's not even close because 1) Koufax never needed to hand it over to a closer (ignoring that that's simply the way the game was structured then), 2) Kershaw's postseason troubles reveal some deep flaw within him (ignoring that we're basically talking about two bad innings), and 3) Kershaw has to do it for another four or five seasons before the question's even worth addressing (ignoring that Kershaw's great run is almost as long as Koufax's right now). Maddening.

ah, clemenza

Best FIP, Pitchers Age 21 to 26 seasons, minimum 1000 IP, 1950 - present:

Tom Seaver: 2.58
Clayton Kershaw 2.61
Sam McDowell 2.62
Bert Blyleven 2.68
Roger Clemens 2.79

so yeah, he's doing pretty well so far!

Of the top 30, I count 11 in the HOF; add Clemens, that would be 12. Kershaw will probably make 13 down the road (except the list will be different then). Anyway, fewer than half. I bet a comparable position player list based on WAR or OPS+ or whatever, at least two-thirds would be in or going into the Hall of Fame.

Pitchers seem to be fragile.

McDowell's stats between 1965 and and 1970 are rather nuts. Going from 8.2 FWAR to 2.7 to 7.2 again.

Drinking man.

(Something I didn't know, if true. According to Wikipedia, "The character of Sam Malone, the alcoholic ex-Red Sox pitcher portrayed by Emmy Award winning actor Ted Danson in the television program Cheers, was based on the baseball life of McDowell.")

It's Kershaw Day at BP; there are about ten free articles to read. Zachary Levine:

Kershaw is, according to the PECOTA projections, supposed to be the best pitcher in baseball this year. This is hardly a surprise. He was the best pitcher in baseball last year. By ERA+, he’s also been the best pitcher in baseball over the last two years, the last three years, the last four years, the last five years, the last six years, the last seven years, and with enough innings to qualify, the seven-year veteran has been the best pitcher in baseball over the last eight years.

The projection is something pretty familiar for Kershaw: A 2.23 ERA, 237 strikeouts in 224 innings, a 19-9 win-loss record—numbers that would give him another Cy Young Award should he be in the running against pretty much anybody other than 2014 Kershaw. The 5.8 WARP would fit right in within 0.3 wins of each of his three best seasons and a small regression from last year’s performance.

We know, though, that this is just a single line reading of what’s really a (multidimensional) continuum of possible outcomes. Specifically, it’s the median. He’s 50-50 to be above this point in each of the metrics, and he’s 50-50 to be below.

Whereas the median projection looks downright mundane given what we’re used to from Kershaw, it was the tail—and not even the extreme tail—that stood out. Kershaw’s 90th percentile projection is almost unfathomable. The raws benefit from Dodger Stadium and for it always taking a while to adjust our eyes to the light of a new run-scoring environment, but the adjusted stats tell you it isn’t just your eyes. A 1.46 ERA, the lowest since Bob Gibson in 1968 and the second-lowest of the live-ball era. An 8.8 WARP, behind only 1999 Pedro Martinez as far as seasons in the WARP time (1950-present).

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25736

the craziest thing to me about kershaw is he came up with two pitches - a sick fastball and a hammer curve.. the curve had so much movement sometimes the umps weren't calling it a strike, so he responds by developing a slider that has become one of the best in the game.. if he can perfect his change that he only throws like 5 times a game he can stretch his career out forever.

Very comparable to Seaver through 1971 (his greatest all-around year, though not as famous as '69)--one inning apart, for starters:

Seaver: 95-54, 1379.1 IP, 7.1 H/9, 1.045 WHIP, 3.28 K/BB, 2.34 ERA, 149 ERA+, 35.9 WAR

Kershaw: 98-49, 1378.1 IP, 6.8 H/9, 1.059 WHIP, 3.41 K/BB, 2.48 ERA, 151 ERA+, 39.7 WAR

Both in pitcher-friendly parks (Dodger Stadium more so, I think), both in pitcher-friendly eras (Seaver's definitely more so, although 1970 was a big hitter's year), both 26.

I got wanting to look at some video to try to compare Steve Carlton and Clayton Kershaw's pitching. Haven't found a comparible Kershaw montage, but man check out the movement on some of Lefty's pitches in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iHFkgs1zx8

liner off the face; just a little dental work.

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/story/_/id/12530522/clayton-kershaw-los-angeles-dodgers-gets-extra-dental-work-being-hit-face-line-drive

James had a long piece a few months ago about ranking starting pitchers; his site now ranks all the current starters and updates the rankings daily. Kershaw started the year with a sizeable lead, but Scherzer and/or Felix may pass him within a start or two. (Not saying I agree with this--I'm inclined to question any system that has R.A. Dickey in the Top 20.)

http://www.billjamesonline.com/polls_ratings/starting_pitcher_rankings/

It's based on game scores, and it's all explained here:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/the_worlds_1_starting_pitcher/

that's interesting, i'll have to check in on it occasionally. as you'd expect, it incorporates a lot of past performance into the score, so strasburg is still top 25 even though he's been awful so far this season, and wainwright is at 12 even though he's already been out for a while and won't be back til next year.