2019 Awards Thread

Ryu seems to be locking down the Cy Young Award, after today he's 12-2 with an ERA of 1.46 -- though he's 9-0 and 0.82 at home.

Washington has 46 games left, and Scherzer's throwing a simulated game Tuesday. Which means, what? Deduct another 10 games and he's got 7 or 8 starts left? He'll probably end up ahead in WAR, but still tough if Ryu posts a sub-2.00 ERA with 16 or 17 wins.

I mean, I know wins don't matter anymore, but except in extreme cases like deGrom last year--where the low-win guy is clearly and demonstrably the best pitcher in the league--I sense they still count for a little? I don't know--it evolves with each situation.

I’m totally still in the camp that Scherzer is capable of winning and Ryu can of course go on a bad streak that would wreck his numbers. But w/Scherzer still out and that Madduxy ERA I think the voters are obv gonna need some reasons to not give it to Ryu.

Ryu has only 8 IP more than Scherzer even with the missed time.

NL rookie race should be interesting between alonso, tatis and soroka

gonna be tough for ppl to look past all of alonso's homers (especially if he ends up leading the league)

Normally--not this year--Bryan Reynolds would have a shot. (The only reason I'm even aware of him is because I clicked on Bo Bichette's draft round this morning--same round as Alonso.) He's actually about even with Alonso in WAR.

If all four of those guys end up with 5.0+ WAR (all are presently on pace to do so), would that rank with the greatest rookie crops ever for one league? Have to believe that's relatively rare.

carson kelly and chris paddack and keston hiura have also been good

i guess yordan alvarez is gonna run away with the AL RoY despite not debuting until june 9

I guess Play Index could answer the question I posed above--four rookies over 5.0 WAR in one league--but I don't know how to do that.

Here's one round-up of the best rookie classes ever:

https://www.mlb.com/news/best-rookie-classes-in-mlb-since-1947-c295885062

They've got 2015 #1, both leagues. There were five guys over 4.0 that year in total, but only one, Kris Bryant, over 5.0.

Yordan Alvarez has tied Joe Dimaggio's record for most RBIs through a player's first 46 games (51 RBIs).

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) August 13, 2019

speaking of brian reynolds being overlooked/underrated, he has the fourth-highest OBP for the season so far after trout, yelich, and bellinger

#1 in batting everage

The NL Cy Young looks certain to be between three low-win guys, Scherzer, deGrom, and Ryu. (Strasberg is so manifestly behind them statistically, can't see much support in 2019--he may have a shot at 4th or 5th.) Wouldn't be surprised at all if deGrom wins a second one if he keeps pitching this well through September.

"Low-win guys" (15 or fewer, I'd say) is probably going to be the norm rather than the exception from here on out.

No one is really stepping up to claim that NL Cy right now, Scherzer is getting eased back into things slowly and Ryu has been bad of late. DeGrom could take it again but idk.

I’m rooting for Alvarez to win it with less than 81 games played.

JV and Cole had been very close statistically speaking for awhile but this coupled w/Cole’s last start puts him way out in front for the Cy.
― omar little, Sunday, September 1, 2019 3:44 PM (yesterday)

It'd be hard to make a case for Cole today, unless you place an inordinate amount of importance on FIP--Cole still leads by half of run because of Verlander's HR. But they're still close enough that one great start by Cole coupled with one really poor one by Verlander would probably be enough to reverse that.

VHS: Alvarez would be a terrible choice for NL Cy Young.

looking fwd to the oldschool freakouts if Mike Minor get any first-place votes

This came up on another thread. According to Baseball Reference, hitters get a 5% advantage in Texas, pitchers a 2% advantage in Houston. And on Fangraphs, the Astros rank 16th defensively, the Rangers 23rd. Having said that...

V: 2.56 ERA, 193 IP, 257 K, 177 ERA+, 3.42 FIP, 0.772 WHIP, 7.34 K/BB, 6.7 WAR
C: 2.85 ERA, 170 IP, 252 K, 159 ERA+, 2.93 FIP, 0.957 WHIP, 6.15 K/BB, 4.7 WAR
M: 3.25 ERA, 174 IP, 175 K, 158 ERA+, 3.95 FIP, 1.205 WHIP, 3.07 K/BB, 7.0 WAR

WAR on Fangraphs: Cole 5.3, Verlander 5.2, Minor 3.9.

Even with adjustments, I find the idea that Minor is the best of those three bizarre.

Sorry Clem, I was discussing the (lifeless) AL ROY.

Minor shutting out NYY thru 5

Cole has struck out 14 in six innings...which brings to him to 105 pitches, though; not sure what his limit is. He's probably out, one inning more at most.

Verlander pitches well yesterday and wins, Cole--through 7 innings--working on a one-hitter with 13 strikeouts today.

Verlander and Cole back-to-back is looking like some real Johnson-Schilling shit

Has anyone ever reached 300 Ks before they reached 200 IP? Cole has 281 strikeouts in 184.1 IP...

If I still had my baseball reference subscription I’d search for single seasons where a SP had a 13.5 K per 9 rate or higher. Alas...

you don't need a subscription (Cole's alone)

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/strikeouts_per_nine_season.shtml

actually Randy Johnson got to 300+ before he hit 200 IP in 2001 (the season he struck out 372 in 249.2 IP)

Pedro came close in '99 (313 K in 213.1 IP for the year), but looking at his game logs, I think he just missed. Ryan was never even close to a 100+ K/IP margin, so pretty sure no for him.

100 K/IP, now that would be a record

I know you're kidding...I should have rendered that as +100 IP-K.

Even better: +100 K-IP.

btw deGrom is clearly the Mets' MVP, and trails only Bellinger, Yelich and Marte among all NL players (due in part to his batting value).

Scherzer and Ryu are both taking themselves out of the running lately. I'm thinking DeGrom might repeat.

I'll have to compare tomorrow, but in the AL, I thought Verlander and Cole were close enough that one start by each could reorder them. And that's exactly what has happened--so-so start by Verlander yesterday, another dominant performance by Cole today. I think Cole might have overtaken him for the moment.

Cole has been so good lately, it does seem like he's finishing very strong and Verlander may just be finishing "well".

degrom's having another great season but i think this is scherzer's to lose

I think you're going to see two of the closest Cy votes ever (certainly in a single season).

Scrolled through, and I only found one year where both winners were under an 80% share of the vote: 1973. Palmer beat Ryan 88-62 (14 first-place votes to 9...Blyleven ahead in WAR by 2-3 wins; think I had an epic argument about that one once), Seaver beat Marshall 71-54 (10 first-place votes to 9...Seaver was ahead in WAR 10.6 to 3.0!). Anyway, both leagues should be even closer this year. With Verlander-Cole, they're so close you either flip a coin or delve into Game Scores and strength-of-opposition.

When Alvarez pulls the ball in the air, he bats .868 with a 2.421 slugging percentage.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/youre-probably-underrating-yordan-alvarez

I don't know who votes in these mlb.com polls, but they've got Verlander still way ahead of Cole.

https://www.mlb.com/news/cy-young-poll-close-between-degrom-scherzer

That doesn't seem right; they ought to be very close.

Verlander has that Pedro-like WHIP, plus the WAR lead. And the wins lead, if you wanna kick it old-school.

i think one more "decent" JV start coupled with another otherworldly Cole start, plus him hitting 300 ks, might nudge him out in front.

Great six innings from Verlander last night. We'll see how Cole responds--back and forth. They're definitely up with (though not equal to, I don't think) Johnson/Schilling right now.

This site looks at strength of opposition--supposedly Verlander has had a clearly tougher draw.

http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2019/9/17/20870026/justin-verlander-vs-gerrit-cole-for-cy-young-2019

Cole has two starts left at this point, I guess? Verlander may also have two, which gives him a clean shot at the coveted and gritty 20 win mark.

it’s surprising to me that strength of competition isn’t incorporated into basic WAR

c'mon Mike Minor!

Jacob deGrom's National League Cy Young Award defense gained some additional momentum today, when Max Scherzer allowed five runs in 6.2 IP.

deGrom ranks:

-First in pitcher bWAR
-First in strikeouts
-First in WHIP
-Second in pitcher fWAR
-Third in ERA
-Fifth in innings

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) September 18, 2019

I don't give a fuckitty fuck who wins the awaaahds

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, September 15, 2019 8:17 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I didn't know Tom Tango had a formula to predict Cy Young winners: (IP/2 - ER) + SO/10 + W. Couldn't be simpler. Even there, still a toss-up, but he does give Cole a slight edge.

Cole -- 99.8
Verlander -- 98.5

Do you mean subtract the walks?

I cut-and-paste that from Tango's site...you would think so, yeah.

Wait a minute: W = wins. As Tango says, he's trying to predict the winner, not determine who deserves the award, and by his estimation, wins still carry a little weight--about 10% of the total in his formula. Here's what led me to the formula:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/youll_ryu_the_day/

One of the things I like about the formula is that, although it doesn’t weigh wins as heavily as other formulas ( which certainly reflects the trend in voter preferences), it doesn’t entirely dismiss them either. It recognizes that wins still carry some weight with some of the voters, and can help sway some votes if pitchers are close in other regards. I think that’s reasonable – clearly wins don’t mean as much as they used to in winning the Cy Young Award, but they do still mean something. deGrom was able to win the award in 2018 despite a modest win total because his ERA was light years better than everyone else’s, but if it was closer, you can bet that his lack of wins would likely have become a bigger factor.

i'm sure noted hockey fan tom tango is just having fun with stats but we could also . . . just wait for the results

On Monday, MLB announced the six candidates for AL and NL Comeback Player of the Year. The list includes Lucas Giolito, Hunter Pence and Jorge Soler in the AL and Josh Donaldson, Sonny Gray and Hyun-Jin Ryu in the NL.

i'll take giolito and gray

don't you have to have arrived in order to come back? i'd disqualify giolito and soler on those grounds, so it would be pence in the AL.

Pence's story has some teeth, finally coming home after all these years and having an incredible first half. He sort of checked out in the 2nd half but made a big enough dent for the BBWAA to recognize.

Players selected Rafael Devers, Alex Bregman and Mike Trout as finalists in the American League and Christian Yelich, Cody Bellinger and Anthony Rendon in the National League in voting for Outstanding Player honors in the 2019 Players Choice Awards.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) October 17, 2019

Pretty much 6/6 if pitchers are excluded...I suppose there might be another choice as valid as Devers.

Marcus Semien

Forgot about him--a better choice.

mike trout and christian yelich have won the 2019 hank aaron awards as Most Outstanding Offensive Performer in their leagues

carlos carrasco = roberto clemente award

racist josh header, abuser aroldis chapman named relievers of the year

Is he still a racist ?

is he still an abuser ?

It was funny to see these two get honoured during the WS, seeing as both Washington and Houston reached the WS because of their respective screw-ups.

Xp I don’t know, I live with the certainly naive hope that people can grow out of racist ideology. Abuse I don’t see it the same way.

fielding bible awards: http://fieldingbible.com/complete-votetally.asp

What’s with Joe voting Cain the 7th best CF? Come on, Joe

James: "74% of you think that Trout SHOULD win the MVP, 53% think that he will. FWIW, I'd probably vote for Semien. I think that the argument that Trout should win because he is the best player in baseball is a legitimate argument, but that there are other approaches which are also valid."

Bregman, Trout, and Semien are only separated by 0.3 in bWAR, but that's still an odd choice that could use some explanation.

depends on one's assessment of their defensive values, it would seem

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIyG74rVAAE2Usa?format=png&name=small

the astros were an average defensive team, weird

Cy Young winners through the prism of analytics:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/back_to_the_future_part_4/

When I was new here, I had an epic argument with SF Alex over the '73 AL Cy Young (short version: I said there was at least a case for Palmer, Alex said open-and-shut for Blyleven). Daniel Marks says neither.

Actually, through the prism of Tom Tango's CY formula.

ALONSO

robbed of unanimity

https://www.amazinavenue.com/2019/11/11/20959532/mets-news-pete-alonso-wins-rookie-of-the-year-award-new-york-mlb

Both MOY votes were really close, for the first time in many years (I think)? Four or five managers in each league had legit cases for winning too.

DeGrom wins the NL Cy Young, 29 out of 30 first place votes.

Ryu gets the other

Verlander wins in the AL, 17 first place to Cole's 13.

Cole wuz robbed!

Cole and Verlander had all the first place and all the second place votes. I'm assuming it's the first time that's happened.

Don't know if they got it right, but I thought Verlander-Cole was every bit as close as it should have been. (And the NL vote was every bit as not-close as it should have been.)

Cole and Verlander had all the first place and all the second place votes. I'm assuming it's the first time that's happened.

i don't know of a counter-example off-hand, but that seems like it has to have happened before. pretty much anytime 2 pitchers stand head and shoulders above the rest of the league, right?

i feel like it would have happened w/Johnson and Schilling, maybe, but i only found the 2002 results thus far and Johnson was unanimous #1 and Schilling won almost all the second place votes but several guys threw votes to Smoltz and Gagne (lol), they were so dominant mowing down a couple of batters twice a week or so that year.

Cole and Verlander had all the first place and all the second place votes

see also trout and bregman

I figured NTBT was talking about teammates

oic

Good laugh at the 6 writers who gave LeMahieu the third place over Semien.

Actually I wasn't talking about teammates. But considering it happened again the very next day, maybe it isn't so rare?

Usually there's one near consensus pick or a few really good candidates and a highly split vote, no? I thought that two consensus candidates would be extremely rare.

maybe with the "numbers revolution" blah blah blah voters are becoming "more informed" (or something) thus there being less variance in their choices