Max Scherzer of the Nationals and Rick Porcello of the Red Sox have won the Cy Young Awards in their respective leagues, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced tonight.
That’s the second time the 32-year-old has taken home the hardware, though his prior award came in the American League (in 2013, with the Tigers). Scherzer led the N.L. with 228 1/3 innings, twenty wins, and a 0.968 WHIP. He ended the year with 2.96 ERA with 11.2 K/9 against 2.2 BB/9.
That showing was good enough to beat out Cubs hurlers Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks — who finished second and third, respectively. Scherzer ended up with 25 of the 30 first-place votes, reflecting a strong consensus, but in truth it was a widespread field full of worthwhile contenders. That includes the absurdly dominant Clayton Kershaw, who probably would have run away with the award had he not missed a dozen starts due to injury, and the dearly departed Jose Fernandez, who garnered down-ballot consideration after a dominant season that ended in tragedy.
Porcello’s win came over fellow finalists Justin Verlander of the Tigers and Corey Kluber of the Indians. All were worthy contenders in a year in which nobody put up a truly dominant year. The best A.L. pitchers on a rate basis was reliever Zach Britton, who managed a fourth-place finish despite the innings limitations inherent to his job.
The vote came with its share of controversy. Verlander received 14 of the 30 available first-place votes, but narrowly missed the award when he was left off of two ballots altogether. The 33-year-old threw 227 2/3 innings of 3.04 ERA ball, with 10.0 K/9 against 2.3 BB/9, whereas Porcello racked up 223 frames of 3.15 ERA pitching on the back of 7.6 K/9 and 1.3 BB/9. The difference, perhaps, was that the ultimate victor managed a sparkling 22-4 win-loss record, whereas Verlander carried a less notable 16-and-9 mark.
Lol at porcello winning the cy young.
Who do you think should have won?
Verlander. Porcello won on second place votes alone. Three guys left Verlander off their ballots entirely. That’s absurd.
Do you know if Porcello got any first place votes? How many seconds and thirds?
It’s on BBWAA web page. Verlander got 14 first place votes. Porcello got 8. Verlander was left off 2 ballots
Verlander had 14 first place votes and 2 2nd place votes, Porcello had 8 1st place votes and 18 2nd place votes
Verlander received less than half the 1st place votes (14 of 30) himself, so a bunch of his value would have had to have come from 2/3 votes too. When you get less than 50% though then clearly you are just not that much better than the others you are against.
Truth is all three were pretty similar and none clearly stood above the others so whining that one was robbed is what is truly absurd
And 12-3rd, 4th and 5th place votes combined vs. 4 for Porcello.
Why it is absurd to pick Sale, Porcello and Kluber ahead of Verlander? It isn’t. There was a 4-way tie for 1st this year, we basically flipped a coin on them and it ended up Porcello. Congrats to him, he was sensational this year.
Where do you get a 4 way tie from? Lol
Verlander also got only 2 second place votes. In terms of combining first and second place votes, Porcello had 26 and Verlander only 16. It’s not the three who left Verlander off their ballots on their own who cost him the award.
It was 2 who left them off their ballot. Not 3. He lost by a total of 5 points. A 1st place vote alone is worth 7 points. 2-3-4-5 place is 4-3-2-1 points. Had they each voted him 3rd place, or if even 1 of them give him a first place , he wins it.
And if pigs had wings, they could fly. I know the voting structure. And the rules are what they are. This isn’t a Ted Williams-Joe DiMaggio level of oversight. Both Porcello and Verlander were deserving, and this time, Porcello won.
Was letting you or others who didn’t know the voting structure what it was. Even an MLB writer didn’t know the point format.
Fair enough.
Well if someone left him off the ballot all together then obviously none of those people are going to give him a first place vote so to say if one of them did he wins it makes no sense
The BBWAA sticks it in a Tiger and breaks it off just for laughs?
You don’t say?
Sincerely,
George Bell’s 1987 MVP, Lou Whitaker’s 1 and done off the HOF ballot with 70 WAR and Barry Larkin’s exact WAR as Tramm’s
Clearly you have little to no understanding of what makes good pitching performance. Verlander ranked 1-3 in 22 of the 26 major pitching stats. Porcello in 2 – Wins and bb/9. Porcello had 6.61 runs per start of run support. Verlander 3.97 runs per start. He had 9 starts in which he had 0-2 runs. Porcello had none. If Verlander had Porcello’s support he would have won a minimum of 6 more games and likely 9-10 more depending on how the runs fell. WINS are a team stat and the idjits in the BBWAA picked the Cy Young winner entirely on wins.
You may have forgotten WHIP and CG. Oh, at least the idjits at the BBWAA know how to spell “idiots”, unlike the idjit making the comment above.
Verlander was ahead (though barely) in WHIP, but he was still the AL leader in it nevertheless. Complete Games leader was Sale with 6. Porcello had 3. Verlander had 2. Sorry, but Complete Games was not the difference maker in this. Porcello won because of the W-L record, not because he led the league in BB/9. In 2015, the NL and AL Leaders in BB/9 were Bartolo Colon and Mark Buherle. And the leaders in K/BB that year were Max Scherzer and Chris Sale. Scherzer finished 5th in NL Cy Young last year and Sale was 4th in AL Cy Young. Colon and Buherle did not receive a single vote to not much surprise.
There is no question that Porcello does not win the Cy Young without the 22-4 record. Even Jeff acknowledges that.
He did have a great year, no question about it. I will be fair and say it went to a deserving candidate, though I don’t think it went to the best candidate. A team dependent stat won it for him.
I don’t have a problem with that. Just one further consideration – the imbalanced schedule. With almost half the schedule against one’s own division, it can slant the stats a bit (not tons, but a bit) in Verlander’s favor.
How do you figure it is absurd that Porcello won he was 18 games over 500
Wins and Losses are as much a product of your team’s offense as it is your ability as a pitcher. Porcello gets over 3.5 more runs per game than Verlander (7.63 vs. 3.97). That being said, it’s pretty clear that voters weighed wins pretty heavily in balloting since Verlander bested Porcello in every other statistical category.
Honestly I think that Kluber should have won, even before the playoffs with Verlander second.
There’s no “lol”. When you tear apart their seasons, the three finalists are as evenly matched as any three pitchers in recent memory. I could have easily seen a tie between any two of the candidates…they were that evenly matched.
Wrong.
Categories in which Verlander > Porcello:
IP, ERA, Ks, WHIP, BAA, WAR-P, WAR
Categories in which Verlander < Porcello:
W, L, Run Support – all categories that are heavily/exclusively influenced by your offense
Porcello winning this is a joke. And that joke is compounded by his terrible playoff start (I know it doesn't count as these votes are made before the playoffs start).
What is WAR-P?
Sorry, but you’re blurring lines. They’re not exactly far apart in WHIP or ERA. Verlander has an edge in Ks, but Porcello also walked a lot fewer batters. The only joke is fans who aren’t looking closely enough. Both has terrific seasons, neither was significantly better than the other, and it was deservedly a close vote.
Porcello – 5.2 WAR
Verlander – 5.2 WAR
…this odd, mindless screaming of “its a joke” is what is truly a joke here.
There is hardly a distinguishable difference between the stats of the two players. One played Jekyll and Hyde though, having a horrific 1st half and other worldly 2nd half while his team was never able to dig themselves out of the hole they dug in the first half – meanwhile the other was a bit more consistent, especially in the “keep his team in the game” category, and ended up leading his team to the playoffs, With the two rather perfectly tied otherwise, that seems a pretty fair tie breaker to me
Having a just okay first half and an otherworldly second half didn’t hurt Jake Arrieta last year.
If the Sox had Verlander instead of Porcello, they would have clinched a playoff spot sooner and would have put up a better fight against the Indians.
That’s fWAR
On rWAR, Verlander is 6.6 (1st in AL), Porcello is 5.0 (6th in AL)
Depending on which site you use, you can say they had equal value, or you can say Verlander was the best and Porcello was 6th best.
I really like what was said on another board to a complete idjit that said this contest was close – BRAAAAAAAAAAAK Wrong Answer, but thanks for playing.
It wasnt even a contest. Verlander was by far the best pitcher in the AL. He ranked 1-3 in more than 20 pitching stats. Porcello in 2 and one of those was Wins which isn’t a pitching stat, it’s a team stat. Kluber in 3.
Verlander was robbed by people that should retire. They have no clue what makes a good pitcher. Verlander wasn’t even named on several ballots and on many he was 3rd which is a total joke.
Yes, thanks for playing, but wrong. Verlander didn’t blow Porcello away, they were extremely similar overall. BTW, if Verlander had to pitch half his games against the AL East rather than the much lighter hitting AL Central teams, there would likely be quite a shift in stats.
Isn’t it possible that the writers valued wins more than the analytics? I agree with you John regarding the AL East/Central comparison.
Except that Porcello didn’t have to face the Red Sox. The Indians scored more runs than the Blue Jays, the White Sox more than the Yankees, and the Royals more than the Rays. Only, the O’s beat the Twins. So while the AL East may historically be more challenging, it is not clear that it was a tougher division for Red Sox pitchers.
Also, Verlander had 7 starts against AL East teams, but only one of those ended with him giving up 3 or more runs. It was actually Cleveland that really hurt Verlander. Not Boston, Baltimore, or Toronto, though he face them in 5 starts.
Light hitting AL Central team manhandled your AL East teams in the playoffs. Not your best argument.
Haven’t you heard? The AL East was, is, and always will be the best division in baseball and to claim otherwise is a hate crime against ESPN.
Hi, sarcasm, but you see, we actually know the AL East was the best division by comparing interdivisional records. Try your sarcasm on something less wrong next time.
Doesn’t bode well for Trout that voters are for some reason still using team stats (W-L) to determine individual awards.
Betts is going to win the MVP. I’d be stunned if Trout did.
I feel the same way which is ridiculous considering Trout was far and away the best player in the entire MLB let alone the AL.
Sorry, but Trout is hardly “far and away” the best player in MLB in 2016. I get SO sick of this constant coronation of this guy. He’s a great player, but he’s no god.
Trout 2016 fWAR: 9.4
Bryant 2016 fWAR: 8.4
Betts 2016 fWAR: 7.8
Altuve 2016 fWAR: 6.7
Trout was statistically the most valuable player in MLB. The second most valuable player was a full win less valuable which is significant. The second most valuable player in the AL is almost two full wins less valuable. Trout by far deserves to win it if MVP actually stands for most valuable
“most valuable” can take many forms. WAR remains an arbitrary stat that sabermetricians can’t even agree on how to calculate it. Betts is a silver slugger/gold glove winner on a team that was in the best division in baseball, and was named the best defensive player in baseball by Wilson. To say Trout is “far and away” the MVP is ridiculous.
Every single WAR estimator has significantly favored Trout over Betts. Trout had a higher OPS, ISO, and wRC then Betts while playing the majority of his games at Angel Stadium and other pitcher friendly AL West parks such as Safeco and O.Co. Betts, on the other hand, benefited from playing the majority of his games in some of the most offensive friendly parks (Fenway, Yankee Stadium, Camden, and Rogers) and still didn’t come close to matching Trout’s output offensively. Betts is definitely a good fielder, but he played at a less valuable and demanding position than Trout. So by all accounts and metrics, Trout was the better player in 2016
Agree to disagree. Keep the SABR stats. Rely on them all you like, as Mikey was getting the golf shoes ready in late July.
Trouts better, but as for Bett’s “still didn’t come close to matching Trout’s output offensively.” I have to question this, since Betts had slight edges in Batting Avg, HR’s, and A huge lead in the hits category while Trout lead in runs, SB’s and had a huge lead in OPS. Offensively Trout is superior, but not by much and defensively Betts is superior. Really they are very much the same type of player and put up very similar numbers. Between the two of them I believe they are the most valuable players in baseball over Bryant or any other NL player, regardless of WAR.
No, actually, he is a God. The guy is so good that we’ve become numb to him. We just expect him to deliver ridiculous numbers year in and year out. Harper has one filthy year, and most go nuts over him. How soon we forget that Trout has been a certified beast since he got here. He arguably has had the greatest start to an MLB career ALL-TIME. Let that sink in for a while.
Which is sad because Trout is far and away the better player. More than a full point of WAR better. At some point all these idjits with no understanding of the game will die or retire or get kicked out of the BBWAA.
John Murray still thinks that Wins mean something in terms of pitching performance so you will have to excuse his ignorance of the game. That he thinks Betts is a better player because of counting stats just shows that he is a dinosaur and puts the final nail in his coffin.
MVP is not best player award.
An insult from a fan who can’t spell “idiot” is hardly worrisome. And please, when did I say Porcello should win the CYA owing to wins? The key reasons are this – Porcello is much, MUCH closer statistically to Verlander than you and many lead us to believe, and the tougher ride he has with a more offense-happy division and an imbalanced schedule..dinosaur, indeed. Learn about the game, son, before you post silliness.
So Mike Trout should be penalized because Jered Weaver sucks? That makes sense.
Apparently the writers agree with Mr. Murray.
Apparently you have no sense of humor….Idjits is a common phrase among the proletariat that do not take themselves so seriously. Lighten up, mate.
Well then we might as well stop pretending and just call it the Valuable Player award instead. MVP gives the allusion that that the winner is the best player in their respective league
I’m personally not a fan of using avg and runs to determine value since they can be altered either by the player’s team or simple luck. But to each their own. However, when you look at almost every advanced metric (i.e. wOBA, wRC plus, ISO, etc.) Trout is far and away the better player. Even with non-advanced stats such as OPS, he was better than Betts by over 100 points.
Porcello may be close, but all of his stats, if minimally are worse than Verlander’s except for wins. I don’t care whether you use traditional or newer stats, Porcello is slightly worse in every way. As for “offense happy division”
AL East’s MLB ranks by runs scored without Boston:
Toronto : 9th, 759 runs
Baltimore 12th, 744 runs
Yankees: 22nd, 680 runs
Tampa Bay: 24th, 672 runs
Average : 16.75, 713.75 runs
AL Central’s MLB ranks by runs scored without Detroit:
Cleveland: 5th, 777 runs
Minnesota: 16th, 722 runs
Chicago: 20th, 686 runs
KC: 23rd, 675 runs
Average: 16, 715 runs
What do you know? Excluding their own team AL Central had the better average offense. So even in those AL East Ball parks, his opponents couldn’t outscore the Verlander’s opponents. So yes, dinosaur indeed. Learn about the game? Learn to see objectively.
No, not agree to disagree. You are demonstrably wrong, and haven’t provided any defense other than the team specific argument. Give up.
Yes it is.
What doesn’t bode well for Trout is that he hasn’t played a meaningful game since 2014 and he’s becoming less and less visible to voters.
1. Angels missed the playoffs by one game in 2015.
2. Why does it matter whether he’s playing in a “meaningful game?” He’s competing against the same players every other MVP candidate is and is outperforming ever single one of them. Are you arguing that it is somehow more difficult to play well in “meaningful games” so players like Betts and Altuve should be given a handicap?
Do you seriously think that it isn’t more difficult? If you don’t think it is, then you’ve been playing Strat-o-Matic too long.
No I don’t. Trout hitting a home run in September against a certain pitcher is no different than Mookie Betts hitting a home run against that same pitcher.
Then yes, you’ve been playing way too many fantasy games.
As opposed to all those meaningful MLB games you’ve been playing?
Lol no – I’m just watching the actual games. And assessing what I watch, rather than reading Fangraphs all day.
You do realize that it’s possible to watch games AND have knowledge about advanced stats at the same time, right? I watched pretty much every single game Trout played in last year and the numbers only confirm the level of play I saw.
Nobody’s saying he’s not a great player, he is. So is Betts. But is it not more valuable to be constantly playing at the same high level when your team is fighting for a championship, versus playing for a team that spent the entire second half being nothing but a spoiler? Stats can be warped too; Trout was definitely pitched around more than Betts, because David Ortiz was feared an awful lot more than Albert Pujols. Consider this too – Betts spent the entire first half as the table setter for the Red Sox, then spent the second half in the middle of the order. He thrived in both roles. It’s pretty hard to minimize the great season he had.
Trout should not be penalized for the lack of support he recieves from the supporting cast. Considering hes widley viewed as the best player in MLb and pitchers STILL cannot get him out. I would figure he gets a whole lot LESS to hit (even w pujols behind him) since the lineup is so week and yet he still puts up video game numbers.
If Greinke can win a cy young w the royals on a crap team then Trout should not be penel2ized for not playing on a good team.
Remembering that year – Felix Hernandez was my choice for the CYA in Greinke’s season.
I’m not minimizing Betts’ season. He had a great season. Trout’s was just better though. And if value is based on being the better player than the MVP award should be his. Players shouldn’t be penalized for the actions/inactions of their team’s front office. If Betts had better stats or could at least somewhat compare to Trout’s output, I would say he should win it. But that’s just not the case here.
I’ll respectfully disagree and leave it at that.
Hilariously, the year Mike Trout won MVP, was his worst year since becoming a full-time player.
Clearly you had no idea who was better. Greinke literally killed in almost every statistic that year, other than wins.
Except for the fact he pitched only one game of even passing relevance the entire year – game 162, which he started against the Twins, who needed a win to get into a one-game playoff with the Tigers. Greinke brought his “A” game by surrendering 4 runs in 6 innings and sending the Twins to the playoffs. Yep, he killed it all right. We’re wildly overrating players in this era, largely by over analyzing stats and failing to actually watch what they do.
Eyes lie. Stats don’t.
I would have agreed 20 years ago. Not now. Because there are so many different analyses available, we can simply pick the one we like best. As time has gone by, I’ve learned stats are, as Leo the Lip once said, for losers.
As a current professional sportsman, granted in another sport overseas, I can tell you playing in games which ‘mean nothing’ are at the very least as difficult as games when you’re in the running. There are simply different challenges
If you’re out of it you can simply mail it in for the day because it doesn’t matter. Adrenalin and the contest are huge drivers and without it many can’t get up for it. Taking a mental day off doesn’t matter because you’re not qualifying or going to win the title anyway. Succeeding when nothing is on the line day in and day out is harder than you make it seem. It says a lot about your character
Winning with pressure is also obviously diffficult but with those different reasons. That’s why I enjoy watching, from a guy who has never played a game of baseball ever before. I can tell who needs/thrives on the heat of the battle.
The only way IMO, Trouts numbers should be downgraded is if he is a selfish player only interested in getting his stats…..and I never have read anything close to him not being a team guy nor selfish.
He is the MVP I believe due to his performances being better than anyone else’s this past season. That makes him the most valuable
Actually a whole lot easier for Betts because they couldn’t pitch around him in that lineup while Trout is constantly being pitched around and Betts is doing it in bandbox ballparks in 115 of his games while Trout is doing it in some of the most difficult hitters parks in the game for 115 games. John Murray is a dinosaur who doesn’t understand simple facts like that. Ignore him. .
Lol – how little you know.
So you are saying Mike Trout isn’t as good because his teammates aren’t good? That makes zero sense. This isn’t the NBA, in which one player can carry a team. Trout is far and away the best player in baseball. It’s not close.
Hi John, come back when you’re ready to apologize for your stupidity. And not before. Thanks.
What a joke of an award.
Let the complaints and arguments begin, NL kind of reminds me of 2014 AL.
Verlander was robbed. 2 voters left him off their ballots entirely. One of the 2 gave Happ a 3rd place vote. I don’t know how some of these guys vote the way they do.
But congrats to Porcello though. Scherzer as well of course.
” The difference, perhaps, was that the ultimate victor managed a sparkling 22-4 win-loss record, whereas Verlander carried a less notable 16-and-9 mark.”
Sad but probably true. And we all thought the voters no longer paid attention to W-L for pitchers.
No he wasnt robbed, writers picked Sale, Kluber and Pocello ahead of them, which they had every right to do.
agreed!!!
No……both voters from TB left Verlander completely off of their ballots. They chose Happ and Tanaka over Verlander. Both of those votes are a joke. If they both had Verlander on their ballot…..like all others voters did, Verlander is the Cy Young winner. Voters had every right to give a spot on their ballot to Sale, Kluber, Porcello, or Britton. But Happ and Tanaka?
Or…. both voters decide Porcello, Sale, Kluber, and Britton were better pitchers than Verlander and Verlander still loses. Or they put just Porcello, Kluber, and Britton ahead of Verlander and again he still loses.
What about them? Happ was 20-4 with a 3.18 ERA, close to the top vote-getters by traditional metrics. Not as sharp according to more modern metrics, but even there, by fWAR he was the 12th best pitcher in the league. He wouldn’t make my ballot, but he’s not an outrageous choice. Tanaka has a stronger case still.
Wrong. Porcello had 26 votes for either first or second, Verlander only 16. To blame two voters is oversimplifying a vote between three very deserving pitchers.
Then I hope you never complain about any award if you think the voters always have it right. I mean writers can pick who they want yes, but it doesn’t mean they don’t pick dumb choices time to time.
They don’t have a right to be ignorant and still vote. They are supposed to be picking the best pitcher and the facts show that they didn’t. They picked the one with the most wins, which shows they have no clue as to what pitching performance is all about. Verlander was far and away the best pitcher in the AL. it wasn’t even close. Porcello was a decent pitcher who got 6.61 runs per start by his team, while Verlander got just 3.97. Wins mean nothing, zero, zilch, in terms of telling you who is the better pitcher and that was the ONLY determining factor for the majority of the BBWAA voters. It’s a joke.
The voters also don’t pay attention to a little thing called run support. The Sox had 18 games where they scored 6+ runs for Porcello and Porcello was 15-0 in those games. Any less than 6 runs and he was 7-4. DET scored 0-2 runs 9 times for Verlander and he was 0-6 in those games despite having a 2.26 ERA.
Porcello had an average of 6.61 runs per start. By comparison, Verlander had 3.97 runs in support of his starts.
I saw a stat saying it was 7.63 and 4.35. Still a huge difference nonetheless.
The WHIP difference between the two pitchers is 1.00 vs 1.01. It’s not like the two pitchers aren’t close, regardless of run support.
do you not understand how a pitcher acts and game plans as they progress through a start? They have to be a lot more fine and think about there sequencing in a tighter game, whereas a large lead leads to less thinking for them. Less stress tends to mean less mistakes for most pitchers.
Funny, this sounds completely counter to your argument regarding Greinke a thread or so above this one.
Hey, we all know that RP was better than JV at motivating his offense to score runs for him so he could get the win! Good pitchers find a way to win!
Both are correct. It was 6.61 runs while Porcello was in the game and 3.97 while Verlander was in the game. It was 7.63 in the games Porcello started and 4.35 in the games Verlander started. Here is a telling stat. Porcello had ZERO games in which his team scored 0-2 runs. Verlander had 9 of which he lost 6. ALL 6 of those are wins if he has the same run support and he has 22 wins on the season. Throw in a few more wins from that huge run support differential and he has 24-25-26 wins if he had the same run support as Porcello. For the BBWAA to not recognize that and vote for him shows that all BBWAA awards are a joke.
it is ludicrous to believe that Porcello or Verlander would have pitched the same way if their teams had scored more or less runs.
how about the fact that porcello led MLB in k/w?
how about he gave up less HR than verlander yet pitched in more HR friendly parks?
This could very much be a condemnation on the overvaluing of K’s by some of these voters. Cy Young is about best pitcher… WAR overvalues K’s . Getting teams to ground into double plays is not valued and is even undermined by adjusting for team defense. WAR has value but is not the only value. Pitching smart is sometimes more important then stats independent from the team.
And despite all of this Verlander was more effective than Porcello. Porcello winning the CYA is an absolute travesty.
Starting pitchers who can’t get W’s do not deserve the Cy Young. The Best STARTING Pitchers are going to be in the game long enough (more than 5 innings) and pitch better than their opponent. Porcello outpitched his opponents.
You lose All credibility after that first sentence. Tell me how does a pitcher win a game if he gives up Zero runs but his team also scores Zero runs ?
Good grief. The pitcher has no say in what the offense does, maybe NL but still of little consequence. The starters get so few starts a year that a truly dominant pitcher could fail by comparison if you are looking at W-L. Guess you believe Morris should have been a first ballot HOF’er? Sanchez, in my books, should have been in the conversation. more and should have ran away with according to your analysis with a 15-2 record.
There is something to be said for Morris. He was the sort of guy who pitched to the game…if he needed to pitch a shutout to keep him team in the game, he did. If his team gave him six runs, he’d often give up five but wouldn’t give up the sixth. There are lots of guys in the pst like that – Dave Stewart, Ken Holtzman, David Wells..:these are really good pitchers for who ERA and any number of SABR stats can’t properly assess what they brought to the game.
This was actually researched – this pitching to the score nonsense – and found to be patently false. Like, someone went through every single start of Morris’ career and completely debunked this myth. I’m sure you can google it.
There has been a fair bit of deep diving into this “Morris pitching to the game thing”, and from memory, it has been strongly argued against with great counterpoints. I’d love to track this analysis down again.
It’s pretty absurd to talk about a pitcher giving up 5 runs, because he’s of the knowledge his team scored 6. This theory was thrown out there to try and dispel the notion that Morris is overrated. Good pitcher, but not seen the way he should be.
As time passes, unfortunately, we often drift away from the truth. And we we become more capable of understanding and drilling into what is in front of us, we seem to leave behind those who do not wish to develop and learn.
I think the career win total, plus three terrific postseason performances resulting in rings with three different teams – he’s more than the stats say. Is he a HOFer? Maybe, maybe not. The pitcher I remember watching regularly was one of a half dozen guys – ever – that I’d want to send to the mound in Game 7.
Lol – “googling it” is exactly the problem. We can research stats forever, but the bottom line is, we’ve lost track of what Morris/Stewart/Wells/Holtzman and countless others did. They won games. Which, is the reason they went to the mound in the first place, not to pad stats.
This is the same kind of biased bs that a lot of people argued. “He pitched to the situation”. That is literally every freaking pitcher who plays. There jobs is to get outs and not to give up many runs. If they have a big lead they’re not going to think, “Hey I have a five run lead, its ok if they score a few more as long as we are ahead.” They are going to try to keep it as low as possible, the better they pitch, the more they pitch from then on.
No bias at all. I’m not a Tigers, Twins or Jays fan. I’m mystified by everyone failing to give credit to a pitcher who simply bears down more when the game is close. That’s Morris. Those who claim they don’t believe this can’t have seen him pitch. Like I said earlier, if it’s Game 7, there’s HOFers that I’d sit and send Morris to the mound instead.
Jack Morris lost as many games by one run as the average pitcher in his era. Actually, a little bit more, but just by a couple percent. You’d need the play index to look at it, but basically he didn’t pitch to the score. He pitched for terrific teams that scored a ton of runs and he was durable. That’s why he racked up all those pitcher wins. He didn’t have some magical skill at “pitching to the score.”
I have no horse in this race, but your comment may have been one of the worst I’ve seen on this site.
Cy Young candidates don’t fall short of wins because they couldn’t go the required 5 innings; they fall short because their offense didn’t give them anything to work with. When you say “will always pitch better than the opposition”, I don’t think you realize that a pitcher can only control how well he pitches, he can’t control how well the other guy pitches.
Drew Hutchison for 2015 Cy Young! Look at that winning pct.
You are a moron. WTH do wins have to do with pitchers performance? Porcello got 6.61 run of support per start with no games in which he had just 0-2 runs of support and Verlander got 3.97 runs of support per start with 9 games in which his team scored 0-2 runs. How can you say that is the pitcher’s responsibility?Especially in the AL where they don’t even bat. WOW! Are you really that dense?
“You are a moron. WTH do wins have to do with pitchers performance?”
Well, you have to pitch at least 5 innings to qualify for a win. So if someone has a lot of wins then theyre surely pitching 50+ % of the game for every “win”.
Blah blah blah. Yes, we know the run support stat. Yes, we know it padded Porcello’s win total. No, Verlander is not wildly ahead of Porcello in every category, and yes, we all wish Kate Upton had our back on Twitter too. Move along, son.
Not wildly ahead but still ahead in every category except walks
Kate’s not to happy right now…..good for RP and MS!
Lmao. She had the Best tweet ever.
Guess some voters still look at the win-loss column. Oh well
all*
I mentioned that in the post because I believe many do, not because I agree with it!
I take back my comments about Maddon now. AL Cy young is rigged tbh
Maddon wasn’t robbed.
No he was not lol, Robberts deserved the win,
I am an avid Yankees fan, but I also feel those 2 winners were very deserving of the awards!!
Kudos to them
BUT, this is just like the Academy Awards, really. ya can’t just pick one of anything when these guys gave everything they have for the season and after.
To me, they are all winners!!
Porcello, Sale, Verlander: 5.2 fWAR Kulber, 5.1 fWAR. Those 4 were the same pitcher pretty much, no problem with any of them winning.
Meanwhile, how do Lester and Hendricks get more votes than Syndergaard, Kershaw, Fernandez, Bumgarner and Cueto???
I’m just taking a wild guess here, but probably because they performed better than those that you listed.
Of those 4 AL pitchers you listed , here’s the leader in each of the categories
Wins – Porcello
ERA – Verlander
K’s – Verlander
WHIP – Verlander
BAA – Verlander
IP – Verlander
Games w/2 ER or less – Verlander
Lowest Run Support – Verlander (4.35)
Highest Run Support – Porcello (7.63)
If JV was on the Sox he probably has a 22-4 record himself.
Interesting selection of stats
I can’t tell from your list though; who led K/BB and had the lower BB%?
Anyway, most of the stuff you list the two were extremely similar in – something you oddly gloss right over for some reason (but clearly the same reason you cherry-picked those specific stats while ignoring so many others)
Actually these were stats shown in a chart. Not picked by me.
Blame the chart creator.
twitter.com/verly32/status/799037531882782721
Porcello had a better BB% and K/BB if that’s what you want to know. JV had a better K-BB%
So your bias isnt really your own bias, and instead it is merely parroted from Verlanders brother?
Anyway, how about HR/9 – who led that one? It too seems like a pretty important one missing from your or Verlanders brothers or whoevers list
I should also have pointed out the chart isn’t originally from his brother. I saw it a few days ago. His brothers tweet was the most recent one I saw with the chart.
Aaron Sanchez led the AL in fewest HR/9. Not Porcello. Not Verlander. Porcello was way ahead of Verlander. But since when is BB/9 and HR/9 the most important stat?
So you think BAA or Run Support are more important stats than HR/9 or BB/9?
Come on dude
Run Support has noting to do with how the pitcher pitches. I only cited it because it was in the chart and plays a big part on why Porcello won the Cy Young. Because he had 22 wins compared to Verlanders 16 and his team scored over 3 more runs for him per game.
Who would You have given the award to and why? I’ve already said Verlander. I’d probably put Porcello 2nd or 3rd.
And to answer your question I think BAA is as equally important as BB/9 and HR/9.
Hahaha
So BAA is equally important as BB/9 or HR/9?
So let me guess, you similarly feel BA is as important for hitters as OBP or SLG – because that is basically what you are arguing, I hope you know.
Anyway, to highlight just how silly that argument you present is:
.207 BA / .263 OBP / .368 SLG – opponents against Verlander
.230 BA / .268 OBP / .367 SLG – opponents against Porcello
…as you can see, that BAA was absolutely meaningless and in actuality the two were near indistinguishable between eachother in the production against category too (just like almost every other category; which again is why this entire obsessive argument you want to try to hold is so pitifully silly from the very start – there is really no difference at all between the twos performances last season other than Porcello was extremely reliable while Verlander pulled a Jekyll and Hyde which cost his team a playoff appearance)
Lol at you if you think Verlander cost his team a playoff spot. Yes the BAA/OBP/Slug was very very similar. I never said JV was more dominant than Porcello. I simply said he was better and ahead in Most categories. Yes I think BAA is equally important as BB/9 or HR/9. You can agree to disagree and that doesn’t bother me. After all we have idiots on here who judge pitchers based on Wins.
BAA is not meaningless at all. Again, you can agree to disagree. The issue with JV this year was the HR ball, but despite that, he still had more K’s, more IP, the fewest games with 2 ER or less, etc.
There is absolutely no question in my mind Porcello won because of his W-L record. Not because of his K/BB or BB/9.
Careful what you wish four, I hear they’re having a sale in Detroit JV would fit in nicely in Boston’s rotation
Why aren’t you as upset that Scherzer won over Syndergaard? Their fWars were 5.6 and 6.5 respectively and Syndergaard beat Scherzer by many of the stats you cherry picked above.
You can disagree with the writers, but this is not the egregious snub you are making it out to be. Be the irrational Red Sox hater all you want (that is part of the fun of being a fan!), but don’t try to use metrics to justify yourself.
Didn’t really follow NL ballot much. Noah very well could have won too. Did not realize how well he did.
Scherzer/Syndergaard is a different situation entirely. Yes, FIP likes Syndergaard more. But plenty of other stats pointed to Scherzer. Things like WHIP, bWAR, Ks, and IP. That would have been more of horse-race and folks probably would have been okay with sillier things team performance (or the 20K game) deciding the outcome.
In contrast Verlander beat Porcello in everything, except wins and walks. It should have come out the other way.
You realize that’s solely according to FG. According to BR…
Verlander – 6.6 (1st in AL)
Kluber – 6.4 (2nd)
Porcello – 5.0 (6th)
Sale – 4.9 (7th)
The person who was robbed was Britton. Ridiculous.
Yeah…
You can always count on the BBWAA to get it wrong. This one is a joke. These are the same guys that haven’t given Trout the MVP every year just because his team is awful.
These old farts are stuck in the 1890’s. Someone needs to kick out the guys that don’t realize that wins are a team stat and have little to do with a pitcher’s performance.
Cashner would have 22 wins if he got the same run support, 6.61 runs per start, that Porcello did. Shoot my grandmother would have 22 wins and she has been dead 2 decades.
For the AL it was Verlander and Verlander. No one else should have been in the conversation. If Verlander had 6.61 runs/9 of support he would have had 25-26 wins. instead he had 3.97 runs. He was 1st – 3rd in 22 of 26 pitching stats. Porcello in just two, wins and whip. Its time to either take the awards away from the BBWAA or to have a REAL award that is voted on by knowledgeable people and then the garbage that comes from the BBWAA.
He dominated porcello in strikeouts too. He should have won. That’s not what’s upsetting, what’s upsetting is that people left him off the ballot.
If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle
Boobs and balls, awesome. I think I saw that on the beach in San Diego.
HOF is the same crap. Too many writers have no clue how to vote. Hockey does it much better; small committee of former players, coaches, execs.
Maybe Verlander shouldn’t have walked batters 80% more frequently than Porcello…
This vote is one of the lamest possible things you could complain about. I guess people still haven’t shaken off all that “Porcello stinks and is overpaid” stuff from last year and this is a way for them to let out their residual vitriol.
And “That’s the second time the 32-year-old has taken home the hardware” reads pretty awkwardly what with Scherzer not being the last person mentioned.
That award was damn well Hendricks’. The only logical explanation is the difference in innings. Strikeouts are cool, but one could argue Hendricks is more impressive with a lack of velocity. As for the AL, I’m okay with Porcello. Kluber would have won if playoff performance factored into the award.
Hendricks was a massive part the Cubs had the record they had, strikeouts are defining pitchers now and that’s not the way it should be scherzer let’s up a mass amount of homers and hurts his team with his control at times i would’ve even considered mad bum before max
So Wins and Losses should matter for the Cy Young award for a team with the best record? What probably hurt Hendricks was that Lester pitched so well. Not trying to take anything away from Arrieta last year, but we saw something similar last year with Kershaw and Greinke’s dual dominance. Both of them having really good years probably hurt their chances of winning.
It just looks so nice on paper when you lead the majors with a 2.13 ERA, not to mention 1.99 going into your last start
Not saying ERA should be the end-all-be-all for Cy Young voting, but if you’re going to go off of ERA, Zach Greinke should’ve won the Cy Young last year over Arrieta.
That wasn’t exactly my point, but when it significantly is better than the ERA of the winner of the award by nearly a run it is worth noting. You’re referring to a difference of a tenth of a run in the case of Arrieta and Greinke, which is not the same.
Innings are so important. If you pitch 40 more innings and still dominate, you are more valuable.
That is a fair assessment. It’s just the fact that Hendricks had a sub-2 ERA going into his last start that kills me, but the analytics will suggest that he “could have” fell apart further had he pitched those extra 40 innings. Also just realized his BABIP was .250 and he had a great strand rate (BUT…Scherzer’s two stats in that regard were almost identical). Nevertheless, Scherzer is by no means a bad pick. I hope Hendricks puts up a 220 inning season next year and we see what he’s capable of.
But then again, if innings weren’t as important, Syndergaard or Jose Fernandez probably deserved it even more than Hendricks.
Or even Kershaw. His numbers were ridiculous considering he missed a lot of time.
Well yeah, but I’m talking about the 180-190 inning range. Kershaw is well below at 149 innings.
Okay with Porcello? Why!?!?!? There is no good reason why he should have won it over Justin Verlander!
Sure there is. Really, Verlander, Kluber, or Sale could have won it and you still wouldn’t be wrong. Regardless. Porcello equaled the WAR of Verlander, had a healthier BABIP and strand rate with nearly the same ERA, less home runs allowed, 2nd best walks per game per qualified starters in the majors, and gets more ground balls. Verlander’s strikeouts look awesome, but it’s arguable that Porcello was more of a complete pitcher. He also had a 2.96 ERA at Fenway, which is a pretty stellar feat when you think about it. Do I think his win-loss record helped? probably a little bit. Had he been 15-10, Verlander probably edges him out. Ultimately, if you watched Porcello he was hitting his spots all year and looked like an ace.
I’ll say this again, on FanGraphs, it has them all equal. On B-Ref, it’s not even close. Verlander is at 6.6 and Porcello is at 5.0. Verlander is 1st, Porcello is 6th.
I’m not saying B-Ref is correct and FG is incorrect. People can feel free to use whichever one they want to. But it’s misleading to say they had the same WAR without citing which one to use.
Interesting. Thank you for pointing that out. I use BRef for quick lookups and fangraphs for more in depth stats. But after looking now, I’m still using fangraphs. There’s no way Tanner Roark is 6th in WAR as solid as he’s been. I will definitely need to be sure to cite tgem, though
“Had he been 15-10, Verlander probably edges him out.”
Then Verlander should have edged him out anyway. Wins and losses shouldn’t even be considered when deciding who to give the CYA to.
My problem with porcello winning is the fact that the only major categories he was in first for between the top 3 was wins and BB/9 that’s not right
Except Price led in innings pitched, Pineda in K/9, Sanchez had the lowest HR/9 and lowest ERA, Verlander was in a 3-way tie in WAR (tied with Porcello and Sale), Verlander in WHIP but by 0.01 points, Estrada in lowest batting average.
No clear winner but that’s why there’s a point system in voting.
You’re a Red Sox fan who I like here a lot. Do you think Porcello won because of the W-L record? Let’s say he and JV had opposite records (16-9 and 22-4), do you really think Porcello would win it still ?
Verlander lost because he pitched the last 2 months in games his team had already given up on. There was no pressure. When his team needed him, the first 4 months, he had an ERA of 4!
They were tied for the last wild card spot in September…
It probably paid a part in some of it, and when two pitchers are so close… well of course that type of stuff is going to play into it all
Know what else could have plays a pretty big part? The fact that Verlanders season was absolutely dreadful in the first half
1st Half – 4.07 ERA, 1..134 WHIP, 3.64 K/BB
2nd Half – 1..96 ERA , 0.861 WHIP, 5.58 K/BB
Both pitchers pitched better in the second half, but that Jekyll-and-Hyde show from Verlander is beyond extreme (it was bad enough to have single handedly cost the Tigers the playoffs in the end, btw, now that we have hindsight on it all)
Honestly, I feel like the W-L was a deciding factor. That said, I can’t think of a solid argument for why anyone else should have won.
You listed leaders in categories above but you never mentioned how close it was. Verlander led Porcello in ERA but is behind in FIP. Verlander had more strikeouts but Porcello had less walks and was a full point higher in K/BB. Verlander did lead in WHIP but by 0.007 points, and between the 2 of them Porcello was better at keeping the ball in the yard.
Switch their win-loss record and yes it changes things. But by the same logic then you’d be giving Verlander the Cy Young based on win-loss. Take out win-loss and it becomes a matter of opinion. So in the end it’s a tie breaker.
They were eliminated from the playoffs on the last game of the season.
*from playoff contention
Fair points as always man. I still can’t believe he was left off 2 ballots though.
This is laughable… Darkstar has no idea what he is talking about
Haha, yeah, as if you do… You cant even get simple stats right in your post below
The Tigers were eventually eliminated from the payoffs because they couldnt dig themselves out of the hole they were in after the first half of the season – a hole Verlander helped dig by going 8-6 with an ERA over 4 over that period
The fact that you think any of that came into play is absurd. And you’re criticizing Verlander for having a 2 run difference in ERA from the first to second half, again, is just proving how dominate he was his last 17 starts with a sub 2 ERA.
Your big arguments are Total Wins, Consistency, and K/BB ratio. Haha keep searching man. You even through in BB% trying to find some difference, and as stated above, Verlander was the leader in WHIP anyways (albeit barely).
“Interesting selection of stats,” you stated above. Still waiting on more of an argument, other then the sorry ones you already listed.
I’m not even upset Porcello won, as they both had great seasons. I just think it’s insane that two voters left JV off the ballot all together, while giving Porcello two 1st place votes – 14 points, in a 5 point difference. Clearly he’s a better then Happ and Tanaka. Two third place votes wins him the Cy anyways.
guys…its time to stop giving a damn about the official awards. The voters are old and out of touch, and they seldom get anything right. And in the case of the gold glove, 99% of them use the “eye test” as their lone tool for evaluation. Who cares what these old coots think? For god’s sake, the majority of them are Jon Heyman level of baseball IQ.
Im sorry but unless you have the credentials that these guys have to vote then don’t complain.
They’re in a position to choose who they think deserves the award. Someone on the field knows first hand that stats don’t tell everything.
Quit whining and let the winners have their moment.
Sure but at the same time, voters should be held accountable for the their choice. This is obviously an extreme example, but would you say the same thing if Severino won this year?
I guess when that Tampa writer threw their vote out by voting for Tanaka, it cost Verlander the CY. Should only vote for CY young worthy pitchers.
I think we need a voting panal like college football has for these awards. As in how they go about deciding whos in the CFB playoffs.
J.a happ over verlander i think is a stretch and i would like to hear said voters explanation of leaving him off the ballot. Not that he has to explain himself but i would appreciate hia insight.
1st Half – 4.07 ERA, 1..134 WHIP, 3.64 K/BB
2nd Half – 1..96 ERA , 0.861 WHIP, 5.58 K/BB
That cost the Tigers the playoffs and likely cost Verlander a few votes.
You cant fault people for looking at a pitcher who had two dramatically different seasons within one and deciding they are not deserving of being called the best pitcher in the game.
You do realize that Porcello had an ERA of 3.8 in the first half. The fact that JV was that lights out in the second half should be another reason to give him the award. Someone mentioned above that the Tigers were playing meaningless games in the last month. They were in playoff contention until the last game of the season.
No, Porcello had a 3.6 ERA in the first half and 2.6 in the second, giving him a 1.0 run difference between the two halves – Verlander had a 2.0 Run difference; going from 4.0 to 2.0
And yes, the Tigers JUST missed the Playoffs while their supposed Ace went 8-6 with a 4.07 ERA in the first half.
Funny 2 recent former Tigers. Wonder how’d they be if they re-signed both instead of going with Zimmerman and say Upton
Britton forgotten by writers after Bucky forgot him in the last game of the O’s playoffs.
Zach! Don’t go home for thanksgiving. They may forget to call for dinner.
These ballots are submitted after the regular season ends! No one forgot about Britton.
He was great but didn’t impact the face enough batters to be the most valuable pitcher.
So I guess we can say Verlander won the popular vote and Porcello won the Electoral College.
One problem with that argument. Porcello got more votes.
Touché
Max, of course what a great season, while it stings a teeny tiny bit as a Cubs fan, its clear Max was the best in the NL, but Porcello? WTF Britton should of won.
I don’t really care who one but there needs to be some sort of accountability when Verlander is left off the ballot of 2 writers all together. Baseball buries its head when its umpires cost a team a game or a pitcher a no hitter. There is either a bias or just incompetence; either way these 2 writers should speak up and explain themselves.
2.13 ERA….. 0.98 WHIP……. 8.1 K/9……… 2.1 BB/9….. 3.20 FIP
2.96 ERA…….. 0.97 WHIP……… 11.2 K/9…….. 2.2 BB/9…. 3.24 FIP
I guess baseball writers are truly the biggest homer fans out there still incredibly impressed by strikeouts as if their infatuation with Chapman wasn’t proof enough. Difference between the two pitchers is that the one with the supposedly better reg season stats was incredibly mediocre in his team’s brief playoff stint whereas the other pitcher had a 1.41 ERA this postseason across 5 starts and 25.1 IP, helping to lead his team to a world series title.
If you haven’t grasped it yet the top line is Hendricks and the bottom line is Scherzer. How scherzer beat out both hendricks and lester is insane….. the fact he had like 25 first place votes is just retarded.
JA Happ had 4 more wins & 5 less losses than Verlander & his ERA wasn’t that different considering Happ pitched in a pure hitters park & Verlander’s home games were in a pitchers park. 3.04 to 3.18 isn’t that big of a difference when you consider the ball parks. Happ wasn’t even in the top 5 in voting. Everybody goes crazy over strike out numbers. Yes, Verlander’s strike out numbers were higher than Happ’s, but strike outs run the pitch count up & when your bullpen is weak like Toronto’s was, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing to not have as many strike outs. You can make a similar argument with Porcello against Verlander. Porcello pitched his home games at a hitters park and was nearly perfect at Fenway. His 3.15 ERA isn’t significantly higher than Verlander’s when you consider the home parks. Porcello won 6 more games than Verlander and 5 less loses. He also walked 25 fewer batters than Verlander. I don’t see the outrage about Verlander not winning. Porcello is a deserving winner (& for the record, I hate the Red Sox). I’m more upset that Happ didn’t finish in the top 5 than I am Verlander not winning
Just for fun, in 2015:
Corey Kluber – 3.49 ERA, 9-16 record.
Drew Hutchison – 5.57 ERA, 13-5 record.
Hutchison had the second worst ERA in the AL (min 90 IP). Kluber’s ERA was over 2 runs lower than Hutchison’s. Yet, Hutchison “won” 4 more games, and “lost” 11 (!!!) less than Kluber.
Why? Run support – not pitcher quality.
Happ shouldn’t have come close. I like J.A Happ but Sale, Verlander, Kluber, Porcello, and hell even Britton out class him in metrics.
Can’t believe Kluber was so many points behind at 3rd, figured he’d either win or lose by a point or two.
Should’ve been Hendricks for sure. He got that team to the World Series. I’m tired of baseball thinking that strike outs are all that but I’d rather have a pitcher who throws 7 innings with 5 k’s and 1-2 earned runs than a guy that throws 7 innings with 7-8 k’s and 2-3 earned runs. To me an out is an out and I played juco college baseball in az. I played the some of the best 19-20 year olds in the country and I know for sure that an out is an out. #boom Hendricks for Cy young
An out is an out yes, but a strikeout prevents any contact, teams still score runs on batted balls in plays that end up in outs, very rarely does a strikeout end in a run being scored. And.. chicks dig the K. I’m a Cubs fan but accept Max was the best in NL this year. Its more than isolated run prevention, Max was out there for his team for almost 40 more innings!
Some great fields in AZ, I hope you had fun.
Thanks, and it was great I played with some of the best in the country when I was in high school but I blew my arm out last year and I’m going to school to be a police officer now. Hopefully my kids coach when I’m older! 🙂
What don’t we get these are all in season awards. They don’t take into account postseason performance.
What is your point?
My point just being that arguments based on Hendricks leading his team to a championship have no barring.
So no 20 W Happ and no 15-2 record Sanchez whom led the AL in ERA. Just typical and ironic !!!
Wins is a useless star. JA Happ was not one of the best 5 pitchers in the AL. Sanchez, I get.
Stat
Oh my God! What an absolute travesty! Rick Porcello shouldn’t have even been in the top 3 over Aaron Sanchez and he won!?!?!?!?!? What b.s. is this? He is not better than Sanchez, Verlander or Kluber in any important stats! The voters are making a mockery of the Cy Young award by not picking the best pitcher.
Porcello – 5.2 WAR
Verlander – 5.2 WAR
…Yes, yes, yes, – I see one was so clearly better than the other and how people like yourself would be mad and scream cheated when the clearly superior one doesnt win over the other
Yawn. Can you do WAR by hand? I doubt it. Good grief.
6.6 to 5.0 on bWAR
Verlander was better than Porcello in ERA, IP, BAA, OPS against, WHIP, and K/9. The only meaningful stat in which Porcello edged Verlander was BB/9. Verlander was clearly superior.
And I’d add Boston would trade Porcello straight up in a Boston Baked Beans fart for Verlander. Dombrowski dealt Porcello once, he’d do it again, especially for a pitcher he loves.
This is why the #killthewin movement is necessary. Such a joke, oh my God.
Porcello winning is a joke… I mean I gotta give him a lot of credit on a great season, but a cy young? The statistics overwhelmingly point towards Verlander.
How is it a joke? He led the league in wins and no one else had a crazy year
Get that “led the league in wins” out of here! Pitcher wins and losses are irrelevant. I wouldn’t even call them stats. Go learn about some real stats like ERA, WHIP, FIP and SIERA!
To state what I did before: Verlander led Porcello in ERA but is behind in FIP. Verlander had more strikeouts but Porcello had less walks and was a full point higher in K/BB. Verlander did lead in WHIP but by 0.007 points. And Porcello was better at keeping the ball in the yard.
I keep hearing about Verlander being overwhelmingly better this year but no actual evidence points to that. All evidence points it to being a coin flip. Then of course you hear the whole “Porcello had more run support.” So what? How did that help him have better control this season?
Look bro, it’s all about the bottom line and the bottom line is that Verlander was more effective than Porcello. His ERA being .11 lower is all the evidence I need of this. Verlander was robbed.
That’s just as bad as chastising someone promoting wins as the reason.
The difference in Ks is what did it for me if we are comparing Verlander vs Porcello. For all intents and purposes, the other stats that matter (meaning W-L tossed out the window), were pretty close enough. But when it comes to Ks, Verlander showed himself as the better pitcher.
But neither one should have been picked over Britton.. Considering his innings were out of his control, when we scale and compare, Britton was definitely the most dominant out of all the eligible pitchers on the ballot.
No it’s not. Verlander was better in every relevant stat except walk rate. Perhaps not overwhelmingly better, but he consistently outperformed Porcello. The fact that Porcello won 22 games thanks to having one of the most potent offenses in the game behind him shouldn’t outweigh the fact that Verlander was simply the better pitcher in 2016.
Had they gotten the same run support, Verlander would have won more games than Porcello and would have won the CYA this year. That shouldn’t be the case. It should be based on their individual performances and nothing more.
Crying little babies…. Grow the hell up verlander lost, get over it, more proof he and his girl are both losers
Ok big boy rob, would you trade them straight up?
So we’re “crying little babies” because we are disappointed that the best pitcher didn’t get an award that is supposed to go to the best pitcher?
Lester and Hendricks got snubbed. As did maddon and Bryant and addy and Baez from gold gloves. Everything will right itself when Kris Bryant is named unanimous mvp. Hopefully they do the right thing and name David Ortiz AL MVP as well
The only award that matters is the championship haha Max’s first award is sitting in the locker room at Mizzou, isn’t even in his house
Ortiz isn’t winning MVP, but his teammate Betts will most likely, even though Trout is as equally if not more deserving.
The Cy Young isn’t based purely on stats…and shouldn’t be. The writers, for the most part, get to talk to the players, interview them, see them when they are not on camera, and get a feeling for who they are as a person…in addition to evaluating their stats. Picking Porcello over Verlander or any other player says more about who he is rather that his stats…..and the same can be said of why they didn’t pick Verlander. BTW, Porcello also won AL Pitcher of the year which is voted on by the MLB players…..that again says more about the player than stats.
Jose Altuve got the AL Player of the Year, and he’s a finalist for MVP, but everyone knows that’s going to go to Trout or Betts (likely Betts because the Red Sox made the playoffs and the Angels didn’t). I don’t think how the players feel has an effect on the voters. I could very well be wrong of course.
Verlander has won the award before has he become a different person?
It says more about the sportswriters in Tampa Bay than anything else.
If you look at the totality of the 3 major guys Kluber is the one who was robbed his K total was overlooked because of Verlander, but he still had a substantial amount compared to Porcello, Kluber had a better fip than both and surprisingly a better ERA+ than Porcello, that takes pitching in Fenway out of the equation. It is quite obvious baseball writers still value wins for pitchers.
“It is quite obvious baseball writers still value wins for pitchers.”
Very much so
The magic number seems to be 20 still which is hard to do but has more to do with how the game has evolved than pitchers themselves,Kluber did not seem to receive the same benefit with a rather robust 18 wins him self to finish in such a distant 3rd place. The writers seem to be very subjective rather than objective in this instance.
Agreed. Personally, I would’ve had Kluber (based on regular-season alone of course), then Verlander and Porcello, in that order. Kluber seemed to have the best balance of ERA, innings, and peripherals for me, and his record (sigh) was still impressive. Surprised that he didn’t get more run. I’m ok with Porcello winning (I don’t see a huge enough difference between him and Verlander to be too upset about that whole thing), but JA Happ vs. Verlander is a completely different story…not sure how Verlander doesn’t make a top 5.
Porcello was good enough to win. That doesn’t mean he was the best, but the choice was within the range of reasonable. Leaving Verlander off your CY ballot, as the two Tampa writers did, seems unreasonable. The MVP election will be more interesting
Some BBWA voters spend the offseason as Eastern Bloc figure skating judges.
You could look at consistency and strength of hitters porcello faced. Verlander only blew by him in strikeouts. Just like if you pitched in the NL east vs any other division, the teams verlander faced were significantly easier.
This may cost Justin Verlander the HOF.
John Murray is a crazy person