1990 American League Cy Young Award

[Guest AG/DC]

Well, two relievers had all-time great seasons there, and I think all-time great seasons for starters are like Walter Johnson throwing 370 innings.

Those relievers took high-leverage innings, and were great, and I'd like to see what m.e.t.b.o.t. has to say about that.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

AG/DC wrote: Well, two relievers had all-time great seasons there, and I think all-time great seasons for starters are like Walter Johnson throwing 370 innings.

Since 1990, the following pitchers have had better seasons than Clemens' in terms of VORP:
2004- Johan Santana
2003-Esteban Loaiza
2002- Derek Lowe
2000- Pedro Martinez
1999- Pedro Martinez
1998- Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez
1997- Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Andy Pettitte
1996- Pat Hentgen, Alex Fernandez, Ken Hill, Roger Clemens
1995- Randy Johnson
1993- Kevin Appier

Some weird entries up there. So, at least by VORP, Clemens' 1990 has been the 16th best season since 1990. You're right- that's probably not an all-time great year. I gotta look into this race more closely.

(What's up with 96, by the way? Hentgen's VORP is one of the highest I've ever seen, and 4 people beat a 77.2!)

[Guest AG/DC]

Will do that next maybe. Alex Fernandez? Which one?

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

Whoops, those were only the AL pitchers with a better VORP since 1990. Throw the following on that list:

1993- Jose Rijo, Greg Maddux
1994- Greg Maddux
1995- Greg Maddux
1996- Kevin Brown
1997- Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez
1998- Greg Maddux, Kevin Brown, Tom Glavine
1999- Randy Johnson
2000- Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Kevin Brown
2001- Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling
2002- Randy Johnson
2005- Roger Clemens

So that makes Clemens' 1990 the 34th best season by VORP since then. Oh, and here's Alex Fernandez.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Vince Coleman Firecracker wrote: Yeah, relievers get killed on VORP (perhaps deservedly), but I can't see giving the CY Young to a relief pitcher when a starter has an all-time great season.

I would tend to agree here. Consider the following hypothetical. The starting star pitcher on your favorite baseball team opens the season in phenomenal fashion, throwing a complete game two-hit shutout and striking out 11 batters. He continues to pitch at this level for the entire month of April, finishing the month with a 4-0 record and some no-decisions thrown in. He's the pitcher of the month and is leading the league in K's and ERA.

His dominance continues through the month of May. On Memorial Day, he closes out the month by pitching a complete game no-hitter. His record now stands at 9-0. He is leading the league in every single important pitching statistical category and makes the cover of Sports Illustrated for the issue following his no-hitter. (Jinx!) After his no-hitter, while travelling back to his home, he is involved in a minor automobile collision and, while nobody is seriously hurt, the star pitcher is jostled around from the impact and bangs his throwing shoulder against the car interior. The pitcher sustains a season-ending injury.

Could you vote this starting pitcher for the Cy Young Award?

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

="batmagadanleadoff"]Could you vote this starting pitcher for the Cy Young Award?

Well, you could, based on inning for inning value. No one would, though. But relievers, although they pitch much few innings than starters, affect the outcome of many more games than starters. If the relievers are used for the highest-leverage outs in most of those games, you could argue their contribution is comparable to a starter's. The reason I would still give a "tie-breaker" to a starter is that I don't totally believe that relievers were or are used consistently in the highest leverage situations.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Vince Coleman Firecracker wrote: "...relievers, although they pitch much few innings than starters, affect the outcome of many more games than starters.

But to what extent? A reliever who closes out the ninth inning effectively participates in three batter-pitcher confrontations. All else being equal, a "closer" who retires the side in the last inning of a game is no more impressive to me than a journeyman mopup-man who does the same in the sixth inning. I wouldn't need to look at leverage statistics because I know intuitively that a reliever, even a great one, who pitches 60 or 70 innings in a season cannot have the same impact of an All Star caliber starter who pitches over 200 innings.

A guy with 10 bank accounts, each worth $25K, isn't wealthier than a guy with a single million dollar account unless you're basing wealth on the # of bank accounts.

[Guest AG/DC]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: ="Vince Coleman Firecracker"]"...relievers, although they pitch much few innings than starters, affect the outcome of many more games than starters. But to what extent?

That's what makes this hard.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: A reliever who closes out the ninth inning effectively participates in three batter-pitcher confrontations. All else being equal, a "closer" who retires the side in the last inning of a game is no more impressive to me than a journeyman mopup-man who does the same in the sixth inning.

I disagree at two levels. Firstly, it is more impressive. Secondly, impressiveness isn't what we're measuring here, but rather value.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I wouldn't need to look at leverage statistics because I know intuitively that a reliever, even a great one, who pitches 60 or 70 innings in a season cannot have the same impact of an All Star caliber starter who pitches over 200 innings.

I think it's definitely worth looking at. Look at that ERA of Eckersley's.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: A guy with 10 bank accounts, each worth $25K, isn't wealthier than a guy with a single million dollar account unless you're basing wealth on the # of bank accounts.

You're losing me. The point is not all outs are worth the same amount at all.

[batmagadanleadoff]

AG/DC wrote: I disagree at two levels. Firstly, it is more impressive. Secondly, impressiveness isn't what we're measuring here, but rather value.

I used the word "impressive" to mean value. So semantics aside, I'm not so sure that there is more value in pitching an effective 9th inning as opposed to, say, a sixth inning, though I'm open-minded enough to be convinced otherwise. The ninth inning doesn't exist in a vacuum. A team can only position itself to give its' closer a save opportunity based on what it did in the previous eight innings.

AG/DC wrote: Look at that ERA of Eckersley's.

Reliever's ERA's are highly unreliable. Here's why: the pitcher's slate is wiped clean after he records the inning's third out. As you know, baserunners left on base do not carry over to the next inning. Because relievers frequently enter innings where the defense has already gotten at least one out, sometimes two, a reliever in those situations is allowed to record less than three outs before his slate is wiped clean. By comparison, a starter who walks the first three batters in an inning must either dominate the rest of the inning or be very lucky (probably some of both) to keep his ERA at 0.00 for the inning.

This isn't meant to mimimize Eckersley's brilliant 1990 season. But he was a 70 inning pitcher. Clemens was brillianter!

[Guest AG/DC]

You don't need to explain to me relievers' ERA. But Eckersley rarely pitched in split innings. I don't know why you would mention it if it isn't relelevant to him.

Let's use the win expectancy finder. From 1979 to 2006, the home team comes up in the bottom of the sixth of a tie game and they have a 60% chance of winning. Their leadoff batter hits a double and they have a 67% chance of winning --- seven percent swing.

The home team comes up in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game and they have a 65.6% chance of winning. Their leadoff batter hits a double and they have a 79.8% chance of winning --- a 14.2% swing. That sort of difference is on every outcome.

We also need to concern ourselves with the quality of a batter. A closer in a tight game tends to either face the better hitters, or pinch-hitters replacing the weaker (or poorly matched) hitters.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Win-Expectancy data for the ninth inning is based on what preceded it. A team entering the last inning will have x chance of winning the game only because of what happened earlier.

I'm not so sure that the modern closer faces the best hitters, although I would like to see them used that way, at least on the Mets, anyway. Modern closers pitch the ninth inning on just about every team. There is no higher probability of facing the meat of the order in the ninth inning. I would agree that a closer probably faces a greater number of pinch-hitters, but those ph'ers are usually of lesser quality, otherwise they'd be in the starting lineup. I would also concede that those pinch-hitters usually present a lefty-right platoon that favors the hitter. However, a manager can and often does do the same against a star starting pitcher by tailoring much of the entire lineup in that manner.

[Guest AG/DC]

And Eck's 1990 really, I think, forces the issue.

What's maddening is that the voters agree with the "no closers unless no starter stands out" in the Cy Young voting, but ignore it in the MVP voting.

CY: Welch first, Eck fifth.
MVP: Eck sixth, Welch ninth.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

Okay, setting aside in-game situation for a moment, I was thinking about quality of batters faced.

In 1990 Clemens faced 920 PA's and allowed 257 runners in 31 starts, contributing 663 outs. Per game, he averaged 29.7 PA's and allowed 8.3 runners. On an average start, he would have gone through the opponent's order 3.3 times. If we can assume that a team's best hitters are somewhere around 3-4-5 in the order, he faced the opponent's best hitters in about 11.5 PA's/game. For the season, that would be around 356 times. If, say, half of the runners he allowed were from the 3-4-5 hitters (which is a guess, but it seems reasonable to me), that would be 228 outs recorded in 356 PA's (64%) against an opponent's best hitters.

Eckersley faced 262 PA's and allowed 46 runners in 63 games, contributing 216 outs. If he was always brought in to face the other team's best hitters his 216 outs in 262 PA's (82%) would be a lot more impressive than Clemens' 228/356, but it's safe to assume he wasn't always brought in against the middle of the order. So let's say that 2/3 of the time he was facing the best part of the order and he allowed baserunners at his usual pace. That would leave him with 144 outs in 175 PA's, meaning although he was much better per plate appearance against his opponent's best hitters, he only recorded 63% of the outs against them that Clemens did.

I don't know if this is really all that significant, I was just trying to think of a different way of looking at it. There's also a ton of assumptions in there- for all I know Clemens gave up all his baserunners when facing the best hitters, but it makes a little sense to me.

As for situation, B-R's splits (Clemens, Eck) show that their numbers in "big" situations are pretty comparable:

(this'll be Name//2 outs, RISP PA/OBP/SLG//Late & Close PA/OBP/SLG//High Leverage PA/OBP/SLG)

Clemens // 93/.215/.227 // 130/.223/.200 // 194/.223/.243
Eckersley // 29/.241/.222 // 197/.183/.240 // 128/.164/.218

So they were both superb in "pressure" situations, but Clemens did it a lot more often while runners were on (runners he allowed) and in whatever B-R calls "High Leverage". Clemens recorded 151 "HL" outs against 43 base runners allowed, Eck had 107 against 21 base runners allowed (interestingly, 3 of his 4 walks were in high leverage situations).

I dunno- I think their value to their teams in big situations is comparable when both quality and quantity is considered, but Roger Clemens also had much more value in lower leverage situations simply due to the vastly greater quantity he contributed (512 outs in 726 PA's vs 109 outs in 134 PA).

If any of my math is wrong, forgive me- I'm juggling this post with the work I need to finish before I get fired. And I didn't even look at Thigpen.

[Guest AG/DC]

I'm not suggesting that Eck faced the opponents' best hitters with necessarily any more frequency than Clemens did, but that he faced the opponents worst hitters with less frequency.

Here's something I think we can agree is a fact: a National League closer almost never faces a pitcher --- has little idea what it's like.

[Guest AG/DC]

1. Eckersley


2. Clemens


3. Finley

[nymr83]

1. clemens
2. eckersley
3. finley

[Guest AG/DC]

Thus far...

	John Cougar Lunchbucket	metirish	Methead	Benjamin Grimm	metsguy- inmichigan	Vince Coleman Firecracker	valadius	Gwreck	AG/DC	Nymr83	Total	Share	Original Vote	Original Share
Clemens	1	2	1	1		1	2	1	2	1	39	0.78	77	0.55
Eckersley	2		2		3		1	2	1	2	23	0.46	2	0.01
Stewart	3		3	2	1	2	3	3			15	0.3	43	0.31
Welch		1		3	2						9	0.18	107	0.76
Finley						3			3	3	3	0.06	2	0.01
Thigpen		3									1	0.02	20	0.14
Steib											0	0	1	0.01

[batmagadanleadoff]

AG/DC wrote: Thus far...

If you're gonna make a fancy box and all, then I'll vote properly.

1. Clemens
2. Stewart
3. Finley

[Guest AG/DC]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Bob Welch, overproduced

Wow, there I was thinking I would fill an empty niche as "The Adult-Oriented Rocker Who Affected His Presentation by Wearing a Beret and Holding a Stogie and Mic in the Same Hand," and Welch had me outpimped 30 years ago.

[batmagadanleadoff]

AG/DC wrote: Let's use the win expectancy finder.

Win-Expectancy data, like leverage, yields its' own particular quirks when applied to save situations. These statistics will credit a closer who preserves a lead without much regard for the quality of the save itself. Consider the following hypotheticals: Pitcher A is brought in to pitch the bottom of the ninth inning with his team ahead 3-0. The pitcher strikes out the only three batters he faces, preserving his team's win and recording a save for himself. The next day, Pitcher B appears in the bottom of the bottom of the ninth with his team coincidentally also ahead by the same score of 3-0. Pitcher B yields Home Runs to the first two batters he faces and then walks the next three batters. Pitcher B remains in the game and strikes out the following three batters, stranding all three baserunners and preserving a 3-2 victory for his team.

As you may have figured out by now, the Win-Expectancy points (or leverage data) earned by Pitchers A and B are equal notwithstanding the qualitative disparity in their performances. This is so because the teams in the two examples had the precise same chance of winning at the beginning of the last half inning and also, obviously, after the last out was recorded (a 100% chance of winning). Here, Win-Expectancy data is concerned mainly with the starting and ending points. Of course, there is very little similarity in the character of the two saves just as traveling from NYC to Washington DC is not the same experience whether you're a passenger on Air Force-One or an SRO on an Amtrak train.

Now I realize that in 1990, Eckersley and Thigpen weren't throwing many -if any- games like Pitcher B did above. But still, relying on Win-Expectancy (or leverage) data as support for an Eckersley Cy, only seems to magnify the greater amount of influence a starting pitcher exerts over the course of a season.

[Guest AG/DC]

I referenced the win expectancy data to distinguish the leverage of the sixth from the ninth.

If pitcher B can walk that ridiculous tightrope all year, he's welcome to all the credit he can gather. But no reliever appears only with three-run leads (which lowers the leverage, anyhow), and none consistently chew up their cushion without exceeding it.

[batmagadanleadoff]

AG/DC wrote: I referenced the win expectancy data to distinguish the leverage of the sixth from the ninth.

Whatever the difference is, if there is one, shouldn't be credited to a reliever entering the ninth inning. Those differences, if they exist, are based wholly on the preceding action that occurred before the reliever entered. If we're clever enough to minimize the impact of, for example, RBI's or pitcher's W-L records because we know that those stats are based in large part on the contributions of many others, then we should likewise, not credit the closer with the win-expectancy percentages that apply to the closer's appearance. All things being equal, it's no easier retiring the side in the sixth inning than in the ninth.

If Ramon Castro had hit three grand slam homers in the Mets last game of the season last year against the Marlins to force a tiebreaker, and then hit four more grand slam home runs over the next two tiebreaker game to propel the Mets into the post-season, you still wouldn't vote Castro for the NL MVP, would you? Don't the games played in April count the same?

[Guest AG/DC]

Things aren't equal, and it's harder. Harder and more important.

[batmagadanleadoff]

="AG/DC"]If pitcher B can walk that ridiculous tightrope all year, he's welcome to all the credit he can gather.

Which shouldn't be much more than you'd credit Doug Sisk with. Otherwise, what's so special about Eck's 1990? If it's all about saves, than put this years' K-Rod on the pedestal -- the saves leader who just might be the 5th best reliever in the AL this season.

[Guest AG/DC]

You're making this a moving target.

When Doug Sisk gets a 0.61 ERA, then we're in business.

[nymr83]

did Eckersley blow a save that year? was it 48/48?

[Guest AG/DC]

Looks like he blew two saves, one of which turned into a vulture victory.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/gl.cgi?n1=eckerde01&t=p&year=1990

[nymr83]

ok so he was 96% in save situations, thats still exceptional

for comparison, Gagne, a reliever who won the CY in 2003, was 55/55 with a 1.20 ERA in 82 1/3 with 137 k's, 20 walks, and a 0.692 whip.

the 10 extra innings are pretty significant as he can now say he pitched more than 1/3 of the innings if his nearest competitors (Schmidt and Prior) while eckersley at 73 innings couldnt make that claim as to welch or clemens.
i'm not saying 1/3 is a magic number, but its really hard to vote for a guy who has pitched so many less innings than the others.

[batmagadanleadoff]

AG/DC wrote: You're making this a moving target. When Doug Sisk gets a 0.77 ERA, then we're in business.

I wasn't equating Sisk with Eck. I thought you were equating Pitcher A with Pitcher B and answered (I thought, but maybe not) accordingly.