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Price/Porcello for Cy Young
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Post by dcsoxfan on Sept 20, 2016 16:14:03 GMT -5
Kluber has similar runs allowed numbers in a similar number of innings as Porcello (78 runs in 204.2 IP (30 GS) for Kluber, 79 runs in 210.2 IP (31 GS) for Porcello). However, Kluber has allowed 20 fewer total bases (266 for Kluber, 286 for Porcello) while striking out more hitters (which means he has had to lean less on his defense) and pitching in front of an inferior defense. Actually, unless I'm misunderstanding the numbers, Fangraphs has the Indians' defense rated ahead of the Red Sox. On the other hand, Progressive Field has been the superior hitters' park. While I wouldn't disagree that Porcello's babip is unsustainable, nor that he's been the random benificiary of a higher than average number of balls finding fielders, I'm not sure that means he's actually been less effective. I think many of these analytic methods are more valuable as predictive tools than in evaluating past performance. For me, porcello and Kluber have been nearly identical at preventing base runners and runs in similar innings and similar environments. While the analytics clearly tell us Kluber is the better pitcher, they don't tell us he actually performed better. I don't really see any difference between Kluber and Porcello's performance so far in this baseball season even if the statistics tell me quite clearly that Kluber is better. Maybe too fine a point.
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Post by ryan24 on Sept 20, 2016 16:25:35 GMT -5
The data says that if the sox had brought up kopech in july he would be the cy award winner hands down.
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Post by manfred on Sept 20, 2016 18:35:19 GMT -5
Porcello is a tier above Kluber in run support with 2 full runs more, which has absolutely nothing to do with how good of a pitcher is. Unless you want to argue that the team hits better because of who their pitcher is. The main difference in Porcello this year and last year is: Stat | 2015
| 2016
| BABIP | .332
| .260
| LOB%
| 67.5%
| 74.4%
| HR/FB%
| 14.5%
| 9.7%
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Some of that can be attributed to his improved ability to pitch with runners on base and improved team defense, but not all of it. Pitchers without more elite strikeout rates will rely on these stats and obviously on defense for their performance a lot more. A lot of things are completely out of their control when the ball is put in play. And this makes those numbers meaningful if you are anticipating next season, but those balls in play have been played: mostly they were outs, cause Porcello's had a huge year. By the way, as so many of the speculative stats favor strikeout pitchers, I would say that pitchers who create weak contact shouldn't be undervalued for keeping their pitch counts down and going deep in games (Porcello's game yesterday as a perfect example). "Use your fielders" is a good pitching principle. I'd rather have a one pitch groundout than a three pitch K.
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Post by soxjim on Sept 20, 2016 21:38:15 GMT -5
I would give a slight edge to Porcello at the moment but I can understand other picks too. But still games left.
For me ERA is extremely slightly ahead of Kluber while WHIP is superior and Porcello's hitters in the division are tougher.
VS Sale Sale has the better ERA extremely slightly while Porcello's WHIP is better whle Porcello has face a extremely slightly tougher division but not much. Sale also not in the playoff hunt - no pressure.
Slight edge all-in-all but nothing to get twisted over. Sabathia beat out Beckett in 2007 for CY but Beckett was the "badder-beast" in the playoffs. Playoffs more important.
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Post by patford on Sept 20, 2016 21:58:04 GMT -5
The argument that stuff is more important than results isn't working for me. Porcello is (at this moment) the Cy Young winner hands down. It's close, but there is a clear but small separation.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 20, 2016 22:37:33 GMT -5
Which stats or metrics do you look at first when choosing a Cy Young?
Law: What I said for WAR for MVPs applies to pitchers too. But I can at least say with pitchers that I ignore W-L record and try to at least make some rational separation between a pitcher's own performance and what his defense contributed. Kyle Hendricks is having a good year; he is also the beneficiary of some tremendous work by the defense behind him. His ERA, looked at in isolation, is misleading. www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/17537421/insiders-roundtable-which-awards-stats-matter-trout-mvp-cubs-cy-young-splitI don't always agree with Law, but he makes an excellent point here. You cannot focus too much on any one or two stats. Even bWAR. You can only make the best decision possible based on all available information. Well, bWAR is a compendium of a whole bunch of stats, and it attempts to answer the precise question we're asking, except that it does not factor out luck on balls in play and deep fly balls. And SIERA is also a complex stat that also tries to answer the question to the best or our ability, except it factors out sequencing, which we want to include, and it factors out not just luck on balls in play and deep fly balls, but all of the skill (to the extent it exists) as well. So if you fix all the weaknesses of bWAR and factor in some SIERA, that's your answer.
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Post by telluricrook on Sept 21, 2016 1:19:36 GMT -5
Porcello is a tier above Kluber in run support with 2 full runs more, which has absolutely nothing to do with how good of a pitcher is. Unless you want to argue that the team hits better because of who their pitcher is. The main difference in Porcello this year and last year is: Stat | 2015
| 2016
| BABIP | .332
| .260
| LOB%
| 67.5%
| 74.4%
| HR/FB%
| 14.5%
| 9.7%
|
Some of that can be attributed to his improved ability to pitch with runners on base and improved team defense, but not all of it. Pitchers without more elite strikeout rates will rely on these stats and obviously on defense for their performance a lot more. A lot of things are completely out of their control when the ball is put in play. If a player gets a hit thats not a homerun and it is considered luck nobody should ever watch baseball!
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Post by telluricrook on Sept 21, 2016 2:47:50 GMT -5
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Post by voiceofreason on Sept 21, 2016 9:10:04 GMT -5
This sums it up pretty well IMO. Shows RP as the clear leader and I agree, might be a bit old fashioned for the saber guys but baseball has always been about the numbers.
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Post by jmei on Sept 21, 2016 10:55:02 GMT -5
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 21, 2016 11:19:31 GMT -5
Bannister is really shining through with his work with Porcello and really the rest of the staff. They are finally going to that effective velocity method of pitching by changing up the eye level instead of always keeping the ball down. It's huge because many hitters have adjusted to being able to hit low balls in the air. When they do that, they have a hole on high fastballs.
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Post by manfred on Sept 21, 2016 11:23:38 GMT -5
While I like the two leaders in this chart, there are some real head scratchers. K-Rod? Melancon? C'mon. I am definitely biased against relievers winning the CY, and these guys exemplify my issue: they can put up ridiculous but not especially meaningful numbers. To me, the only closers who should crack the top-10 are the ones like Rivera who truly change the game to 8 or even 7+ innings. Does anyone feel like you are doomed when K-Rod comes in? Price should be ahead of him if only for being a horse.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 21, 2016 11:31:20 GMT -5
While I like the two leaders in this chart, there are some real head scratchers. K-Rod? Melancon? C'mon. I am definitely biased against relievers winning the CY, and these guys exemplify my issue: they can put up ridiculous but not especially meaningful numbers. To me, the only closers who should crack the top-10 are the ones like Rivera who truly change the game to 8 or even 7+ innings. Does anyone feel like you are doomed when K-Rod comes in? Price should be ahead of him if only for being a horse. CYP: In The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers -- co-authored by Bill James and ESPN.com's Rob Neyer presents a method, based on past results, to predict Cy Young balloting. This page provides an in-season snapshot of the Cy Young "race," as figured by the following formula: Cy Young Points (CYP) = ((5*IP/9)-ER) + (SO/12) + (SV*2.5) + Shutouts + ((W*6)-(L*2)) + VB (see below). VB: Victory Bonus is a 12-point bonus awarded for leading your team to the division championship We seem to get caught up between who will win the Cy Young and who should win the Cy Young. The ESPN Cy Young tracker is focused on who will win. That formula is atrocious. I'm not sure how old it is either, but I imagine it should change every year as baseball writers who understand stats whatsoever are gaining votes. (maybe, hopefully) I mean the formula gives relief pitchers credit for wins and saves but not blown saves. This is a case where blowing a save and getting a win instead gives a relief pitcher more CYP. That's crap.
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Post by Coreno on Sept 21, 2016 11:57:20 GMT -5
It would be pretty amazing if the AL and NL CY winners this year are Porcello and Lester, considering they were effectively traded for each other.
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Post by telson13 on Sept 21, 2016 20:00:17 GMT -5
That's why you don't use one stat. Because Steve Dalkowski wasn't a great pitcher either. I'll take a guy who's 22n%-2% over 40-15. The extremes aren't real-world, and both measures can be made to look absurd. I think the whole "this one is better than the other" argument is silly...like most individual statistical quantities, they don't have particular value alone. They're meant to complement and inform eachother. Based on linear weights, and assuming that the quality of contact given up by both pitchers is equal and somewhere around league average, you would be wrong. The second pitcher would be objectively better than the first. Except the second pitcher is unlikely to go more than 5-6 innings most starts. So what statement exactly am I "wrong" about? I'd like to see the calculation on that, too. Because for a BABIP of .300, pitcher 1 has given up fewer baserunners (without including HR), 76%x.3+2=24.8%, vs 45%x.3+15=28.5%. Of course, SA means more total bases on balls in play, and I'm not sure what league average is. And that's genuine curiosity; I don't have the capacity on my phone or the inclination to do it myself, so I'll take your word for it. But the issue remains that pitcher #2 is invariably going to have pitch counts in the 100s by the sixth inning. Maybe he's Nolan Ryan. Or maybe he's not and he averages 5 innings a start and taxes the hell out of your bullpen. So when you say "objectively better," you're still referring to a specific set of evaluative outcomes over others (FIP vs IP/GS). Which gets back to exactly my point: relying on (and hyper-focusing on) particular statistics as the end-all of arguments misses other issues that are likewise important. And some obviously have more "value" than others. But "better" is subjective in and of itself, depending on what particular measure you're comparing. An aside (actually why I originally came to post) on Porcello's evolution in pitching style: www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-continued-growth-of-rick-porcello-cy-young-candidate/
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Post by telson13 on Sept 21, 2016 20:03:18 GMT -5
It would be pretty amazing if the AL and NL CY winners this year are Porcello and Lester, considering they were effectively traded for each other. I was thinking that just the other day looking at Lester's line.
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Post by telson13 on Sept 21, 2016 20:04:42 GMT -5
Hahaha! Just realized you beat me to it.
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Post by Coreno on Sept 21, 2016 23:31:16 GMT -5
Sale, Tanaka, and Kluber all pitched today, and Klubot is the only one that even had a quality start.
He wasn't lights out either though, but is now up to 18 wins.
This is looking more and more like a 2 man race.
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 22, 2016 7:10:45 GMT -5
Kluber also took over the American League lead in strikeouts and inched past Porcello in innings. As it stands they would both get two more starts.
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Post by jchang on Sept 22, 2016 11:46:48 GMT -5
If Kluber were on a bad team, then I would say the lower number of wins than Porcello should not be held against him, but Indians have about the same record so in the case of Kluber vs Porcello, pitching to wins is the overriding stat (I would also accept team wins over pitcher credited with win)
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 22, 2016 12:14:06 GMT -5
If Kluber were on a bad team, then I would say the lower number of wins than Porcello should not be held against him, but Indians have about the same record so in the case of Kluber vs Porcello, pitching to wins is the overriding stat (I would also accept team wins over pitcher credited with win) This is penalizing Kluber for having better staffmates than Porcello. The reason their teams have similar records is the back end of the Indians rotation has been better than any team outside of the Cubs. Seems silly to penalize Kluber for Josh Tomlin being better than Sean O'Sullivan and Henry Owens.
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Post by manfred on Sept 22, 2016 13:58:00 GMT -5
If Kluber were on a bad team, then I would say the lower number of wins than Porcello should not be held against him, but Indians have about the same record so in the case of Kluber vs Porcello, pitching to wins is the overriding stat (I would also accept team wins over pitcher credited with win) This is penalizing Kluber for having better staffmates than Porcello. The reason their teams have similar records is the back end of the Indians rotation has been better than any team outside of the Cubs. Seems silly to penalize Kluber for Josh Tomlin being better than Sean O'Sullivan and Henry Owens. Of course, by that rationale, one could argue that Porcello gets "penalized" for his team's great defense -- because his FIP is higher based in no small part on the fact that he pitches to contact with multiple gold-glovers behind him. And then he gets penalized again WAR for similar reasons. I find the argument that Porcello has dramatically outpaced his first-place team's winning % at a rate well beyond Kluber's to his own first-place team's winning % -- a look at actual results more compelling than speculative stats that might argue Kluber is the theoretically better pitcher.
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Post by James Dunne on Sept 22, 2016 14:00:25 GMT -5
Wow you really kicked the snot out of that strawman.
EDIT: If you can find a post of me saying good things about FIP as it pertains to retrospective analysis (such as awards) I'll give you a cookie and a firm handshake.
EDIT2: Porcello isn't making some conscious decision to pitch to contact here, either. His strikeout percentage is the highest is his career despite playing in front of the best defense of his career. Kluber strikes out more batters than Porcello not by choice but because he's better at striking out hitters. Despite that, I think their candidacies are very close. I have Kluber ahead, but not by so much that it couldn't close in the final two starts.
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Post by telson13 on Sept 22, 2016 14:15:12 GMT -5
This is penalizing Kluber for having better staffmates than Porcello. The reason their teams have similar records is the back end of the Indians rotation has been better than any team outside of the Cubs. Seems silly to penalize Kluber for Josh Tomlin being better than Sean O'Sullivan and Henry Owens. Of course, by that rationale, one could argue that Porcello gets "penalized" for his team's great defense -- because his FIP is higher based in no small part on the fact that he pitches to contact with multiple gold-glovers behind him. And then he gets penalized again WAR for similar reasons. I find the argument that Porcello has dramatically outpaced his first-place team's winning % at a rate well beyond Kluber's to his own first-place team's winning % -- a look at actual results more compelling than speculative stats that might argue Kluber is the theoretically better pitcher. Except run support explains that difference. Don't get me wrong, I think they're neck-and-neck, and I'm not a huge fan of FIP in terms of retrospective comparison (or WAR so much for pitchers), but Porcello has had a LOT better run support.
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Post by bentossaurus on Sept 22, 2016 14:51:09 GMT -5
Following on the epic* Lavarnway, Michael Kopech, Margot/Kimbrel and Espinoza/Pomeranz trade threads, for some reason I see a lot of potential for this thread to go down that route as well.
*and by epic mean I mean atrocious
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