The low-key Jays righthander doesn’t have the flashy nickname, the flamboyant quotes or automatic national media exposure in the States that tends to attract the voters’ attention.

Cliff Lee, however...

Whereas Lee began the season in the middle of the Tribe’s rotation, Halladay has forever been the Jays’ starter with the target on his back, called upon to face other top contenders and their top pitchers.

So, so inane. I now WANT Cliff Lee to win the award. Sorry, Doc.

And if you remove the stat lines from Cliff Lee’s six worst starts…

Here, I'll shoot that fish.

Lee would be 20-0 with a 1.58 ERA.

Removing the stat lines from Halladay’s six worst starts

Why limit it to six starts? If you remove the stat lines from every start in which Halladay gave up an earned run, his ERA would be zero!

Defensive lapses sometimes contributed more than him having bad stuff.

And unfortunately for Roy, no other pitcher has this problem.

Holliday is a great pitcher and I'd certainly have no problem if he won the award over Lee, but this article is just silly.

Silly article. Point taken. Any GM in baseball takes Halladay over Lee on his team. But that's not what the shiny awards are about.

I thought Griffin was anti-Jays.

I thought Griffin was anti-Jays.

Just anti-J.P. and anti-Frank Thomas and anti- anyone else who won't kiss his ass.

Whereas Lee began the season in the middle of the Tribe’s rotation

He started the season as the fifth starter. There was considerable speculation that he wouldn't make the team at all. But, hey, let's not let facts get in the way of a good story.

To me, that makes Lee's season even more impressive. He was an afterthought in the team's plans, a placeholder until Sowers and/or Laffey were able to make the jump, and then he went out and dominated.

But really, none of that has anything to do with who should win the award. It should go to the American League pitcher who had the best season, and that's pretty obviously Cliff Lee. I don't see how you can even make a case for anyone else.

Defensive lapses sometimes contributed more than him having bad stuff.

Halladay got incredible defensive support. Like, to-the-tune-of-eight-runs incredible. Almost-enough-to-cancel-the-competition-gap incredible.

I'm not doubting that figure, Greg, but where did you get it from?

Lee's big advantage is in wins, ERA, and (most tellingly) HR/F. We know the first two aren't particularly meaningful. The last one isn't terribly predictive.

When you factor Halladay's inning advantage and that he faced the toughest competition of any AL starter, he'd get my vote.

We know the first two aren't particularly meaningful. The last one isn't terribly predictive.

Who cares how predictive it is? The Cy honors who had the best season, not who should have had the best. And that was Lee.

I'm as big a Halladay fan as anyone, but I don't think he has as good a case as Lee. You'd think Griffin could at least get the stats correct that he's using to support his argument. He says Halladay was 56th in RS among AL pitchers with 160 innings, which is hard when there were only 41 such pitchers. He was actually 28th, with 4.72, ahead of Ervin Santana. Joe Saunders, Matt Garza and Felix Hernanadez - good pitchers all.

If he'd had better support early in the year his record could easily have been 23-7 or so, which still wouldn't have been enough to eclipse Lee. Maybe if he had 270 innings, but not when he bests Lee by only 23 innings.

Halladay got incredible defensive support. Like, to-the-tune-of-eight-runs incredible. Almost-enough-to-cancel-the-competition-gap incredible.

Both guys got good defensive support (Halladay did have an advantage), and both teams stepped it up in the field with their ace on the mound.

Lee .699 DER (Indians .686 DER)
Halladay .714 DER (Jays .706 DER)

But Halladay still trumps Lee in defense independent stats like xFIP and tRA*. It comes down to the homers.

Who cares how predictive it is? The Cy honors who had the best season, not who should have had the best.

Halladay's average opponent hit .266/.342/.425. (2nd strongest OPS against in the AL, .001 behind Garza.)

Lee's average opponent hit .262/.330/.405.

Halladay had 16 games against Boston, New York, and Tampa. Lee had, um, 5 games against the Royals?

Lee had a great year, but it's less impressive the more you dig (especially compared to Halladay's season).

Lee had, um, 5 games against the Royals?

The Royals did .286/.341/.433 against guys like Cliff Lee, i.e., lefties.

I looked up tRA* and found a definition here. What's the difference between that and xFIP and why are they germane? It seems that they are more useful for predicting how pitchers will perform going forward than how they did. It's something that drives my crazy about David Cameron. There's folks out there who still use pitcher Won-Loss records to evaluate them and he yells at people for using ERA.

The Royals did .286/.341/.433 against guys like Cliff Lee, i.e., lefties.

You're not supposed to dig that far.

I'm not doubting that figure, Greg, but where did you get it from?

I'm not Greg, and I don't know where he got it from, but BB-Pro's RAA-PRAA is 8 runs for Halladay. Lee is zero for the same calculation.

Halladay had 16 games against Boston, New York, and Tampa.

Gosh, I'm really impressed by those starts against league-average offensive teams.

Lee had ten starts against the top four offenses in the American League. 12 starts against the top five offenses. Halladay had 8 starts against the top four offenses, ten against the top five.

If you want to start going into opponents, feel free, but I don't see how you can make a case that Lee's opponents were some kind of cakewalk.

BB-Pro's RAA-PRAA is 8 runs for Halladay. Lee is zero for the same calculation.

Where on their site is that? I can't find it.

Carl Yastrzemski, A Well-Paid Slav (GGC) Posted: November 13, 2008 at 11:05 AM (#3008110)
I looked up tRA* and found a definition here. What's the difference between that and xFIP

xFIP is basically FIP, but with HR / FB rate normalised to league average. FIP from the THT glossary "formula is (HR*13+(BB+HBP-IBB)*3-K*2)/IP, plus a league-specific factor (usually around 3.2) to round out the number to an equivalent ERA number."

tRA assigns run and out values to individual events, Ks, BBs, line drives, GBs, infield flies, flyballs, HRs, based on games. You can find more about tRA on Lookout Landing. The guy who invented it, Graham, posts there.

Okay. I got xFIP mixed up with some stat that used batted ball data. It might've been something that Gassko cooked up at THT.

Look I'm just a crazy guy who thinks that Sabathia should have won the NL Cy Young award but xFIP is a garbage stat that has no bearing on any award discussion, ever. Using it as evidence is just as bad as the ridiculous take away his six worst starts arguments.

But those routine flyballs Cliff Lee allowed should have gone over the fence. It's only fair to count them against him as HRs.

Lee had ten starts against the top four offenses in the American League. 12 starts against the top five offenses. Halladay had 8 starts against the top four offenses, ten against the top five.

How are you judging "top offenses"? (Surely not by runs scored alone.) Regardless, Lee had a 5.70 ERA against Detroit, Boston, and Texas.

The only case there's a clear advantage is Cliff Lee did a good job against the Twins, pitching nearly 30 innings of sub-3.00 ERA against a team that somehow scored 5.09 R/G. (Halladay had one mediocre start against them.) The Twins were useless against southpaws, hitting .275/.332/.397 against LHP. Halladay pitched 38 innings against Boston with a 2.56 ERA, including 24 in Fenway. Boston hit .275/.353/.438 against RHP.

Lee had a real advantage in opponents.

Aha! This is what I was thinking of: DIPS 3.0 and LIPS. I view these with some skepticism, perhaps not as much as Gaelan has, but some skepticism nevertheless. However, it's probably good for me to how the discussion is going.

Unless the delta between Lee's home run rate and predicted home run rate is entirely explained by over-the-fence catches by Grady Sizemore, I can't possibly see how xFIP (of all things!) makes the case that Halladay was better this year.

To the extent that xFIP and tRA (of which I'd never heard until this thread) are useful, their usefulness lies in evaluating outlier performances as the season is still going on. If a guy's tRA is two runs lower than his ERA, maybe you make a case to keep leaving him out there as you think he's been unlucky. But in determining who should win the Cy Young? I don't think so.

The Twins were useless against southpaws, hitting .275/.332/.397 against LHP. Halladay pitched 38 innings against Boston with a 2.56 ERA, including 24 in Fenway. Boston hit .275/.353/.438 against RHP.

You can't have it both ways. From earlier...

Lee had, um, 5 games against the Royals?

The Royals did .286/.341/.433 against guys like Cliff Lee, i.e., lefties.

My argument above aside, this is hardly a slam dunk - VORP says Lee was worth merely 4 runs more than halladay. I'd give it to him, but Halladay is certainly in the discussion.

What's keeping Ender?

How are you judging "top offenses"? (Surely not by runs scored alone.)

That's how I originally eyeballed it, but the top five in OPS+ are almost exactly the same as the top five in runs scored:

OPS+
1. TEX
2. BOS
3. DET
4. MIN
5. TBR

Runs:
1. TEX
2. BOS
3. MIN
4. DET
5. CHW

Detroit and Minnesota are essentially tied for third in both measurements - they're within two hundredths of a run per game and 1 point of OPS+. Tampa's a little better offensively than the stats indicate on first glance, but not that much: Instead of being exactly average in R/G, OPS+ suggests they had an offense that's 3% better than average.

The point I'm making is that you really, really have to squint to make a case for Halladay (xFIP, tRA, all those starts against the Yankees) and even if you give him the benefit of the doubt on all those things, it's still not clear-cut.

This may be a silly question, but in the opponents' batting line, is that league-wide minus the starts against a particular pitcher, or including?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not excluding those starts, Quilvio. I don't care that much.

You can't have it both ways.

You can have it both ways because we're trying to look at their entire seasons.

Unless the delta between Lee's home run rate and predicted home run rate is entirely explained by over-the-fence catches by Grady Sizemore, I can't possibly see how xFIP (of all things!) makes the case that Halladay was better this year.

Re: Lee's suppressed home run total. Luck? Skill? Sizemore?? Or because he threw 67 innings against the two worst HR hitting squads in the AL? (Lee pitched against the Giants and pre-Manny Dodgers just for good measure, too.) So explaining his HR/F or xFIP doesn't have to boil down to some hocus-pocus mumble-jumble.

I find it interesting that when you look at the things pitchers can control, Halladay and Lee are almost identical. Except Halladay pitched a tougher schedule. And more innings.

Lee had a great year. He'll be a deserving Cy Young. But the gap between him and Halladay isn't what people seem to think. It irks me that giving Lee extra credit for things outside his control is not far from the mentality that will put Howard ahead of Pujols on some ballots next week.

You can have it both ways because we're trying to look at their entire seasons.

I have no idea what this means.

But the gap between him and Halladay isn't what people seem to think.

What do you think people think? Because here we all think Halladay is among the first pitchers (if not <u>the</u> first pitcher) we'd pick if we were making a team for 2009. Tearing Lee down doesn't make Halladay even more awesome, though.

Lee wins. 24 of 28 1st place votes. Halladay 2nd. Frankie 3rd.

What do you think people think?

Well, 3 voters didn't think Halladay was one of the top 3 pitchers in the AL in 2008. (And 6 thought Masuzaka was.)

And I don't see how looking behind the numbers is tearing Lee down.

Where on their site is that? I can't find it.

On Halladay's DT page, under "Advanced Pitching Statistics", "Adjusted for Season"