At least Verlander gets to go home to Kate Upton (unconfirmed).

And good for Dickey, but Cueto got really neglected there.

Are the Mets going to lose a batting champ and a Cy Young award winner in consecutive seasons?

Congrats to Dickey. He's a fun guy to root for.

i am really glad for dickey.

Interesting results! Who would have expected that Dickey would win in a rout? He got 27 first place votes.

Tim Kurkjian voted for Kimbrel first.

And why on earth do they announce these at the end of the day like this?

And why on earth do they announce these at the end of the day like this?

To miss the BBTF news cycle.

Verlander appeared ahead of Price on 14 ballots and price appeared ahead of Verlander on 14 ballots.

Wow, very close race in the AL. Price becomes the first starter since Clemens in 2004 to win a Cy Young with less than 215 IP. I would have chosen Justin, but Price is not a travesty.

Both LA guys put Verlander 3rd behind Weaver. A bit of homerism going on there.

I don't think Price won because of his wins, but rather because the voters don't understand park and defense adjustments. Verlander is better in every possible way than Price. Except maybe as a LOOGY.

Verlander appeared ahead of Price on 14 ballots and price appeared ahead of Verlander on 14 ballots.

Verlander's secretary's name is David and Price's secretary's name is Justin.

The closeness of the AL vote does not surprise me nearly as much as the way Dickey won in a rout.

Interesting results! Who would have expected that Dickey would win in a rout? He got 27 first place votes.

It's easy for me to say this in retrospect, but Dickey's got a great story. For the BBWAA, that goes a long way.

A brief but wonderful moment for Mets fans and lovers of literature.

Price? Over Verlander? That.... seems surprising. Or have I just not been paying close enough attention? I know he had a great year, but I feel like I heard about Verlander after every start, Price, not as much.

We should always expect that some voters will be reluctant to vote for the same person two years in a row, preferring to err on the side of giving the honor to someone new. And this year any such voters were what made the difference.

And why on earth do they announce these at the end of the day like this?

Blame MLB Network. It used to be that the BBWAA would have a press release on their website at 2pm EST but the network does it on live TV now. Thus, they wait until later in the day and more eyeballs can see it.

Love that Fernando Rodney got a first place vote. That's my favorite part about these ballots.

Interesting that Morosi from the Detroit chapter voted Price first. Though would not have made a difference in the outcome.

Surprised none of the Harrison/Darvish votes were from Texas.

Interesting that Morosi from the Detroit chapter voted Price first. Though would not have made a difference in the outcome.

Doesn't Morosi swapping votes for Verlander/Price change each's total by 3 points, in which case, Verlander would have won if Morosi had listed him 1st?

Price? Over Verlander? That.... seems surprising. Or have I just not been paying close enough attention? I know he had a great year, but I feel like I heard about Verlander after every start, Price, not as much.

Price had more wins (20!) and a better ERA than Verlander. He had to be the favorite for the award. As mentioned above, Verlander's superior value is obscured by park and defense effects.

And Price had a pretty damn fine season and is in no way a poor selection.

i am really glad for dickey.

Also this.

Price had more wins (20!) and a better ERA than Verlander.

And his team made the play ... err, I mean had more wins than Detroit. :-)

Also surprised by Dickey's margin and surprised Cueto wasn't an easy 2nd. Also ... did we see a single pre-award article from an actual voter? Is this part of having the announcement on MLB that writers don't discuss this in columns prior to the announcement? That would kinda suck. Or have we just not been linking to them here? Anyway, it seems I haven't seen much CYA and MVP discussion articles posted.

And Drew Davison deserves to have his starters taken away.

If a writer is honorary does that mean retired?
And does at large mean unemployed?

And does at large mean unemployed?

It means "political cartoonist from Montreal".

Price? Over Verlander? That.... seems surprising. Or have I just not been paying close enough attention? I know he had a great year, but I feel like I heard about Verlander after every start, Price, not as much.

I wonder how much of it too is due to Verlander's performance in the WS. I can't help but think that his bad outing there has an outsized effect.

I haven't seen much CYA and MVP discussion articles posted.

Apparently there has been some discussion about the AL MVP regarding Trout and Cabrera, you may have seen some of that...

In all seriousness though, I know what you are getting at here and I agree. Normally you see a few more Neyer type articles proceeding these announcements.

I wonder how much of it too is due to Verlander's performance in the WS. I can't help but think that his bad outing there has an outsized effect.

Voting is done before the playoffs.

Oh.

Derp.

Kershaw deserved the award more, but as many people have said, Dickey is easily the feel-good choice. Kershaw, like Verlander, was really hurt both by winning the award last year and by being slightly worse this year.

I'm also baffled by the lack of recognition for Cueto, and the corresponding excessive votes for Gonzalez. Not only in the real voting, but also in BP's staff awards and IBAs, Cueto couldn't manage to finish higher than fourth despite pitching 217 innings with the third-lowest ERA in the league in a stadium that's widely known as a bandbox. Gonzalez had a higher ERA in a pitcher's park and pitched fewer innings, and normally that suggests that the voters will favor him less. Was it really just the 21 wins (versus Cueto's 19)? Was it the strikeouts? FIP? Or, alternatively, do the voters all have the same experience I do, where Cueto is in contention for the most boring pitcher in baseball to watch? I practically fall asleep watching him, which is very unusual for a pitcher of his quality, but I never assumed that others felt the same way, or that it would affect their opinion of his abilities.

I think just more eyeballs on Gio, and also his start to the season, which seemed so dominating, probably made a deep impression. (He was 12-3 and leading the league in K's at the break I believe) Cueto faded a bit at the end, and yes, Gio ended up with 21 wins, which seems like a gargantuan total these days.

Not saying any of these are valid reasons to vote Gio ahead of Cueto, just possible explanations as to why they did.

I think thats a coin toss really. You could go either way.

Keith Law argued today that Cueto received an outsized benefit from facing the Cubs, Astros, and Pirates a combined 10 times. That's why he had Cueto behind Gonzalez. OTOH, the average hitter Cueto faced this year had a .762 OPS; for Gonzalez, that figure was .754 (source: baseballprospectus.com). So that mitigates Keith's point somewhat.

Cueto has beaten his FIP every year he's been in the big leagues, and he beat it by more than 0.5 in both 2011 and 2012. At this point I don't think it's a fluke. I've pointed this out before, but part of that is due to the fact that he kills the running game: this year, he allowed 1 SB against 9 CS. Last year, it was 1 SB, 4 CS. Surely that causes a wedge between ERA and FIP.

#29 - Perhaps. I hadn't even considered the shape-of-season argument, but yeah, Cueto definitely had a couple of real clunkers near the end of the year, and Gio pretty much kept on ticking.

#30 - Yeah, I don't think Law's argument stands up to much scrutiny. And you're right that his pickoff move is stunningly effective. It's been written about before, but I think most people forget it. It has a surprisingly large impact. Something puzzling I noticed about his statistics this season is that despite stranding 79% of runners, his wOBA allowed with bases empty/runners on/runners in scoring position was .273/.322/.346 (from FanGraphs). No matter how good his pickoff move is, this discrepancy doesn't make much sense to me. Does anyone know how to find out if the Reds' bullpen stranded an inordinate number of runners for him this year? Or if he got a ton of runners thrown out on the bases behind him? Those are about the only explanations that come to mind. And if either or both of those are true, I suppose Gonzalez probably did have the better season.

Not exactly related, but Cueto's left-on-base % this year was 78.8%. I don't have a gauge for that, but according to Fangraphs, that's really high: league-average is generally 70% - 72%. Interestingly, Cueto's LOB% was 76%+ in both 2010 and 2011, so he may have some 'skill' here.

Gio's this year was 74.1%. That's actually lower than in either 2010 or 2011.

Does anyone know how to find out if the Reds' bullpen stranded an inordinate number of runners for him this year?

He bequeathed 12 runners and 4 scored. (Gio bequeathed 11 runners and 4 scored)

LINK

He didn't leave that many runners out there for his bullpen, and Dusty seldom pulled him mid inning, just 6 times.

In all seriousness though, I know what you are getting at here and I agree.

Also I did mean by folks with actual votes. We did see a number of Cabrera/Trout articles near the end of the season but I think all by non-voters. And we didn't seem to see that many end-of-year "here are my picks for all of these awards" articles.

his wOBA allowed with bases empty/runners on/runners in scoring position was .273/.322/.346

Don't know but one thing to watch for there is walks. Some pitchers really do seem to find the "strategic" walks (OK, I suppose they're "tactical"). This was a key to Glavine's success:

nobody on: 256/304/384 -- about 1 walk per 16 PA
men on: 260/340/369 -- about 1 walk per 9.5 PA
RISP: 252/358/356 -- about 1 walk per 7 PA
1st only: 271/316/384 -- about 1 walk per 16 PA
2nd only: 252/391/373 -- more than 1 walk per 6 PA
3rd only: 265/400/366 -- about 1 per 5 PA
1st & 2nd: 237/312/345 -- about 1 per 11.5 PA (hit 9 guys though)
2nd & 3rd: 241/488/330 -- yes, a 488 OBP, about 1 walk per 3 PA, a 40/105 K/BB
bases loaded: 251/273/315 -- about 1 per 21 PA (those numbers are a thing of beauty)

Increasingly stingy with hits and ISO but Glavine walked the ballpark when men were on, except 1st only and bases loaded. Some of it might be due to the ol' "men being on is evidence he wasn't pitching as well that day" but the variation in the walk rate across different base situations suggests that a lot of it was "semi-intentional." Or flat out intentional -- about 1 in 4.5 PA with 2nd & 3rd. Meanwhile the BAs and ISOs were a bit lower with men on. And HRs -- 1 per 44 PA with nobody on; 1 per 70 PA with men on.

Anyway, a line of 241/488/330 is gonna produce a pretty nice wOBA. The others with OBPs near 400 are gonna look real good in wOBA too. His career WHIP was a solid but unspectacular 1.31 so, for an elite pitcher, he was putting plenty of guys on base. His excellent ERA+ can't just be explained by him pitching poorly with runners on but just not putting many runners on.* He knew how to limit the damage with guys on base and he did so. wOBA is probably not great when broken down by bases and, at the very least, Glavine's walks weren't causing him undue harm.

Cueto doesn't seem so extreme, at least not for his career. And this year there is a big diff in walk rates but he got legitimately smacked around with RISP (271/362/465). He probably was the case of not letting them on to begin with -- 273 OBP with bases empty.

*Talk about non-obvious comps, Fergie and Glavine have roughly the same number of IP and ERA+; Fergie's WHIP was 1.1 (partly due to era), Glavine's 1.3.

So, 0 for 2. Got them both wrong. Baseball writers are the best. And by the best I mean the worst.

So, 0 for 2. Got them both wrong. Baseball writers are the best. And by the best I mean the worst.

Just curious, what's so obviously wrong about Dickey? Based on WAR (which I don't totally trust for pitchers), Kershaw, Cueto and Dickey were all but indistinguishable by bWAR, and Kershaw gets a bit of separation in fWAR (but not from Gio), though I don't know what the margin of error is supposed to be.

I don't really see a slam-dunk winner in the NL. Lots of guys have pretty good cases -- Dickey, Kershaw, Cueto, Gonzalez, maybe even Kimbrel. I'm surprised that Dickey won so easily, but don't see anything outrageous about the outcome.

So, 0 for 2. Got them both wrong. Baseball writers are the best. And by the best I mean the worst.

Kershaw: 3.25 xFIP in 227.2 innings. Dickey: 3.27 xFIP in 233.2 innings. Everyone grab a torch and a pitchfork!

Also, Price led the AL in xFIP, though in a bunch fewer innings than Verlander. Cliff Lee, he of 0 votes, led the majors.

#33 - Thanks. I suppose that isn't it, then.

#34 - I knew about the "tactical walks" thing, but thanks for the reminder that wOBA is incorrect in situations like this. Regardless, though, as you noted, he struck out significantly fewer hitters and allowed many more home runs with runners on in addition to the extra walks. I still can't quite figure out how so few scored. That could be a good article idea for a writer at one of the sabermetric sites.

On an unrelated note, I think there's a case that Medlen deserved a few downballot votes. B-R had him sixth in WAR, and FG had him tenth. That isn't sufficient on its own to merit a fifth-place vote, but the way I personally look at pitchers for the Cy Young, I don't treat it as a strict "value" judgement the way I do for MVP. I give a boost to spectacular performance in less playing time over very good performance in more playing time. And Medlen had a 1.57 ERA/1.70 RA9 in 138 IP for the season, including a 0.97 ERA/1.18 RA9 (!) in his 83.7 innings as a starter. To me, that's amazing. A 2.42 FIP overall is pretty darned good, too.

A few weeks ago, I asked, and Fernigal found, that Kimbrel in 2012 had the lowest RA9 ever, min. 60 IP. I think that gives him a pretty darned strong case for the award. I'm not quite sure I'm swayed - my ballot probably would have gone Kershaw-Cueto-Dickey-Kimbrel-Gonzalez, with Medlen in a hypothetical sixth slot - but I have no problem with the guy who put him first.

Alan, if you are going to go to xFIP, why not go to the park adjusted version, xFIP- ?

xFIP minus leaderboard

or we could just look at a somewhat lesser imaginary stat, FIP minus...(after all the homers WERE allowed or not.

FIP minus leaderboard

So here we see Verlander is back to being teh awesome, and Wade Miley was 2nd in the NL behind Gio.

I like this game of esoteric one upsmanship. ;)

Even if you ignore defense and park for some reason, Verlander pitched 27 more innings with an ERA .08 higher. Writers must have been looking at wins.

39,

Point was simply that unless you limit yourself to WAR, Kershaw (I assume he was the "correct" choice) wasn't so clearly the best pitcher. I just found the other stuff interesting. I don't think any particular stat is definitive.

It would've been funny if the voting was a tie, and Price and Verlander co-won the Cy. Sound familiar, Tigers fans?

Blame MLB Network. It used to be that the BBWAA would have a press release on their website at 2pm EST but the network does it on live TV now. Thus, they wait until later in the day and more eyeballs can see it.

Ah ha. The last week, I'll get home, and MLB has some show on where they're "breaking down" a particular race. I simply assumed that was for the announcement the following day and, getting my fill of expert analysis here at BBTF, I switch the channel. I had no idea that show would conclude with the announcement, which I could watch. Damn.


I don't think either of these are travesties, though I'd have put Verlander ahead of Price and I'm happy with Dickey.

Are the people who are suprised that Dickey won by such a big margin also surprised that Obama won the electoral vote by as much as he did?
If a bunch of people think Dickey was slightly better than Cueto/Kershaw, which voters should have dropped Dickey to 2nd so that the final vote matches up with the closeness of their years?

Doesn't Morosi swapping votes for Verlander/Price change each's total by 3 points, in which case, Verlander would have won if Morosi had listed him 1st?

Stupid math. Yes, you are correct. Wonder how much grief he is going to get back in Detroit over this.

Zimmerman: 196 IP, 2.94 ERA, named on 0 ballots
Gonzalez: 199 IP, 2.86 ERA, named on 31 ballots

So was it the wins or the peripherals?

So was it the wins or the peripherals?

I think it was probably the hot start more than either. Voters get candidates in their minds either early or in September.

So was it the wins or the peripherals?

Zimmermann only won 12 games. If his teammate had a similarly good season and won 21, he's not getting any votes.

So was it the wins or the peripherals?

Is there any reason to vote for Zimmerman over Gonzalez on a ballot that only goes three deep?

Is there any reason to vote for Zimmerman over Gonzalez on a ballot that only goes three deep?

Point taken, but the ballot goes 5 deep.