Or as Flush Flaherty dumped out yesterday…“Where did Chris Sale and all those wins come from?!”
Verlander is now 12-7 with a 2.51 ERA, his won-loss record influenced by poor run support (entering Monday’s game, he had the eighth-lowest run support among qualified starters). Verlander leads the AL in innings and strikeouts, while ranking second to Weaver among starters in batting average allowed and OPS.
Weaver is now 15-1 with a 2.13 ERA, leading the AL in wins, ERA and routine fly balls to left field. He has won nine straight starts, with a 1.60 ERA over that span. It was his eighth start this year without allowing a run; no other starter has more than six (Johan Santana and Ryan Dempster) and even Verlander only has three such starts.
If much of this sounds familiar, it’s because we were in a similar position a year ago, with Verlander and Weaver battling for the AL Cy Young Award. Verlander ended up the unanimous winner, but it’s easy to forget it was a good debate much of the season. At this point a year ago, Verlander was 16-5 with a 2.30 ERA while Weaver was 14-5 with a 1.78 ERA. Verlander would win his next eight starts while Weaver sputtered to a 4.27 ERA over his final nine starts.
Verlander’s big advantage over Weaver is he has thrown 37 more innings; and while voters have learned to pay less attention to win-loss records, it’s hard to ignore Weaver’s 15-1 record.
...Right now, I’d probably vote for Verlander. He has the big innings edge over Weaver and Sale, and he doesn’t have the luxury of the same pitching-friendly home park like Weaver, Price or Hernandez. Still, it’s a solid five-person race right now, as deep and interesting a Cy Young race as we’ve seen in years.
Repoz
Posted: August 07, 2012 at 09:50 AM |
51 comment(s)
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1. The Long Arm of Rudy Law Posted: August 07, 2012 at 10:47 AM (#4202181)NL: I think Harper, Dickey and McCutchen.
AL: Trout, Trout and Trout.
The point about where Weaver and Verlander were one year ago today, and how they finished is a good one. Right now they are good candidates for Cy, as are Price and Sale.
For NL MVP, McCutchen has the numbers, and if the season ended today he's getting major bonus points for leading the first Pirate playoff team in 20 years. Even if the numbers fall off a bit, if the Pirates keep it up the award is his.
Isn't it late August/early September when the writers start floating their trial balloons? They'll reveal their preferences and, presumably (though never admittedly), gauge the ensuing reactions. Unless I am imagining this phenomenon, it seems to happen with greater regularity every passing year and the ultimate voting results continue to be less and less surprising, with enough unofficial information already "leaked" well in advance.
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I believe it's pretty neutral. Yeah, center, left-center, and right-center are deep (especially right-center), but it's fairly easy to put one out down the lines. It all adds up to become neutral.
People still remember the first year, before the fences were brought in in left (where the bullpens are now). That was a shot to get one out there. The only "easy" place to get a home run was the right field line. People still remember that, and call it a pitcher friendly park, which isn't necessarily true.
I'm a big Detroit fan, and even I have to agree with you. Before last night, Verlander was going through a bit of a rough spot. That may have cost him back-to-back Cy's.
I think technically Rizzo is still eligible to win the award. If he continues to pound the ball while Harper's OPS+ falls below 100 I think Rizzo should win it.
The Tigers have a very poor defensive team. Cabrera hasn't been the complete embarrassment that many predicted, but he isn't good. Jhonny Peralta is an aging third baseman trying to fake shortshop, Prince Fielder is a born DH, and Delmon Young is the worst defensive player of all of these guys. The only plus glove regular is Austin Jackson.
The Angels, on the other hand, have Trout-Bourjos in the outfield, plus Pujols and a number of solid gloves in the infield. The only poor defender is Mark Trumbo, and they can hide him with two GG center fielders at the other two OF positions.
DRS has the Tigers defense 50 runs below average, UZR says 20. The Angels rate as +40 by DRS and +30 by UZR. That's a difference of 50-90 runs for the whole club, 7-15 runs between the two pitchers. That would put them even, or Verlander up.
RE: post 7, I'm similarly surprised to see that bb-ref has Comerica as slightly hitter friendly over the past few seasons. I know RF and LF are no longer particularly deep, but flyballs absolutely die in CF at that place.
I'm relatively sure Rizzo burned up his rookie eligibility last year -- I can't recall if it's 150 ABs or 150 PAs, but he had 153 PAs in his Padre cup of coffee last year.
EDIT: The rules I found say 130 ABs -- so Rizzo just sneaks under with 128 ABs -- so maybe I'm wrong...
Hmm -- I'm assuming that comes through in the DRS numbers, then? The Sox actually rate quite well in defensive efficiency, albeit merely average by UZR.
For what it's worth, Trout's catch of the year (the one vs. Baltimore) saved a homer for Weaver.
I think technically Rizzo is still eligible to win the award. If he continues to pound the ball while Harper's OPS+ falls below 100 I think Rizzo should win it.
Aoki is a helluva defender. He saved a couple of runs last night against Cincinnati. He and Harper are very close in OPS+ and each has 13 steals, so both have a pretty good ROY case. Todd Frazier has the best rate stats among the three (.268/.325/.517, about 15 points of OPS+ over Aoki and Harper) but in 100 less PAs than Harper and 70 less than Aoki. And it's going to get tougher for Frazier to stay in the lineup when Votto returns.
Weaver's BABIP is .230, compared to career .273, .264 in his 2010-2011 peak. Further, the strength of the Angels defense is their outfield, and Weaver is a flyball pitcher. Weaver has allowed only 15 doubles and 1 triple this year, a rate of 4.4% of opponent balls in play going for extra bases in play. For his career, he gives up doubles and triples on 7.2% of balls in play, the last two years his rate was 6.8%. That's a decrease of ~33%. I think Weaver is getting a ton of defensive support, as you'd expect for a flyball pitcher with the best outfield defense in the world behind him.
I put Verlander ahead of Weaver because of the huge innings advantage and disparity in defense, and Price ahead of him for quality of competition.
His decrease in doubles/triples may be attributed to him getting more ground balls. He's 33% for his career, and 38% this year. I'm not so sure the outfield defense is a specific strength. It is if the OF is Trout-Bourjos-Hunter, but they don't play that outfield most of the time. Trout's greatness and Hunter's goodness still adds up to a good OF even if Trumbo is the 3rd guy out there though. And the infield has been outstanding - All 4 guys have been gold glove quality. No matter where you give up your balls in play, Angels can defend it.
I know voters have put less weight on W-L the last few years, but if Weaver's ERA is pretty comparable to Verlander/Price/Sale, wins 20 games, and loses fewer than five, I think he's a lock. His nine start win streak is a nice feather in his cap as well. If he goes something like 21-3 or 21-4, his ERA would have to balloon to about 3.00 to lose the Cy Young, and if his ERA balloons like that, he probably won't win the requisite number of games.
Of course, the Angels could very well end up the Cy Young, ROY, and MVP, and still miss the playoffs.
Not sure I see how anyone can argue Weaver over Verlander, even before getting into the defense.
1998: Juan Gonzalez
2006: Justin Morneau
2009: Joe Mauer
Jeter had the better season than the award winner in 2 of those years. By "Somebody went crazy" you must mean the award voters.
Jeter's best year, though, was 1999, when someone did go crazy on the league (not that Pedro won).
I agree with this completely. A 20+ win pitcher with a very low ERA and winning 80% of his decisions isn't losing the Cy Young unless someone with a worse record is doing something absolutely ridiculous as far as ERA/Ks and right now nobody is.
It's possible that Weaver's defensive support hasn't saved a lot of runs for him, but I think that by a wide margin the most convincing read of the data is that Weaver's an excellent pitcher whose runs allowed numbers overrate him by about a full win.
EDIT: To be clear, Weaver would be nowhere close to a bad Cy Young selection. He's pitching excellent. But I think he's behind Verlander on the merits, right now.
Including a sweet add to the "gunned down by Josh Reddick" list.
I know, I know. Shut up. I'M TRYING TO MAKE LEMONADE, OVER HERE.
Your're telling me. Just last night he passed Manny in career steals already!
I haven't heard many comparisons to Joe Dimaggio. Dimag probably could fly at the beginning of his career.
You can't give Trout credit for saving 10 runs unless you take that credit away from the Angels' pitchers. Math don't add up otherwise.
If I were capable of being objective on this, I'd probably agree.
Trout does not have a notable arm, and he routinely gets awful jumps on his SB attempts. Ten years from now, when he slows down to fast, he'll have to be better at that.
No, but we should credit defenses for their share of run prevention.
Absolutely. I would argue that our means of doing so are rather remedial, but that's probably a whole other conversation.
Though by that time he might be hitting so many homers that he doesn't need to run anymore.
Is that true? I haven't seen many of his steals. His SB rate is over 90% for his career, so even with his ridiculous speed it's a little hard to believe that he gets bad jumps.
As a dark-horse candidate, I love Mike Fiers, who no one seems to be talking about. He now has a 1.80 ERA in 12 starts (80 IP) with 9.0 K/9 and 5.0 K/BB, and 3.1 WAR. He had similar numbers in the minors so I don't think he's a fluke. Maybe people aren't excited about him because of his age (he's already 27).
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