For a guy with two Cy Young awards, Snell certainly doesn't draw the accolades or the contract expectations you might expect

Has there been another 2 time Cy Young award winner who was so unimpressive in all his other seasons?

Eli Manning?

;)

I kinda hate that Snell won so easily. He led the league in ERA/ERA+ but only threw 180 IP. I've lowered my durability expectations but 180 IP is still nothing special, tied for 10th in the league. Snell also led the league in walks.

There was a big discrepancy between bWAR and fWAR among the NL CYA candidates this year. Snell led the NL in bWAR and only Logan Webb was close. But Snell was 6th by fWAR, over a win behind each of the top 3. On balance I prefer bWAR for awards but this year might be the exception for me.

#1 - Because those are the only 2 seasons of his career where he even pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title.

It says a lot about the state of starting pitching that it's possible to be a 2 time CYA winner without a single complete game in your career (let alone a shutout)

I kinda hate that Snell won so easily. He led the league in ERA/ERA+ but only threw 180 IP. I've lowered my durability expectations but 180 IP is still nothing special, tied for 10th in the league. Snell also led the league in walks.

I hear ya. It's not a very exciting season and 180 innings isn't much; the problem is no one else had an exciting season either. There are arguments for Strider or Gallen or Webb, but they're not overwhelming. Based on WAR (bWAR or fWAR) you could almost throw the top 5-6 names in a hat and pull one out and think, "Well, I guess that's possible. He's not clearly worse than [other contender]."

Snell's ERA was very good, and I suppose that's why he won (his bWAR is linked to that). But I feel like we're getting to the point where ERA is about as meaningful/meaningless as pitcher wins.

Pitchers who have won the CYA in both leagues:

Gaylord Perry
Pedro Martinez
Randy Johnson
Roger Clemens
Roy Halladay
Max Scherzer

And...Blake Snell

(Cue the Sesame Street music; "One of these things is not like the others...")

Cole gets his name off the list of most CYA shares without actually winning one. He was right behind Wainwright for the top spot, just ahead of Sale and Schilling.

Funny, never noticed before that 4 of the 7 guys who have won in both leagues played for Canadian teams at some point (Johnson & Martinez with the Expos, Clemens & Halladay with the Jays). Guess the Jays need to sign Snell now :) As a Jays fan, I wouldn't complain.

It is weird that Snell has thrown over 130 innings only twice, but both times he led in ERA, ERA+, H/9 and won the Cy Young. Sub 6 H/9 both those years, but 7+ every other season. 127 his best ERA+ in a non-Cy year, 182 and 217 ERA+ his two Cy years. Easy to see why FanGraphs has contract expectations at 'only' $140 mil over 5 - $28 mil per year vs the $40 mil that geezers Verlander & Scherzer are getting. Weird they have the same amount for Nola who seems a far safer bet for innings (3 straight 180+ IP, 3 times over 200 IP in his career) but worse recent performance (2 of past 3 years were sub 100 ERA+). Two very different pitchers, but both very valuable.

Snell should sign somewhere that is more amenable to some version of a six man rotation. He generates a lot of value, you just have to know how to deploy it (see: Jacob Degrom)

Speaking of which - why wouldn't Degrom just migrate to being a multi inning closer? Imagine him holding the 8th and 9th innings 40-50x a year. Maybe he could do 7-9.

#10: That would be the Dodgers. Not 6-man rotations necessarily but for several years they mastered use of the IL as a taxi squad of SPs. The good old days of 25 from Kershaw, 22 from Rich Hill, 24 from Ryu, etc. (Hmmm ... not far off 2017: Kershaw 27, Wood 25, Hill 25, Maeda 25, Ryu 24, McCarthy 16, Darvish (deadline) 9.)

DeGrom as multi-inning reliever ... often proposed in theory, never to my knowledge really tried in practice with a top starter. But almost no pitcher has ever survived that sort of usage for long. (Wilhelm, Marshall, the first half of Gossage's career ... and those were all nearly 50 years ago now) Even when Hader did "this" a few years ago, it was 55 appearances and 81 innings, about 5.5 BF/appearance. Whether there are legit physiological reasons or not, history suggests that 4 innings spread out over 2 appearance every 6 games might be as/more damaging than a single 6 inning outing every 5 games (frequently 6 days). If DeGrom can't recover from a start in 4-5 days of rest, he probably can't recover from a 2-inning relief appearance in 2-3 days of rest.

But give the pitching labs a crack at it. Maybe 40 tactical appearances (i.e. some starts, some close, maybe some middel) of 3 innings each might be no more injurious than 30 5-inning starts.

#11 Marshall didn't have arm issues though -- hurt his knee which probably isn't workload related.

That said I wouldn't rely on any single example, any more than I'd rely on Nolan Ryan to "prove" pitchers can throw 180+ pitches on a regular basis.

The "long stopper" was popular in the 60s and 70s and they pretty much always broke. Dick Radatz had 3 big years and that was longer than most -- think Wayne Granger or Bill Campbell. (Yes, Campbell was around for a decade after 1977 -- wasn't the same guy)

Bob Stanley. As a reliever he averaged a little over 2 IP and 8.4 BF per game. 132 saves and about 130 ERA+. He did it for 13 years.

#12 I was citing Marshall as one of the few who survived.

Has anyone looked at the post season and tried to figure out if the increased workload on relief pitchers (well all pitchers but those especially) is leading to an increase in runs? Most of the best relievers are now throwing 1 inn every 3 games but it seems like as you get deeper in the playoffs these same relievers are called upon more and more.

#15: Rivera probably screws up the analysis. :-)

I'm not sure you can get a big enough sample to find what is surely a fairly small effect that might not even show up until G7 (when there is a G7). With relievers in general, you can't really tell the difference between "he's worn out" and "this was one of the two random games every season when he gives up a 3-run HR."

Even a guy like Sewald. We're not talking Rivera here. The guy had a 3.12 ERA, a 3.57 FIP and gave up 1.2 HR/9 this year, numbers that are consistent with his career. Those were two massive stinker innings in the WS but the 8 IP in 22 days with just 3 hits, 1 BB and 11 Ks that preceded it wasn't very likely either. 8 IP in 22 days (plus 5 days off before that) is not particularly heavy usage for him -- he appears in about 10-11 games a month. A high percentage of innings pitched by a team's top relievers is obviously part of the strategy but it's only possible because of all the off days.

Now Andrew Miller in 2016 maybe. He threw 74 innings in 70 games in the regular season then Cle used him for 19.1 innings in Oct. Twice he pitched multi-innings back-to-back. Still he had 3 full days rest before pitching not great in G7. He had a 1.40 ERA with 30 Ks, it's kinda hard to argue the over-usage hurt his performance.

I do suspect there's something to the idea but it will be hard to nail down and, even if there is a negative effect, it's probably still a better idea to bring in Sewald than a fresh Ryan Thompson.

I kinda hate that Snell won so easily. He led the league in ERA/ERA+ but only threw 180 IP. I've lowered my durability expectations but 180 IP is still nothing special, tied for 10th in the league. Snell also led the league in walks.

I took a look at starting pitchers who threw at least 7 IP in a game last season after reading that Padres pitching coach, Ruben Niebla, said he didn't care about Snell's walks, the laughed at walks. I wasn't laughing watching Snell for the past three seasons, he's frustrating as hell the way he nibbles and puts baserunners on. Now, yes, he was able to work around it this season and pitched well overall. BUT, he only made it to 7 IP in 2 starts. That makes a difference in workload for the bullpen, and the Padres had a terrible bullpen this year. Why didn't Snell pitch deeper more often if he was such a stud, a CY quality pitcher? Because his ####### pitch count was almost always through the roof because he walked so many batters (and, granted, struck out a #### ton, too). Webb pitched a ton of starts that were at least 7 IP, I would have given it to him over Snell and his league leading walks/180 IP.

Snell is kinda extreme so there is something to what you say. But Webb still averaged 6.5 IP/start and Snell 5.6. So Snell required an extra 30 or so innings out of his bullpen. On the season as a whole, the Giants used 705 innings from their pen (nearly 50%!) while the Padres used just 577. Webb may have had little choice but to add the extra inning. And Webb's numbers from 7th on were terrible this year (just 26 IP). Still, I agree Webb should get some credit for the extra 36 IP and Snell's 5.6/start is not impressive at all.

Webb posted a 5.47 ERA after the 6th inning this season. This is an argument for pitchers going deeper into games?

Still, I agree Webb should get some credit for the extra 36 IP and Snell's 5.6/start is not impressive at all.

you're a math guy so I will ask you: is there a decent way to quantify the extra workload in terms of runs or whatever? and not run into some sort of conunudrum?

Snell's ERA was very good, and I suppose that's why he won (his bWAR is linked to that). But I feel like we're getting to the point where ERA is about as meaningful/meaningless as pitcher wins.

ERA seems a lot more meaningful than pitcher wins, although I can understand people who want to give more weight to peripherals and FIP.

It's hard to complain about the guy who won the ERA title by so much winning the award -- it's better than just giving it to the guy with the best W-L record.

I think Gallen would have been a fine choice, as well as Webb -- although Webb would have had a better chance if he didn't have a losing record.

Webb posted a 5.47 ERA after the 6th inning this season. This is an argument for pitchers going deeper into games?

It was more a personal rant that Snell has been frustrating as hell to watch, then secondarily that he was not a great choice as CY due to his high BB's and low IP, but I guess it did sort of come off as making an argument for pitchers going deeper. That being said, your snippet of Webb is incredibly misleading. Webb pitched into the 7th, or beyond, in 16 starts and had an ERA of 2.12 in those starts. He threw one shutout, allowed 3 ER 4 times, 2 ER 5 times, and just 1 ER in the other 6 starts. His record was 10-2 with 4 no decisions. He walked just 14 vs. 101 K's. His WHIP, BB9 and SO/W were all better in these games than his season marks although his SO9 was a bit lower. If he allowed several of those ER after the 6th inning, it did not have a negative impact on his team or his performance that I can see.

On the season as a whole, the Giants used 705 innings from their pen

Giants were running out openers on a regular basis (Ryan Walker 13 GS, John Brebbia 10, Scott Alexander 8) while using traditional starters Manaea, Wood, Stripling, and others for multi-inning outings out of the pen, in a variety of combinations.