Looking for More Cy Young Separators
As I wrote yesterday, I have an NL Cy Young vote this year. It is a remarkably tough year to pick a winner, as there are three pitchers having award-worthy seasons; you can make a really good argument for any of the three. The reality is that those of us with votes are going to have to split the slimmest of hairs in order to sort out the top three spots on the ballot, and yesterday, I tackled the question of catcher influence.
In response, someone left this comment.
This is a great suggestion; when the overall influence of combined season numbers are this close, looking at the individual distribution absolutely could be a source of differentiation. And since I know at least one other puzzled Cy Young voter read yesterday’s piece, I figured it was worth exploring this idea, plus a couple others by the responses to the piece.
The easiest way to measure consistency within performance is to measure the standard deviation of a pitcher’s game score from their game logs at Baseball Reference. Game Score isn’t a perfect measure of pitcher performance — most notably, it makes zero attempt to account for the impact of defense — but it does give us a single measure of a pitcher’s results and puts everyone on the same scale, so for comparison purposes, it works okay for this idea.
To compare the game-to-game consistency of the three pitchers in the race, I took the game logs for each pitcher, dumped them into excel, and then ran the =StDev function on their game score columns. The results.
| Pitcher | Average Game Score | Standard Deviation |
| Zack Greinke | 66.8 | 11.8 |
| Jake Arrieta | 66.5 | 15.3 |
| Clayton Kershaw | 67.2 | 15.5 |
By average game score, there’s basically nothing to separate these three, as we’d expect from looking at their overall lines. However, Greinke has definitely been the most consistent of the three, with less variance between his outings. He’s been the epitome of a consistent ace, rolling out something like a 7 IP/1 ER performance every five days all season long.
However, before we can conclude that’s an edge for Greinke, we should note that a lower standard deviation isn’t definitively better. Matt Hunter explored this idea in some depth a few years ago, and his findings actually showed that more consistent pitchers were slightly less valuable than inconsistent pitchers. And part of the reason Greinke has posted a lower standard deviation is that he simply hasn’t had as many overwhelming dominating outings as either Kershaw or Arrieta.
To visualize this, Here are the distributions for each of the three pitchers, graphed.
You can see that Greinke’s starts are almost entirely bunched up in that 6-8 inning, 0-3 runs allowed window, with just two exceptions, where he gave up five runs once and six runs once. Both Kershaw and Arrieta have more bubbles to the right side, as they’ve had more games with higher runs allowed totals, but then, both have also thrown complete game shutouts, and complete games where they’ve allowed just one run. So Greinke’s consistency comes with a trade-off, as he has had fewer overall dominating starts, and has required his bullpen to finish out every game he’s started, which isn’t true of either Kershaw or Arrieta.
I hadn’t noticed Greinke’s lack of complete games until I started looking at the game logs, and in doing so, I also noticed that the Dodgers have had a much quicker hook with Greinke than they have had with Kershaw, or that the Cubs have had with Arrieta. For comparison, here are the total number of batters each pitcher has faced while going a fourth time through the batting order this season:
Kershaw: 40
Arrieta: 26
Greinke: 14
With only a few exceptions, the Dodgers have almost always removed Greinke from the game after he’s faced 27 batters, so his exposure to hitters in situations where they’d be most likely to perform well against him has been significantly limited compared to his peers. And in the 14 at-bats where Greinke has faced hitters for a fourth time within the same game, they’ve hit .308/.357/.538 against him, which is likely what has prompted Mattingly to use a quicker hook. Kershaw (.184/.225/.316) and Arrieta (.115/.115/.154) have been excellent even when facing hitters a fourth time, which is why they’ve thrown complete games, and Greinke hasn’t.
And this is one of the areas where Greinke’s low ERA is probably a bit deceptive, because despite the fact that he’s struggled a bit when the Dodgers have pushed him to try and give the bullpen a night off, the only one of the five baserunners he allowed in those 14 plate appearances scored when they hit a home run off Greinke. The other four? They were all stranded by Dodger relievers taking over after he allowed a rally to begin.
In fact, as another commenter noted yesterday, Greinke and Arrieta have both received much more help from their bullpens than Kershaw has. Number of inherited runners, and how many have scored, for each pitcher:
Greinke: 7 inherited runners, 1 scored
Arrieta: 8 inherited runners, 2 scored
Kershaw: 9 inherited runners, 6 scored
On average, 29% of inherited runners in the National League have scored this year, so relievers have shaved one run off Greinke’s total, while costing Kershaw an extra 3.5 runs compared to what he would have allowed had he gotten average runner stranding after he left the game. When a race is this tight, and much of Greinke’s case rests on his advantage in runs allowed, this actually looks like a pretty interesting fact to consider. And this is yet another reason why simply looking at ERA and calling it a day is not good enough, especially when trying to decide on the winner of a postseason award.
In the end, I don’t know that any of these small things really helps us decide who the winner should be either. Greinke has been more consistent, but there’s not actually a lot of clear evidence that consistency is a huge benefit, especially because part of the reason for that consistency has been a reduced workload late in games. Both Kershaw and Arrieta have been tasked with pitching more regularly with the times-through-the-order penalty working against them, and have succeeded in spite of being put in a more difficult position to succeed, while Greinke has been more often rescued by his relievers when he started to get into trouble in late-game situations.
When you look at a measure like RE24, which counts expected runs against a pitcher for leaving baserunners on for another pitcher to inherit, Greinke’s still in first place, but by a smaller margin over Arrieta than if you look at overall runs allowed, and Kershaw is closer to Greinke than ERA would suggest as well.
I don’t know that I’m any closer to figuring out who to vote for, but walking through these processes has definitely helped clarify some things. If you value consistency, bump Greinke up a notch or so. If you value pitching deep into games, bump him down relative to the other two. And if you’re going to just quote ERA and call it a day, at least remember to adjust for the fact that Kershaw has been screwed over by Dodger relievers. These are the hairs that are worth splitting in a race this close.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Kershaw>Arrieta>Greinke not sure what the debate is here.
Based on…?
Based on WAR, xFIP, SIERA, cFIP, jFIP, qTIP, soFIT and countless others.
WAR doesn’t attempt to isolate what a pitcher is responsible for. What WAR really does is to measure the stats that ONLY the pitcher is responsible for.
The difference is that the pitcher helps on all plays, just that fielders don’t affect K and BB, and HR. Even HR is affected by fielders sometimes. IP is heavily affected by fielders, so WAR doesn’t even perfectly isolate this.
and of course, if you only look at K and BB, you should definitely check opponent quality.
BB/9: Greinke (1.56), Kershaw (1.68), Arrieta (2.00)
HR/9: Arrieta (0.42), Greinke (0.56), Kershaw (0.61)
H/9: Arrieta and Greinke (6.1), Kershaw 6.5
IP: Kershaw (220), Arrieta (216), Greinke (207.2)
K/9: Kershaw (11.50), Arrieta (9.17), Greinke (8.02)
Overall, all 3 pitchers come close enough in BB/9, HR/9, and H/9 that the separation in ERA doesn’t really compute. There’s doesn’t look to be any good reason that Greinke has a big ERA lead on Arrieta and Arrieta has a big ERA lead on Kershaw. Then you look at the giant lead Kershaw has in strikeouts over Arrieta and Greinke, and that’s where Kershaw separates himself from the pack if only slightly IMO. I do think ERA matters, but less so than the above statistics I’ve listed, especially seeing as so many of the stats for each pitcher are pretty close together until you get to strikeouts.
The debate is who is most deserving of the Cy Young award.
It really is quite something to go into a debate where 99.99% of people say it is ridiculously close and proclaim that you know the correct order and wonder aloud why everyone doesn’t just agree with you.
I hope you wrote that with the slightest sense of irony.
Dave –
Please set up a reader poll.
Armed with the information available on this site and the knowledge of the average Fangraphs reader, I’d wager that there is a consensus winner, not something separated by a small margin.
And to Joe, no there is no debate here on this site about who deserves to win, it’s obviously Kershaw. The only debate is who will the traditional voters vote for.
If you look through the comments on all other these similar posts and the answers the FG writers give in their chats, no, that is not even close to the case. The only consensus is that it is very close and all three are very good – almost nobody believes it is just not worth debating. I like to think positively and just say any of the three deserve to win, so it doesn’t matter who does (since rooting for a three-way tie is unrealistic).
Yeah, Steve, it may surprise you, but even though fangraphs puts out its own stats, basically no one on the staff represents those stats like they are the canonical and that they others aren’t worth considering.
If the award went to the most talented/skilled I would agree but it’s mainly for the best season. There’s a lot to consider.
Yup.
Dave,
One other potential consideration that I know has been studied before (excuse my lack of the link) is the value of pitching deep into games for the next day’s game. It would be interesting to know if the collective bullpens of the Dodgers or Cubs produced better results on average following a Greinke/Kershaw/Arrieta start. If the manager can deploy better relievers for longer periods of time because they appeared less on average in Kershaw and Arrieta starts, that might be a notch in their favor (or a notch against Greinke).
Just a thought.
I think there was talk of this for Kershaw last year, but the returns weren’t as great as you might think. I don’t remember much from the research, but that was the overall end product.
The causal link from team performance to relief pitcher spelling I bet would be almost negligible on a large scale, but I’m sure Kershaw importantly keeps one or two guys fresher over the next couple of days by giving them arm rest for sure. Exactly how that will affect a that next game? I’m sure you’ll get plot points all over the place
Great article. One of the things I have thought about if I were to be a voter, and I only say this because at this point we are splitting hairs, is how these pitchers are performing during situations with higher leverage index. Ironically, I am not a big component of using this in most situations, as I feel it carries lower weight than FIP or other measures of performance, but, when a race becomes this close, maybe it will add something to the story of these pitchers this year.
Then you want to look at WPA, or WPA+, or Clutch.
All three give Greinke the edge.
“I have thought about if I were to be a voter, and I only say this because at this point we are splitting hairs, is how these pitchers are performing during situations with higher leverage index.”
I don’t care for this idea at all. A starting pitcher in a higher leverage situation is very often in that situation because he created it himself. Giving a starting pitcher credit for often working out of many jams he created himself shouldn’t necessarily warrant extra credit over a pitcher who gets into far less jams, but doesn’t do quite as well working out of them.
“A starting pitcher in a higher leverage situation is very often in that situation because he created it himself. Giving a starting pitcher credit for often working out of many jams he created himself shouldn’t necessarily warrant extra credit over a pitcher who gets into far less jams, but doesn’t do quite as well working out of them.”
Excellent point!
I’ve gone back and forth a bit, but I think at this very moment, I’d go Kershaw-Arrrieta-Greinke.
I have to say, I am really impressed with how much thought and effort you’re putting into this, Dave.
Like, I don’t put this much thought into voting. And I do better at that than most people I know.
Serious kudos for the dedication.
For me, it’s 1. Kershaw 2. Greinke 3. Arrieta
I’d go 1. Arrieta 2. Kershaw 3. Greinke…and it seems like it should really be boiling down to Kershaw & Arrieta…anybody have the splits on how these 3 have pitched against playoff teams? Arrieta’s post ASG run has been nothing short of ridiculous.
in regards to Greinke’s quick hook:
http://www.theplayerstribune.com/clayton-kershaw-zack-greinke-aj-ellis-dodgers/
Zack’s always going to tell you how he feels and where he’s at. He’s got the self-awareness to know that Chris Hatcher or Kenley Jansen coming out of the bullpen might have a better chance of getting this guy out than he is at that point. He’ll always let you know. Again, brutal honesty, even about himself.
vs Kershaw:
Clayton is always going to want the ball and to keep pitching. He’s never going to say “no,” or that he’s had enough. He’s always going to think he can get the next guy out. He’ll say, “I want the ball,” even past that point where he’s got anything left.
Yeah, I doubt that Kershaw and Arrietta have any true talent advantage at 4TTTO pitching. So it’s some combination of: 1) they want the ball — not necessarily an advantage for the team. And 2) they got luckier on some balls in play in this situation, so they didn’t get pulled.
It’s fair to count that same way you count other BIP outcomes, just not as skill.
It could very well be that Kershaw and Arrieta have better stamina than Greinke or that the amount of times they face a batter doesn’t have as much of an effect on them than it does on Greinke.
Hard to prove, but it’s certainly a distinct possibility.
Kershaw is amoung the league leaders in IP every year, so for him it is a skill. Arrieta hasn’t been a starter long enough to tell. Offhand, I don’t know about Grienke’s IP by year.
It’s very debatable whether consistency is helpful or hurtful when it comes to helping the team win, so I’m not sure determining consistency helps us.
Not sure why you’d look at batters faced rather than innings pitched. In terms of IP/GS, only half an out per game separates the three (Kershaw> Arrieta> Greinke). Obviously, the distribution is pretty different, w/ Arrieta/Kershaw having more 9 inning games and 5 inning games, but Greinke pitching 6-8 innings every time.
I think short outings are probably more harmful than long outings are hurtful. In this day and age, a bullpen can handle 2-3 innings w/out a problem. But you start to scrape the bottom of the barrel when the bullpen has to handle 4+ innings. In this sense, I’d say that Greinke’s consistent 6-8 innings is an advantage. But complete games are sexy.
This sucked the sould out of the Cy Young race in the NL. Find a heart, fangraphs.
What’s with all the fould comments, MjwWtF?
Find a different site, MjwWtF!!!
1. Arietta, 2. Kershaw, 3. Greinke
I think, regardless of what you vote, the race is solidifying to Greinke-Arrieta-Kershaw at this point. Anyway, we all know what WAR says, so here are my best reasons to vote for each candidate that are not really objective or analytical, since I don’t think the objective measures will give any clear decisions here.*:
Kershaw: While there are good reasons to say that he hasn’t had the best year of the three based on past performance outcomes, I think it’s fair to look at his predictive stats and recognize that he’s on a different level from any other pitcher in the NL (maybe Sale in the AL). The Cy Young is a past performance award, but you can do what you want, and I feel this is a fair consideration
Greinke: This is a tough one to convince others of, but I have watched a lot of Greinke, and his command this year has just been incredible. Most pitchers with “good command” still leave a few meatballs up there a game, and have a few terrible misses a game. Greinke is one of the only pitchers I’ve watched who actually somehow seems to almost always put the ball where he wants. So, there is some, admittedly unreliable, visual evidence that supports that maybe there is more than just luck explaining his great BABIP
Arrieta: He is the best of both worlds. His peripheral stats are clearly better than Greinke, and his run-prevention ones are clearly better than Kershaw’s. We can put him squarely above Kershaw because run prevention is what really matters and Arrieta has a big enough lead there. As for Greinke, they aren’t really that far away from each other on the RA side, and Arrieta’s FIP lead, plus a slightly better IP/GS rate, puts him over the top.
*DRA WARP, the all-encompassing past-performance metric that BP came up with this year, has the three of them within less than 0.1 WARP of each other
I know exactly what you mean about Greinke, he is probably the current day Greg Maddux if I may be so bold. While he doesn’t have the stuff of Kershaw, he hits his spots better than anyone I remember since Maddux. Kershaw is downright unhittable when he’s on, but I’ve noticed he bounces a lot of pitches, which doesn’t always seem intentional. Obviously he gets a ton of swing and misses on his slider that drops below the zone and sometimes into the dirt, but you almost never see Greinke bounce one.
Kershaw’s curveball is ridiculous in terms of its drops. A curveball he throws that ends up in the dirt probably looked like it might have been a fastball in the zone at first. He does get a few whiffs on that pitch. So, definitely if the pitch is a curveball, sometimes that’s intentional. Greinke doesn’t do that, but he doesn’t really rely on his curveball for whiffs, he uses his slider and change for that mostly. Greinke seems to mostly use his curveball as a ridiculously slow pitch to disrupt the hitter’s timing and steal a called strike in the zone.
Kershaw probably bounces more pitches in the dirt because he’s got the best curveball in MLB. It falls off the table and sometimes that means it’s gonna hit the dirt.
I agree with the Arrieta “best of both worlds” and he’ll get his share of first place votes, but as long as some people vote Kershaw first or second, they will be putting Greinke third. I doubt Arrieta gets many (if any) third place votes so I think he takes it.
That’s a good point. I can see people voting Kershaw/Arrieta/Greinke, Greinke/Arrieta/Kershaw, and maybe Arrieta/Greinke/Kershaw, but although I think Greinke/Arrieta/Kershaw will get the most votes, also none of those involve Arrieta third.
You have to remember that only Fangraphs gives a shit about FIP.
Greinke has the lowest ERA by a fair bit, and the best WL%.
He’s going to win.
Well, FIP is pretty mainstream now. A lot of ESPN writers cite it a lot, for example.
Nice article.
To me, the data on batters faced and 4th time through the batting order, not to mention the inherited runners, push Greinke down a notch.
Kerhsaw and Arrieta look like close to a wash. Depending on what happens in the last few weeks of the season, I think I would favor the new blood and vote for Arrieta over Kershaw if they’re equal. Subjective, I know, but you can’t go wrong either way.
And I’m an Orioles fan who weeps whenever I see Arrieta’s box score in the paper.
Don’t all three of these guys have 1 more start? Kinda silly to crunch the numbers so intently and repeatedly when any of them might give up 6 runs in their last start and drop into 3rd place.
No reason not to discuss voting methodology though. He’s not making a decision, he’s trying to figure what might impact his decision.
Seems like inherited runners scored above/below average could be improved by looking at the base/out states the SP left behind.
Man on 3rd/0 out vs. Man on 1st/2 out would have a big expectancy delta, and with these 3 guys it’s few enough examples that before giving anyone a few runs debit/credit due to RP performance that could be teased out, just in case 6 out of 9 doesn’t contrast as much.
I know it’s not really a big deal, but I’m pretty excited for my comment to be referenced in an article, lol.
I wonder if the increased value for inconsistent pitching performances holds when talking about the truly elite? I could see an average pitcher being more valuable if he is inconsistent, but a dominant pitcher being more valuable if he’s consistent. Or not.
Normally I would think “just choose the best player” is an unfair cop-out for an award meant to reward actual performance over a single season, but with a race this close perhaps it’s a fair tiebreaker. In other words, since there is not a compelling case to pick Arrieta or Greinke over him, just choose Kershaw because he’s obviously the best.
All your different analyses and advanced stats have been great and illuminating, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that a vote for Arrieta or Greinke is a vote for old-school thinking (Wins and ERA) over a vote for common sense and reason.
What about rWAR?
I think the most likely outcome is that Arrieta just barely wins over Greinke despite Greinke narrowly receiving more first place votes. I doubt, right now, that any voting philosophy would make you put Arrieta third, and additionally the fact the other two guys play for the same team will have a psychological effect on voters and make them more likely to avoid putting them 1-2.
I think Greinke still has enough ERA lead to win. But, if that gap closes a little bit by the end, it will be too close to call.
When you’re talking about these types of pitchers, I think consistency is helpful.
If you’re looking at a #4 starter then maybe it’s better to have a few clunkers mixed in with a few gems. His ‘average’ start might wind up losing the games more often than not.
If you’re looking at pitchers with ERAs around, or below, 2.00 then I’d rather have consistency. Their ‘average’ start should lead to a win, and their ‘bad’ start will give you a fighting chance. Someone like Greinke shouldn’t have much standard deviation because there’s only so few runs that he can give up – he can’t give up -2 runs. So to me, it’s all about limiting the number of clunkers.
Yeah. I know Matt Hunter’s study was on Cain and Weaver when those were good pitchers, but they weren’t <2 RA/9 good. At that level of mean performance, I'm pretty sure lower variance helps the team win more.
Yeah, it follows logically that 2 most of the time, but sometimes 1 and sometimes 3, is more valuable than 2 most of the time, but sometimes 0 and sometimes 4.
With a race this tight, the leverage index is a good suggestion. I’d also want to consider quality / strength of opponents. Just hypothesizing, but Arrieta may get the nod here given he had to face St Louis and Pirates more than the Dodgers.
Who elevated his game more often and most consistently when it mattered most?
NL West and NL Central by wRC+ (including all major league teams):
Giants – 107 (2nd)
Dodgers – 106 (3rd)
Dbacks – 96 (20th)
Padres – 92 (24th)
Rockies – 84 (28th)
Pirates – 100 (10th)
Cardinals – 97 (15th)
Cubs – 96 (18th)
Reds – 93 (22nd)
Brewers 87 (26th)
There is no pitching advantage based off of the numbers here for a Dodger pitcher to a Cubs pitcher.
Yeah I don’t get why everyone cites the Cards and Pirates. Isn’t the quality of the offense what matters, not the quality of the whole team? The Cardinals ridiculous pitching staff doesn’t really make them harder to pitch against (unless you’re evaluating a pitcher by wins).
By baseball reference, the average opponents runs scored for all three is basically identical.
With almost everything else being equal, Ks and IP puts Kershaw over the top for me. Greinke has fewer Ks, fewer innings, more men left on base, and fewer inherited runs.
I agree with the Ks, innings and inherited runs, but I disagree with men left on base. If a pitcher leaves men on base, that’s a good thing that shouldn’t be penalized. It might not be a repeatable skill, but it happened and it helped his team.
I’m saying I don’t think that’s a skill at all, let alone a repeatable one. If Greinke can pitch better with men on base, there’s no reason he should be able to pitch at the same level without men on base. As it stands right now, he has the 4th highest LOB% in a single season in the history of baseball (http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2015&month=0&season1=1871&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=14,d)
I don’t think stranding baserunners is something we should be giving Greinke credit for, and a portion of his excellent year is built on that.
Who cares? Sequencing matters.
It doesn’t really matter if it’s a skill though. The fact of the matter is that he avoided giving up runs when people got on base – and that’s a good thing. A great thing, in fact. Even if it was pure luck, it helped his team win games and it’s not something that you credit to others (such as having a great defense).
Love the amount research and thought Dave is putting in over his vote, just don’t stress over it too much.
Also has anyway else realized how similar Arrieta’s 2015 and Kershaw’s 2013 numbers are? They’re almost exact copies.
Kershaw has one more start against the Giants next week and then likely a truncated start on the final day of the season.
He’s now 19 K’s short of 300, thanks to his 9 K in 5 IP yesterday. Still not the most likely outcome, but he’s got a reasonable chance depending on how many Giants he strikes out.
How much of a difference maker would the 300 K milestone make to some voters?
With such a small sample of inherited runners, I think you’d need to look at the specific situations where inherited runners were allowed to score rather than expect 29% of runners to score just because it’s the league average.
I went through the game logs and here’s a summary. IR = Inherited Runner
Arrieta – Left 8 IR spread across 6 games. Left with RISP and <2 outs one time accounting for one of his two IR scored.
Greinke – 8 inherited runners across 5 games. Left with RISP <2 outs twice accounting for his one IR scored.
Kershaw – 9 inherited runners across 5 games. RISP <2 outs three times accounting for four of his six IR scored.
As you can see, Arrieta left one game in "serious" trouble, Greinke left two in trouble, and Kershaw left three. Greinke never left a game with a runner on third, Arrieta left one game with a runner on third (who then scored), and Kershaw left two games with runners on third (only one scored).
It's not accurate to assume that the bullpen screwed Kershaw over that much more than the other guys when in reality, he left the bullpen with far more difficult situations. Kershaw also left a game with bases loaded and 2 outs with Tulowitzki at the plate and Baez got him to strikeout, so it could have been ever worse for him.
Good point. Instead of just counting runners, we could look at the RE24 state that each pitcher left the game with.
Or then just look at accumulated RE24: Greinke > Arrietta > Kershaw (all within a one-win range).
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=nl&qual=y&type=c,36,37,38,40,-1,120,121,217,-1,41,42,43,44,-1,117,118,119,-1,6,45,124,-1,62,122,66&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0
Honestly, RE24 should be the go-to stat for all of these awards. It’s just better.
it assigns responsibility for outcomes on balls in play to the pitcher, with no consideration of defense.
If you are going to parse the inherited runners scored to this level you really need to look at RE or context
For example an inherited runner on 1st with 2 out is quite different that say 1st and 3rd no out or bases loaded with the hert of the order due up. This is typical context free analysis of #’s that shouldn’t be considered complete context neutral.
It seems like there are a lot of questions being posed but very little context and actual evaluation being conducted in these articles. What’s missing in almost all of these articles is IMPACT and an actual statistical analysis to understand if it is at all significant. Even the pitch framing article – what is the actual impact of that delta? Is it statistically significant given the standard error in the model (if such a thing has ever been measured)?
Kershaw will win it unless he melts down in his final start. All other things being this close to equal, the voters will pick the veteran with service time over the young kid. I’d pick Arrieta, myself. Fun discussion, and awesome to witness these guys pitching!
Arrieta’s actually older than Kershaw.
wouldn’t this argument leave you voting Greinke, give that he is the veteran with more service time?
I would vote for Kershaw but if I had to guess, I’d say that Arrieta wins.
He may not deserve it the most from looking at all of his statistics, but Arrieta will win it this year. I would give it to him, as well. All three have pitched great this year, though.
This award is for the season. Greinke has been there since day one. His era had NEVER been over 2 this year. Imagine that! In 20 of his 30 starts get has allowed 1 run of less, and 11 of them no runs. This award is still his to lose. The other pitchers, in my opinion, came late to the party this year. Like, where were they in April and May? Also, Greinke has never gone fewer than 6 innings. He leads in whip, era, lowest batting average against as well.
Does anyone think the fact that Greinke and Kershaw are on the same team will hurt them at all, as is sometimes the case with MVP voting?
Anyone else feel that Kluber’s relatively poor showing this year will hurt Arrieta’s vote totals? Much like Arrieta this year, Kluber came out of nowhere last year to post a season far outside his established norms. It feels like Arrieta’s season may be a fluke career year and voters may not want to reward that again.
Greinke 18-3, team 22-8 in his starts, so 4-5 in his ND. Run support per 27 outs, 4.1 Games with 5 or more runs of support= 12
Arrietta 20-6, team 23-8 in his starts, so 3-2 in his ND. Run support 4.19 per 27 outs, games with 5 or more runs of support = 13
Kershaw 15-7, team 18-13 in his starts, so 3-6 in his ND. Run support 3.97 per 27 outs, games with 5 or more runs of support -8
I know nobody here gives a crap about WL lost records, but they are still worth looking at for the narrative aspect.
Speaking of Narrative, the biggest reason I would vote Greinke over Kershaw is because through May 21st, Kerhshaw had 9 starts and a 4.23 ERA, a 2-3 record, and the team was just 4-5 in his starts. Greinke carried the rotation during that stretch. Of course Kerhshaw got better later, and returned to his ultra dominant self, but people are forgetting he had a lot of lousy games early in the year and Greinke really picked him up. And Greinke never let up from that point, never slumped. Stayed just as dominant once Kershaw righted his ship.
I also think the K’s are overrating Kershaw a bit in FIP at this point. But I don’t really have a great argument to prove that point.
Anyway, for me, it’s down to Arrietta or Greinke. Daves article is a very good article, digging deeper. The fact that Greinke has been held to lower pitch counts and pulled from games earlier is a very real factor. But Greinke has been so pin point perfect with his command that hitters can’t take advantage and run the pitch count and get him out of the game before the 7th.
Ultimately, if you were to ask me who I’d want starting in an elimination game tomorrow, or who I would project to be better in 2016, it would probably be Kershaw/Greinke/Arrietta in that order.
But if you are talking about actual value produced this year, I’d vote Greinke/Arrietta/Kershaw.
I’d even consider Greinke for MVP, again, in part for saving Kershaw and the Dodgers bacon in April/May.
Are you serious? Arrieta would be last you’d want to start in an elimination game? His second half ERA is .88, yeah, .88, by far the best in the HISTORY OF BASEBALL. He’s been by far the best pitcher in baseball for months, and has 18 consecutive quality starts.
In my mind, Greinke is a poor man’s Maddux, or maybe a Mussina. Keisha’s is essentially Clemens. I’ve always been a fan of Maddux over Clemens, but never loved Mussina (Dude was seriously standoffish in college). So, I guess that means I’m voting for Arrieta… (The logic sucks, but I doubt you’ll find a better way this year…)
clutch is bad, because Arrieta has been so great, he hasn’t been in the clutch much. His clutch appearances happened earlier in the year so the clutch sample is biased to his lesser portion of his season.
I would go basically on WAR but also adjust for opponents and park factors, which give Arrieta the edge. The NL central is historically tough this year. For fun he no-hit the dodgers.
The lack of park factor adjustments concern me. Especially on people who want to pick Greinke because of his ERA. If ERA is important, the Arrieta easily wins that based on a park effects adjustment. (and quality of opponents)
With Grienke skipping 2 starts, I think he’s out of it. Having 2 additional starts is more significant than allowing .1 ER less per start.
I added it up, (might be off slightly based on human counting error)
games against teams with a .500+ winning percentage
Jake Arrieta 19
Claton Kershaw 17
Zack Greinke 13