New Site Feature: Cy Young Award Projections!
We’ve added a new tool that allows you to see who is projected to win the Cy Young Award.
These Cy Young Projections utilize a simple model created by Tangotiger. The original Cy Young Points model has predicted the top two vote getters with high accuracy through 2020. The FIP Adjusted model may be a better predictor of more recent voting behavior.
Along with current season stats (featuring FIP, WAR, and RA9-WAR), you can also use the top nav bar to toggle over to any of the in-season projection systems we carry to show a player’s projected end-of-season stats.
New data tools and the entire site are supported by our Members. Please consider becoming a FanGraphs Member if you enjoy our work!
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
I was just thinking about the Tangotiger Cy Young projector the other day, when reading the article on Spencer Strider. I’m actually not surprised Strider is leading this ranking right now.
Thanks David!
Strider is leading the FIP version at least! Snell being ahead in ERA by more than a full run must be enough to outweigh the Ks and Ws.
It looks to me like Strider is leading in projected FIB based points. Justin Steele appears to have it based on current FIP based points.
Strider has pitched 4 more innings than Snell and allowed >50% more runs! (68 vs 45)
This is a fun feature, I dig it!
Folks who think Snell should win, can you talk me through why? I can’t see any argument to put him first over Steele or Strider. I think he’s everyone’s second choice, with a split between Steele and Strider. I’m not a huge ERA defender, but I think that Strider’s is just too bad to give him the nod over Steele. Especially with how good Steele has been too. But I understand Strider voters for sure. I don’t get Snell people at all.
I don’t think Snell should win, but there’s no problem with justifying a vote for him. The object is to not allow runs.
Snell: 45 runs allowed, 155 IP.
Strider: 68 runs allowed, 159.1 IP.
Steele: 55 runs allowed, 152 IP.
RA/9, Snell is way above the other two. I don’t like RA/9 as a stat, so I don’t like Snell’s case, but the case is pretty straightforward if you do like RA/9.
I’m probably just biased, but if someone wants to argue that all things being equal, FIP is the tie breaker, no problem. But if a pitcher’s job is to prevent runs and a pitcher is 50% worse at that than the next guy,, how does he get to be obviously better. We are not talking a few runs. I mean today Strider’s ERA is 3rd best on the Braves. I’m not a huge Snell fan, actually not a fan at all, but if we are talking run prevention 2023, he is in a class of his own. But he is getting hammered because he seems to be trading BB’s for Hits. Nobody is as good at preventing hits, or as bad at walking people (well of good pitchers).
I largely agree with this, and I’d also add that Strider’s ERA-FIP gap in each of the last two seasons is entirely down to LOB-wins…and he’s legitimately been quite a bit worse with men on base!
FIP writes that off as “sequencing,” but would it surprise anybody if a guy like Strider loses a tick while pitching from the stretch?
While I personally would lean Steele, it is a very straightforward case for Snell. He’s leading the NL in ERA and bWAR. Since 2016, Verlander in 2019 is the only Cy winner to not lead their league in one of those two categories, he’s leading in both.
I think you could make a very strong argument for either Strider or Steele. I would lean Strider, because (1) I put a lot of weight on having multiple measures converging to figure out how someone has pitched and Strider has that and (2) I think xERA is the best of them. But, Steele also has a really good FIP and his ERA is really good and it’s not like his xERA is bad or anything…so it’s super easy for me to see him as well.
For Snell, it’s like…okay man, he is beating Steele by 0.05 ERA and he actually is behind Steele on ERA-, and all everything else says that he’s getting bailed out big time by the defense behind him…I’m not entirely convinced I’d vote for him over Wheeler, much less Steele and Strider.
This is exactly where I am, although I lean Steele, but I’m fine with Strider.
I will die on the hill that pitching from the stretch is different than pitching from the windup.
That’s why I don’t think it’s a coincidence that opponents walk more, K less, and hit for more power (to the tune of a .047 higher wOBA) against Strider when there are men on base.
I do think this is true, at least in some cases. Javier Vazquez comes to mind.
First guy that I checked after looking at Strider’s numbers, haha!
Nolan Ryan stands alone here, -35.3 LOB-Wins. 113 opponent tOPS+ with men on.
In 2022 the leaguewide tOPS+ with men on was 108, in 1985, 106.
A (relatively) short RHP who relies on monster stuff not being as effective from the stretch isn’t exactly the most surprising thing in the world, haha!
FWIW, according to bWAR’s defense adjustment (which is based on DRS which isn’t ideal, but it’s something) Steele is benefitting more from his defense then Snell is.
Snell has a low BABIP and a high strand rate, while Steele has a low HR/FB%. None of those are expected to be sustainable going forward, but they did happen and have increased their teams’ chances to win.
Basically everything in Strider’s profile looks sustainable, he has just had pitched worse with men on base. That was the case last year as well (though to a slightly lesser degree), which might be why he is underperforming his expected stats and FIP. The effect in 2022 was obscured by an unsustainably low HR/FB%, which got his results closer to his expected/underlying stats, though he still underperformed them a bit.
FG’s BIP-wins says that Steele’s lost .3 wins to BABIP-related shenanigans while Snell has gained 1…which would make the difference between them a rounding error.
I think the 0.05 ERA difference is understating the difference between Snell and Steele on run prevention. Steele has allowed a massive 12 unearned runs, including a couple that are down to poor performance in an inning extended by an error (one inning had something like, error, three singles, two outs, and a home run–counting as five unearned runs). And I don’t know if it bears on Cy Young voting, but a couple of the errors were his own.
So part of what’s going on is Steele failing to bail out his defense.
I kind of think that voters don’t pay attention to wins much anymore? Maybe the weight on that one should change. (although this year, I don’t think it is going to matter)
The FIP Cy Young formula has the FIP component as (IP/2 + FIP Runs). Is it supposed to be – FIP Runs?
The formula for FIP points is wrong – it says:
But should be:
(FIP Runs should be subtracted, not added.) The values for FIP points seem right though.
This is way better than ESPN’s Cy Young Predictor. Well done!
I’d have a hard time voting for this year’s NL Cy Young. To me, Strider is the nastiest pitcher of the three contenders and the best bet for continued dominance going forward, but his relatively poor performance with runners on base and his elevated ERA are very real factors that could lead to him not getting the nod. I think right now it’s Steele by a hair.