What The Lincecum Vote Means

by
November 19, 2009

Two days ago, the BBWAA ignored win totals and gave Zack Greinke the American League Cy Young award. Today, they did it again, giving Tim Lincecum the NL version despite having only 15 victories, the fewest of any Cy Young winner in the history of the award. Despite my long-winded explanation for why I don’t really care about the BBWAA awards, I feel like it would be silly to not give honor where it is due.

Congratulations to the members of the BBWAA, who have been willing to adapt as the game changes. They deserve recognition for being willing to accept the shift towards better analytical methods. And getting away from wins as a measure of the value of a pitcher is a big first step.

Five years ago, Lincecum wouldn’t have stood a chance in the voting. He might not have even stood a chance a year ago. But there are clearly members of the Writers Association who are not clinging to the analysis that they grew up with. It isn’t just that they gave Keith Law a vote this year. It’s writers like Larry Stone who have been in the newspaper business for 20 years and are helping to educate their fellow scribes.

Today, the BBWAA took a pretty big step back towards credibility. It obviously isn’t a wholesale change, and there are always going to be people resistant to any sort of change, but the shift is taking place. And it’s a welcome occurrence.

If they keep voting like this, I’ll have to start caring again.





 

Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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Bill@TDS
14 years ago

I’ll just keep saying this everywhere and being the wet blanket: if either Wainwright or Hernandez gets to 20 “wins” (something that could easily have happened to either without them throwing a single pitch differently than he actually did, by their bullpen managing to hold one more lead), I think there’s an excellent chance the results are completely different. Definitely so in the NL, and possibly in the AL. So it’s a step in the right direction, but could be just a tiny little baby step.

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Fresh Hops
14 years ago
Reply to  Bill@TDS

The culture is changing, man. Only a handful of GMs don’t know what a FIP means. When the Cy Young winner comes out and says “My pitching strategy is to have the lowest FIP possible” in the New York Times, things are going to change. The old motto “you can’t argue with success” just turns out to be true, at least once there’s enough success, over a long enough time, and the guys who really matter (the performers) are acknowledging it.

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Reuben
14 years ago
Reply to  Fresh Hops

Yes instead of not knowing what FIP is, now pitchers are noy understanding it.

Isn’t FIP mostly determined by high strikeouts and low homer totals? I.e. what every pitcher everywhere is trying to keep down?

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Bill@TDS
14 years ago
Reply to  Fresh Hops

well, by strikeouts, homers and walks. There was a discussion about this sonmewhere else — there’s this whole sort of cult around the virtue “pitching to contact,” and if nothing else, learning about FIP would teach a pitcher that that’s a bad idea; if you can miss bats, you have to miss bats. Trusting your defense sounds nice and everything, but you’re also trusting in randomness to guide the batted balls to where your fielders can make plays on them.

But I think the writers are changing slower than the game itself. I’m waiting for the next time there’s a Lincecum-Wainwright type of decision but the Wainwright guy actually has 20 wins. I think he’ll probably win in a landslide.

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Kevin S.
14 years ago
Reply to  Fresh Hops

Honestly, I think ‘trusting your defense’ spun out of pitchers who were effective with middling strikeout totals, but didn’t walk anybody and kept the ball on the ground. People then seized upon this and said “See!” while ignoring that it wasn’t the non-strikeouts that made these pitchers good. The vagaries of balls in play hurt you a lot more if the contact one gives up typically results in a single and if there aren’t extra ducks on the pond from free passes.

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Kevin S.
14 years ago
Reply to  Fresh Hops

And by a lot more, I obviously meant a lot less.

0
CircleChange11
14 years ago
Reply to  Fresh Hops

~~~ Honestly, I think ‘trusting your defense’ spun out of pitchers who were effective with middling strikeout totals, but didn’t walk anybody and kept the ball on the ground. People then seized upon this and said “See!” while ignoring that it wasn’t the non-strikeouts that made these pitchers good. The vagaries of balls in play hurt you a lot more if the contact one gives up typically results in a single and if there aren’t extra ducks on the pond from free passes. ~~~

Kevin, I was thinking of this situation the other day, and specifically 2 cases …

[1] In 2001, Curt Schilling led the league in HR allowed, but it didn;t really matter because a high % of them were solo shots because he didn;t walk many guys (1.4/9).

[2] In 1985, John Tudor, had a statistically great season by not striking many guys out (5.5/9) and by “pitching to contact” (not that I subscribe to the PTC idea), namely by living on the outside corner and allowing batters to pull ground balls to the best left side of the IF in MLB, and give up fly balls to one of the speediest OF’s, possibly ever.

One could point to Tudor’s season and say “Anybody could do that (21-8, 1.93) with THAT defense, duh!” … yet for some reason, none of the other 4 starters on STL thought to do that. There is *something* to be said for “pitching to your team’s strengths”, as being a key member of the team. I don;t understand the NEED some have for completely isolating a pitcher’s performance from what the team does as a whole. What matters most is how pitcher and team work together to win.

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ribman
14 years ago
Reply to  Bill@TDS

Ugh cant you say the same thing about Grienke and Lincecum?
Grienke for example had a worse bullpen, worse defense and worse offense, he could have changed nothing and won 25-

here’s the deal the award is based on what happened not what could have happened- at some point fantasy guys reality does take precident
waaay over analyzed

1