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Caveman Techie
08-11-2011, 03:35 PM
If Johnny can continue at his current pace, would he get any serious consideration for the Cy Young award? After today's game he is ranked 1st in ERA and 2nd in WHIP of qualified pitchers. To me that has to put him in the discussion.

westofyou
08-11-2011, 03:38 PM
If Johnny can continue at his current pace, would he get any serious consideration for the Cy Young award? After today's game he is ranked 1st in ERA and 2nd in WHIP of qualified pitchers. To me that has to put him in the discussion.

Halladay walks away with it, probably unanimous

PuffyPig
08-11-2011, 03:40 PM
He may get some votes, but Halladay is the easy winner.

Lots of other guys like Hamels and Kershaw having better seasons too.

GAC
08-11-2011, 03:41 PM
He might get an "honorable mention" if he keeps up the current pace and, with 6-7 starts left, piles up some more wins.

traderumor
08-11-2011, 03:42 PM
Cliff Lee doesn't get any love?

puca
08-11-2011, 03:48 PM
Unless he can somehow get to the 14-15 win range I highly doubt he will get much if any consideration for Cy Young. I'm not arguing that wins should carry that much influence in the voting, but I believe for a starting pitcher they would.

Caveman Techie
08-11-2011, 03:49 PM
I guess I don't understand the Halladay lock on it? He pitches in a neutral ballpark, where Cueto pitches in a hitters park. Yeah he has the Wins, but that ain't Johnny's fault.

Strike outs and Wins are sexy but, for a SP I thought ERA and WHIP were the king stats to look at.

MrCinatit
08-11-2011, 04:31 PM
I wish he was...but I've a feeling Halladay will get it on name alone.
I've hope that Hernandez's AL Cy Young last year might help Cueto at least get a few votes. But, Johnny is not nearly the strikeout pitcher - and as I totally hate to say it, K's are most likely going to get a pitcher a lot of love when being considered for the award. All in all, I think missing his first few starts will end up hurting more, as they seem to make his statistics less noticeable to those who are not paying attention to him.

klw
08-11-2011, 04:40 PM
What will really hurt Cueto is the injury to start the year. After today he is still 56th in the NL in innings pitched. You will have commentators mentioning that you can't get the award for 2/3rds of a year.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/league/nl/sort/thirdInnings

Plus Plus
08-11-2011, 04:50 PM
What will really hurt Cueto is the injury to start the year. After today he is still 56th in the NL in innings pitched. You will have commentators mentioning that you can't get the award for 2/3rds of a year.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/league/nl/sort/thirdInnings

Many of those same commentators were probably pro-Strasburg in the all-star game a year ago and pro-Sabathia for NL Cy Young when he pitched half of a season for the Brewers.

Caveat Emperor
08-11-2011, 05:56 PM
Halladay or Lee -- it's a pick 'em right now with the edge to Halladay based on the fact that he could, theoretically, get to 20 wins.

Cueto won't even be in the discussion, nor should he be with the seasons that those two are having.

RedsManRick
08-11-2011, 06:41 PM
If he finishes with a 2.00 ERA, he'll get some votes on that alone. But when you look at his low innings total, low strikeouts, and low win total, he doesn't stand a chance. He really hasn't been any more effective than say, Tim Hudson or Yovanni Gallardo and nobody is putting them in the converstaion. Really, a lucky ERA is all Cueto has going for him. Unfortunately, he's likely to sustain a .228 BABIP and 5.8 HR/FB.

signalhome
08-11-2011, 06:44 PM
Halladay, Lee, Hamels, and Kershaw are far more deserving.

corkedbat
08-11-2011, 06:53 PM
I would think he would need more run support and run off 5 or 6 wins in a row to get any real support, but I agree that Halladay runs away with it and there is now way for Jonny to actually win the award.

Caveman Techie
08-11-2011, 07:11 PM
If he finishes with a 2.00 ERA, he'll get some votes on that alone. But when you look at his low innings total, low strikeouts, and low win total, he doesn't stand a chance. He really hasn't been any more effective than say, Tim Hudson or Yovanni Gallardo and nobody is putting them in the converstaion. Really, a lucky ERA is all Cueto has going for him. Unfortunately, he's likely to sustain a .228 BABIP and 5.8 HR/FB.

While I agree he has a low BABIP and is not likely to sustain that he is also 2nd on the list for WHIP. So while he isn't very likely to end the season with a sub 2.00 ERA it won't go up by that significant of an amount. Heck right now he leads everyone else by almost a half a point in ERA he has some room to play with.

Homer Bailey
08-11-2011, 07:14 PM
While I agree he has a low BABIP and is not likely to sustain that he is also 2nd on the list for WHIP. So while he isn't very likely to end the season with a sub 2.00 ERA it won't go up by that significant of an amount. Heck right now he leads everyone else by almost a half a point in ERA he has some room to play with.

Low BABIP is what is aiding his WHIP as well. If his BABIP to normalize, his WHIP would increase with this ERA.

fearofpopvol1
08-11-2011, 07:41 PM
Nope. He's having a very nice year, but he's only been worth 2 WAR, may end up being about 3 by season's end. Part of Cueto's problem is he doesn't strike out enough batters. I still love the guy though.

It's Halladay and it's not close.

Superdude
08-11-2011, 07:59 PM
If he finishes with a 2.00 ERA, he'll get some votes on that alone. But when you look at his low innings total, low strikeouts, and low win total, he doesn't stand a chance. He really hasn't been any more effective than say, Tim Hudson or Yovanni Gallardo and nobody is putting them in the converstaion. Really, a lucky ERA is all Cueto has going for him. Unfortunately, he's likely to sustain a .228 BABIP and 5.8 HR/FB.

FIP or BABIP or even K's shouldn't come into play at all in awards like this IMO.

RedsManRick
08-11-2011, 08:52 PM
FIP or BABIP or even K's shouldn't come into play at all in awards like this IMO.

So Cy Youngs should be given based on the quality of defense a player plays in front of, what home park he plays in and how generous official scorers are?

If ERA or wins actually measured a pitcher's performance well, I'd use it. But FIP tells me more about how well a guy pitched than ERA does.

nate
08-11-2011, 09:03 PM
FIP or BABIP or even K's shouldn't come into play at all in awards like this IMO.

Wins, ERA or WHIP shouldn't come into play at all in award like this IMO.

nate
08-11-2011, 09:06 PM
Cueto should get consideration for the Cy Young award when he starts pitching like the best pitcher in the league. So far, he's pitched well and I'm more than happy to have him on my staff but he's nowhere near as shiny as his ERA makes him out to be.

kaldaniels
08-11-2011, 09:17 PM
I know he isn't going to get much consideration. But what if that ERA stays under 2. Has a sub-2 ERA pitcher ever been brushed aside in the Cy Young voting?

wolfboy
08-11-2011, 09:22 PM
Low BABIP is what is aiding his WHIP as well. If his BABIP to normalize, his WHIP would increase with this ERA.

His BABIP is obscenely low: .228. :eek:

That being said, I'm glad he's a Red. He's been a lot of fun to watch.

savafan
08-11-2011, 10:08 PM
His BABIP is obscenely low: .228. :eek:

That being said, I'm glad he's a Red. He's been a lot of fun to watch.

Why does everyone here think that a low BABIP is impossible to sustain? Haven't good groundball pitchers with decent defense behind them sustained low BABIPs for decades? It's almost like the only pitcher some of you think has any value is a strikeout pitcher. Problem is, there have been some very good pitchers in the history of the game who weren't strikeout pitchers.

vaticanplum
08-11-2011, 10:26 PM
I guess I don't understand the Halladay lock on it? He pitches in a neutral ballpark, where Cueto pitches in a hitters park. Yeah he has the Wins, but that ain't Johnny's fault.

Strike outs and Wins are sexy but, for a SP I thought ERA and WHIP were the king stats to look at.

I say this in genuine fear of ignorance: is Philadelphia's ballpark really considered neutral? I feel like its left field porch is as big as my kitchen. (note: one cannot spit in my kitchen without it boomeranging back in .0005 seconds)

RedsManRick
08-11-2011, 10:36 PM
Why does everyone here think that a low BABIP is impossible to sustain? Haven't good groundball pitchers with decent defense behind them sustained low BABIPs for decades? It's almost like the only pitcher some of you think has any value is a strikeout pitcher. Problem is, there have been some very good pitchers in the history of the game who weren't strikeout pitchers.

Off the top of your head, name 5. Then go look up their career BABIPs. Of the 188 SP since 1950 with at least 2,000 IP, 3 had career BABIPs under .250.

You don't have to make this so black and white. Nobody is saying Cueto sucks. We're just saying he's not a Cy Young. Cueto is pitching very well -- like a #2 starter. He's not pitching like a Cy Young award winner.

Griffey012
08-11-2011, 11:24 PM
So Cy Youngs should be given based on the quality of defense a player plays in front of, what home park he plays in and how generous official scorers are?

If ERA or wins actually measured a pitcher's performance well, I'd use it. But FIP tells me more about how well a guy pitched than ERA does.

I think we are seeing wins be less important than they used to be (see King Felix last year), but it is going to be hard to convince people to vote for an award off of FIP. The reality is FIP is a measure of performance in a vacuum type setting, but baseball is not played in such a setting. FIP is a great indicator of future success, much more so than ERA, but the Cy Young is based off of what you have already done, not what you will do. On average FIP is a better indicator of performance, but usually when dealing with Cy Young seasons we are dealing with outliers in performance. Should we punish a groundball machine who has a monster season because he pitches to in front of a great defense? Not at all. A pitcher's job is to not give up runs, and help his team win. So a pitcher may have a low K number, his BABIP may be unsustainable due to luck, but over the course of that season he was effective, didn't give up runs, etc. How much a pitcher is likely to repeat his performance should have 0 bearing on the Cy Young.


If someone hits .375/.450/.650 with a .500 BABIP when their career norm is a .270 BABIP are we going to not give them the MVP because they were incredibly lucky? In retrospect for that year they were the most valuable. Most valuable going forward, not so much.

savafan
08-11-2011, 11:27 PM
Off the top of your head, name 5. Then go look up their career BABIPs. Of the 188 SP since 1950 with at least 2,000 IP, 3 had career BABIPs under .250.

You don't have to make this so black and white. Nobody is saying Cueto sucks. We're just saying he's not a Cy Young. Cueto is pitching very well -- like a #2 starter. He's not pitching like a Cy Young award winner.

Okay, can't name any off the top of my head...

I will agree that Cueto isn't going to win the Cy Young award this year. I disagree that he's not pitching like a #1 starter. I was at the game today, and Johnny looked unbeatable.

That said, Arroyo received 1 vote last year for the award, so I'm betting someone out there throws some love Cueto's way.

Cedric
08-11-2011, 11:36 PM
I think we are seeing wins be less important than they used to be (see King Felix last year), but it is going to be hard to convince people to vote for an award off of FIP. The reality is FIP is a measure of performance in a vacuum type setting, but baseball is not played in such a setting. FIP is a great indicator of future success, much more so than ERA, but the Cy Young is based off of what you have already done, not what you will do. On average FIP is a better indicator of performance, but usually when dealing with Cy Young seasons we are dealing with outliers in performance. Should we punish a groundball machine who has a monster season because he pitches to in front of a great defense? Not at all. A pitcher's job is to not give up runs, and help his team win. So a pitcher may have a low K number, his BABIP may be unsustainable due to luck, but over the course of that season he was effective, didn't give up runs, etc. How much a pitcher is likely to repeat his performance should have 0 bearing on the Cy Young.


If someone hits .375/.450/.650 with a .500 BABIP when their career norm is a .270 BABIP are we going to not give them the MVP because they were incredibly lucky? In retrospect for that year they were the most valuable. Most valuable going forward, not so much.

Great post. FIP is about predicting future success, not about a current year.

WVRedsFan
08-12-2011, 01:53 AM
He's having a good year. and he will be a future ace if things continue, but Cy Young? Not yet. First, Johnny has to shed the stigma of last year's brawl with the Cardinals with the kicking/spiking incident. That incident, played over and over by ESPN and MLB-TV and who knows who else, painted him as the equivalent of the Indians in the old cowboy movies. Savages, if you will. One he has success year after year, he will get recognition. It's not fair for sure, but that's is the general opinion. The fact he's on a losing club with a not-so-shiny W-L record doesn't help any either, as well as being in Cincinnati. His day will come, but I don't think it's this year. Hope I'm wrong.

wlf WV
08-12-2011, 02:49 AM
I don't think there is an NL pitcher having a better season.They have just had more of a season.Seems we overvalue scoring runs and under value a pitcher preventing runs.I'm not knowledgeable on saber, but Cueto's BABIP doesn't concern me that much.ZIPS(U) has Cueto's BABIP at .258.I guess I'm just a lot more bullish on Cueto than some.

757690
08-12-2011, 03:40 AM
Two points from my perspective:

1) I could give a flying fig what his BABIP or FIP is. Cy Young is about bottom line production, and Cueto has been one of the most productive pitchers when he pitches this year. He has shut down the opponent nearly every time he pitches.

I don't care how much was due to luck or defense or his horoscope. For whatever reason, he has given the Reds a great chance to win almost every game he has pitched. If you want to know how much was due to his talent or skill, fine, God bless you, but Cy Young is not about talent or skill, it's about bottom line production, and it should be.

2) Concerning how good he will be in the future, I agree his BABIP will likely rise, but whose to say that he won't make up it in other areas. Maybe he starts to K more hitters when he starts giving up more hits. I have no doubt he could get around 2-3 more K's a game if he wanted to or needed to. He won't have a 2.06 ERA the rest of his career, but I can't see him having a 3.50 ERA either.

757690
08-12-2011, 03:56 AM
Off the top of your head, name 5. Then go look up their career BABIPs. Of the 188 SP since 1950 with at least 2,000 IP, 3 had career BABIPs under .250.

You don't have to make this so black and white. Nobody is saying Cueto sucks. We're just saying he's not a Cy Young. Cueto is pitching very well -- like a #2 starter. He's not pitching like a Cy Young award winner.

That means that 1.5% of all the starting pitchers who had 2000 IP from 1950-2011 had career BABIP under .250.

I don't know the actual numbers, but I would imagine that a similar percentage of pitchers who started games from 1950-2001, had 2,000 IP.

What I get most out of that stat, is that not many pitchers over those 60 years got to 2000 IP, which means that those that did, are probably pretty similar in most stats.

GAC
08-12-2011, 04:45 AM
What will really hurt Cueto is the injury to start the year. After today he is still 56th in the NL in innings pitched. You will have commentators mentioning that you can't get the award for 2/3rds of a year.

And that's a biggie there. It's a "what if?" situation. WHEN he has pitched, except for one recent outing, he's been pretty much lights out. But being out at the beginning of the season hurt any chance of consideration IMO.

But lets look at the bright side.... we may have a future CY award winner, and he's locked up for the next several years. That's cause to celebrate!

Caveman Techie
08-12-2011, 07:50 AM
I say this in genuine fear of ignorance: is Philadelphia's ballpark really considered neutral? I feel like its left field porch is as big as my kitchen. (note: one cannot spit in my kitchen without it boomeranging back in .0005 seconds)

For the last five years here is Citizens Bank ballpark's ranking in Park Factors:

18
16
12
15
13

While park factors can vary greatly from year to year depending on the home teams roster, CBP has been surprisingly middle of the road.

The Left Field porch is quite short, even after they moved the fences back a little bit in 2005. It most definitely trends to being a homer friendly park to left field.

_Sir_Charles_
08-12-2011, 10:04 AM
I think we are seeing wins be less important than they used to be (see King Felix last year), but it is going to be hard to convince people to vote for an award off of FIP. The reality is FIP is a measure of performance in a vacuum type setting, but baseball is not played in such a setting. FIP is a great indicator of future success, much more so than ERA, but the Cy Young is based off of what you have already done, not what you will do. On average FIP is a better indicator of performance, but usually when dealing with Cy Young seasons we are dealing with outliers in performance. Should we punish a groundball machine who has a monster season because he pitches to in front of a great defense? Not at all. A pitcher's job is to not give up runs, and help his team win. So a pitcher may have a low K number, his BABIP may be unsustainable due to luck, but over the course of that season he was effective, didn't give up runs, etc. How much a pitcher is likely to repeat his performance should have 0 bearing on the Cy Young.


If someone hits .375/.450/.650 with a .500 BABIP when their career norm is a .270 BABIP are we going to not give them the MVP because they were incredibly lucky? In retrospect for that year they were the most valuable. Most valuable going forward, not so much.

Fantastic post.

If Cueto had been here the whole year and preformed like this...I'd say he not only would get consideration...he'd have a legit shot at it. But with the limited time on the field...it hurts him a LOT.

PuffyPig
08-12-2011, 10:10 AM
For what it's worth, CYA voters almost all prefer a horse type pitcher for the award, one who wins lots of games, pitches losts of innings and gives his team a chance to win most every night.

That describes Halladay to a "T" this year.

Voters tend not to look at FIP and xFIP (at least not until the last few years), but simply looking at the "production" leaves Cueto falling quite a bit short in things like wins and innings pitched.

If you want to excuse his wins because of lack of support as unlucky, don't you also have to look at a lucky BABIP? You can't cheery pick you stats.

Hernandez won last year because he was by far the best pitcher in the AL, only lacking a guady W-L record. Cueto simply doesn't have any stats that match up to Halladay other than ERA, and that's just not close enough.

Chip R
08-12-2011, 10:28 AM
I say this in genuine fear of ignorance: is Philadelphia's ballpark really considered neutral? I feel like its left field porch is as big as my kitchen. (note: one cannot spit in my kitchen without it boomeranging back in .0005 seconds)

You spit in your kitchen a lot? ;)

wlf WV
08-12-2011, 11:19 AM
If you want to excuse his wins because of lack of support as unlucky, don't you also have to look at a lucky BABIP? You can't cheery pick you stats.
Maybe I don't understand ZIPs.ZIPS(U) has Cueto's BABIP at .254.I don't see that acknowledging his BABIP now as very lucky.As I said,I don't claim to know much about some metrics,so maybe I'm completely off base.

TRF
08-12-2011, 11:21 AM
I don't think that it is Halladay's to lose. Lee has been just as good, Hamels has been just as good, maybe even a tick better.

That is one freakish roatation

Caveat Emperor
08-12-2011, 11:51 AM
But FIP tells me more about how well a guy pitched than ERA does.

FIP tells you how good a pitcher is at striking batters out, avoiding walks and avoiding home runs. If that's the case, let's just give the Cy Young to the guy with the best K/BB ratio and best HR/9 ratio and be done with it.

There's more to pitching than just that -- and, frankly, I don't think it's appropriate to punish a guy for things like an abnormally low BABIP or other luck-related things. When you get to the elite level of being in contention for a Cy Young or MVP, it's often ONLY luck (the 5-6 HR balls that barely cleared the fence, the 9-10 'at-em' balls that got you out of some jams and spared you the big innings, etc.) that separates your season from that your closest peers.

PuffyPig
08-12-2011, 12:28 PM
Voters will always favour results vs. other forms of grading.

Historically, voters look at W-L record, ERA, K's and IP.

Cueto only has the ERA.

Many have all 4.

fearofpopvol1
08-12-2011, 04:01 PM
I don't think that it is Halladay's to lose. Lee has been just as good, Hamels has been just as good, maybe even a tick better.

That is one freakish roatation

2011

Halladay - 6.1 WAR
Lee - 4.9 WAR
Hammels - 4.9 WAR

Lee has been excellent this year. The 2nd best pitcher in the NL tied with Hammels. Halladay? He's been in a league of his own. It's not really even close.

TRF
08-12-2011, 05:07 PM
2011

Halladay - 6.1 WAR
Lee - 4.9 WAR
Hammels - 4.9 WAR

Lee has been excellent this year. The 2nd best pitcher in the NL tied with Hammels. Halladay? He's been in a league of his own. It's not really even close.


NAME GP GS W L SV QS HLD IP H ER HR BB SO K/9 P/GS WHIP ERA
Roy Halladay 24 24 15 4 0 19 0 175.2 162 49 9 22 163 8.35 110.3 1.05 2.51
Cliff Lee 24 24 12 7 0 17 0 172.0 153 54 14 34 177 9.26 106.4 1.09 2.83
Cole Hamels 24 24 13 6 0 20 0 167.0 129 47 10 31 150 8.08 101.3 0.96 2.53

Throw out the W's and L's, and damn if it doesn't look like three aces to me, with almost identical numbers. But Lee looks like the best of the three. And while Hamels has the lowes K numbers, he's been the best at keeping guys off the bases. IMO any of the three could get the award and it wouldn't shock me. Odd that all three have 24 starts and all three have 19 decisions.

RedsManRick
08-12-2011, 05:09 PM
I just want to point out that Roy Halladay has a .304 BABIP, Lee a .301.

Regarding the Cueto can maintain a low BABIP because he's a groundballer now,I always come back to this:


Type ISO BABIP HR/Type RC RC/G
FB .455 .167 11.47% 8227 6.70
GB .023 .236 0.00% 2614 1.44
IFFB .001 .003 0.00% 0 0.00
LD .229 .716 0.97% 17947 63.62

Groundballs are great. They're the least valuable kind of batted batted ball this side of a pop-up. But if you really want to sustain a low BABIP, fly balls are the way to go. In fact, looking at this year's qualified starter, there is a small negative correlation (r=-.05) between GB% and BABIP.

fearofpopvol1
08-12-2011, 06:13 PM
NAME GP GS W L SV QS HLD IP H ER HR BB SO K/9 P/GS WHIP ERA
Roy Halladay 24 24 15 4 0 19 0 175.2 162 49 9 22 163 8.35 110.3 1.05 2.51
Cliff Lee 24 24 12 7 0 17 0 172.0 153 54 14 34 177 9.26 106.4 1.09 2.83
Cole Hamels 24 24 13 6 0 20 0 167.0 129 47 10 31 150 8.08 101.3 0.96 2.53

Throw out the W's and L's, and damn if it doesn't look like three aces to me, with almost identical numbers. But Lee looks like the best of the three. And while Hamels has the lowes K numbers, he's been the best at keeping guys off the bases. IMO any of the three could get the award and it wouldn't shock me. Odd that all three have 24 starts and all three have 19 decisions.

You left out FIP and BABIP. ;)

I would pick Hamels over Lee. Lee has the edge in Ks, but that's about it. Hamels has allowed much fewer hits (a staggering number), home runs, earned runs, and walks. Not to mention, he has more quality starts too.

In terms of overall value, Halladay wins out as he's been a full win+ more than the other guys.

Tony Cloninger
08-13-2011, 05:56 PM
People please.... Harold Reynolds, who will soon have an IHateHaroldReynolds.com website made in his honor.....has already stated on MLB Network a few days ago that WINS is what matters here.

Cueto is only 8-5, no way he should be considered for the CY Young when he is only going to win maybe about 10-11 games. (No one told him he has 8 more starts left I guess)

He also stated that he is on record for not thinking Felix had any business winning the AL Cy Young last year.

So there it is.... Wins. That's all that matters. And winning games on winning teams, not on losing teams...... so Steve Carlton should give back that CYA he won in 1972.