Continuing the rundown of Cy Young winners in this decade and how their win-loss record was a factor in them getting the award.
2015 Cy Young Award Winners.
AL: Dallas Kuechel
NL: Jake Arrieta
Another interesting case where both winners weren't necessarily the best pitchers and benefited greatly from the 20 win plateau.
First, let's go through the AL, Dallas Kuechel won the award, his only competitor was David Price, and truth be told, there's no big gap here, but looking at the numbers, Price led the AL in:
ERA-, ERA, FG WAR
2nd in FIP to Chris Sale.
All things considered, Kuechel was pretty close and Price's xFIP at 3.24 shows he got pretty lucky with his home run to flyball percentage, Kuechel's number was 2.75, and Kuechel had better run expectancy numbers.
Addressing the topic of the article, it is very clear that a big factor was the 20 win plateau, Keuchel had a 20-8 record, Price finished at 18-5, I'd bet anything that had Price won the 20 games, and Keuchel only 18, Price wins the award.
Looking at it objectively, a case for Keuchel is just as strong and I'd probably lean slightly towards him, but there is such a thing as bad process, good result, and the reason why he won it and the reason why he should have won it, are different.
Over in the NL side, it was a phenomenal race, Kershaw, Greinke, and Arrieta put on a show and all 3 pitched around the same number of innings, so no big difference there.
The intriguing fact is this, Kershaw had the best peripherals:
Led in K%, K-BB%, FIP-, xFIP-, FIP, xFIP, FG WAR, SIERA, SwStr%.
All of these categories, he was number 1.
And you can say, well Arrieta had the edge in the run prevention,
1.77 ERA to Kershaw's 2.13
9.4 RA9-WAR to 7.9
8.7 BR WAR to 7.5
But Zack Greinke was better than Arrieta in all of those categories, he had a 1.66 ERA, 10.0 RA9-WAR, and 9.3 BR WAR.
The stat that probably gave Arrieta the award:
He went 22-6.
Greinke fell one win short at 19-3, Kershaw had a 16-7 record. Objective analysis shows you that the winner should've been either Kershaw or Greinke, Kershaw was historically great on the peripherals, Greinke on the run prevention, Arrieta somewhere in the middle.
Had one of them won 20 games instead of Arrieta they take the award handily
2016 Cy Young Award Winners.
AL: Rick Porcello
NL: Max Scherzer
Starting with the AL, can someone tell me how one pitcher receives 8 1rst place votes and another one receives 14 1rst place votes and the first one gets the award due to the total vote points, it makes no sense.
Moving over to the award, it was close, the field actually was very weak, but across the board, Verlander and Kluber were slightly better in every aspect, honestly, Zach Britton was so unreal you can make the argument for him an 804 ERA+ is insane, so he deserved some consideration.
Addressing the topic at hand again, Verlander should've won it and had him or Kluber finished off with Porcello's record of 22-4, they win it, without a doubt.
In the National League, it's clear Kershaw would've won it, had he been healthy, Fernandez and Syndergaard had better numbers, not by much, but better, their problem is lack of innings, 182.1 and 183.2, but if you are going to vote for them, you're better off voting for Kershaw, just on how dominant he was, a 237 ERA+ for a starter is unheard of.
Kershaw had virtually the same RA9-WAR as Scherzer 6.8 to 6.9, on 79.1 fewer innings, it's unbelievable if he pitches 70 mediocre innings instead of missing them, he undoubtedly wins the award, and while Scherzer probably won despite the 20 wins, it helped put him over the top.
2017 Cy Young Award Winners
AL: Corey Kluber
NL: Max.Scherzer
Not much to talk about here.
Corey won it and deserved it, neither he nor Sale won 20 games so it wasn't a factor.
In the NL, while Scherzer was better, it's an example of how it's about the 20 wins, Kershaw missed time, but he pitched 175 Innings and Scherzer only had 200.2 as he also had injury issues, the Dodger hurler had an 18-4 record and Scherzer 16-6, I'm sure had Kershaw won 2 more games and finished at 20, he wins the award.
Summing it all up, in the last 3 years, there were 3 winners that won the award based on the 20 win nonsense, they were good, but there were more deserving candidates.
As always feel free to comment, suggest and subscribe.
Your support on Patreon would be greatly appreciated, the more help, the easier it is to expand, more time writing and doing research and throw in a couple of exclusive articles per week for the first supporters, the link is in the sidebar if you are interested.
2015 Cy Young Award Winners.
AL: Dallas Kuechel
NL: Jake Arrieta
Another interesting case where both winners weren't necessarily the best pitchers and benefited greatly from the 20 win plateau.
First, let's go through the AL, Dallas Kuechel won the award, his only competitor was David Price, and truth be told, there's no big gap here, but looking at the numbers, Price led the AL in:
ERA-, ERA, FG WAR
2nd in FIP to Chris Sale.
All things considered, Kuechel was pretty close and Price's xFIP at 3.24 shows he got pretty lucky with his home run to flyball percentage, Kuechel's number was 2.75, and Kuechel had better run expectancy numbers.
Addressing the topic of the article, it is very clear that a big factor was the 20 win plateau, Keuchel had a 20-8 record, Price finished at 18-5, I'd bet anything that had Price won the 20 games, and Keuchel only 18, Price wins the award.
Looking at it objectively, a case for Keuchel is just as strong and I'd probably lean slightly towards him, but there is such a thing as bad process, good result, and the reason why he won it and the reason why he should have won it, are different.
Over in the NL side, it was a phenomenal race, Kershaw, Greinke, and Arrieta put on a show and all 3 pitched around the same number of innings, so no big difference there.
The intriguing fact is this, Kershaw had the best peripherals:
Led in K%, K-BB%, FIP-, xFIP-, FIP, xFIP, FG WAR, SIERA, SwStr%.
All of these categories, he was number 1.
And you can say, well Arrieta had the edge in the run prevention,
1.77 ERA to Kershaw's 2.13
9.4 RA9-WAR to 7.9
8.7 BR WAR to 7.5
But Zack Greinke was better than Arrieta in all of those categories, he had a 1.66 ERA, 10.0 RA9-WAR, and 9.3 BR WAR.
The stat that probably gave Arrieta the award:
He went 22-6.
Greinke fell one win short at 19-3, Kershaw had a 16-7 record. Objective analysis shows you that the winner should've been either Kershaw or Greinke, Kershaw was historically great on the peripherals, Greinke on the run prevention, Arrieta somewhere in the middle.
Had one of them won 20 games instead of Arrieta they take the award handily
2016 Cy Young Award Winners.
AL: Rick Porcello
NL: Max Scherzer
Starting with the AL, can someone tell me how one pitcher receives 8 1rst place votes and another one receives 14 1rst place votes and the first one gets the award due to the total vote points, it makes no sense.
Moving over to the award, it was close, the field actually was very weak, but across the board, Verlander and Kluber were slightly better in every aspect, honestly, Zach Britton was so unreal you can make the argument for him an 804 ERA+ is insane, so he deserved some consideration.
Addressing the topic at hand again, Verlander should've won it and had him or Kluber finished off with Porcello's record of 22-4, they win it, without a doubt.
In the National League, it's clear Kershaw would've won it, had he been healthy, Fernandez and Syndergaard had better numbers, not by much, but better, their problem is lack of innings, 182.1 and 183.2, but if you are going to vote for them, you're better off voting for Kershaw, just on how dominant he was, a 237 ERA+ for a starter is unheard of.
Kershaw had virtually the same RA9-WAR as Scherzer 6.8 to 6.9, on 79.1 fewer innings, it's unbelievable if he pitches 70 mediocre innings instead of missing them, he undoubtedly wins the award, and while Scherzer probably won despite the 20 wins, it helped put him over the top.
2017 Cy Young Award Winners
AL: Corey Kluber
NL: Max.Scherzer
Not much to talk about here.
Corey won it and deserved it, neither he nor Sale won 20 games so it wasn't a factor.
In the NL, while Scherzer was better, it's an example of how it's about the 20 wins, Kershaw missed time, but he pitched 175 Innings and Scherzer only had 200.2 as he also had injury issues, the Dodger hurler had an 18-4 record and Scherzer 16-6, I'm sure had Kershaw won 2 more games and finished at 20, he wins the award.
Summing it all up, in the last 3 years, there were 3 winners that won the award based on the 20 win nonsense, they were good, but there were more deserving candidates.
As always feel free to comment, suggest and subscribe.
Your support on Patreon would be greatly appreciated, the more help, the easier it is to expand, more time writing and doing research and throw in a couple of exclusive articles per week for the first supporters, the link is in the sidebar if you are interested.
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