JJ = 2010 Cy Young?
by auh11 on Jul 28, 2010 1:48 AM EDT
12 comments
What are the chances that JJ wins the Cy Young? Im not getting too hopeful, especially after tonights loss but hes definitely in contention. He leads all of Baseball with a 1.72 ERA, he has 10 wins and 3 losses but hes still has maybe 13-15 starts left. He has 141 K´s (I looked on mlb.com Idk if it included tonite, if it doesnt its 146) putting him right there in the top three NL pitchers in Strikeouts. If Johnson can keep his ERA around/under 2.00 and win 10 of this starts left, stay with the SO pace, then we have a real contender for the Cy Young.
I know Ubaldo and Wainwright are probably front-runners right now, especially with all the hype Ubaldo created, but Johnson has a good chance. It doesnt help either that we are considered a ¨small-market¨ team and we get overlooked sometimes (I still remember D-Train in ´05).
What do you guys think?
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Kevin Brown 1996
Lowest ERA in the Majors at 1.87, 159 strikeouts and 17-11 record. Brown came second in the Cy Young voting to John Smoltz whose ERA was 2.94 (more than 1 full point higher), with 276 strikeouts but the key was his record of 24-8. The following year Smoltz would have a 3.02 ERA with 241 strikeouts but he only had a 15-12 record. He finished outside the top 5 in the voting with zero first place votes despite getting 26 of 28 first place votes the year before.
It was estimated that if Brown had pitched for the Braves instead of the Marlins he would have won 28 games that season due to the Braves superior offense. Perhaps most telling was that the WAR #s (Wins Above a Replacement player) were 6.1 for Smoltz, but 7.5 for Brown. It should be noted that 8 or higher would be considered worthy of MVP consideration.
If JJ can get to 20 wins (FAT CHANCE with our Bullpen), finish top 3 in strikeouts AND keep the ERA under 2.00 he will finish first or second in a close vote split 3 ways unless everyone else falls apart down the stretch.
NY Jets = NFL's Chicago Cubs
There's a fine line between hopeful and desperate. Just look @ Jets fans.
Those were different times though
Like now I think ERA gets more consideration than win/loss record to the voters, look at how Greinke beat Sabathia last year.
True but they still matter enough that JJ won't get enough consideration
With less than 15 wins unless he is top 3 in strikeouts to go with the best ERA. Right now it is pretty obvious who is gonna get the Cy Young given where everyone stands today.
Roy Halladay is love by the sports writers around the country, has a no-hitter this year, is second in ERA, leads NL in strikeouts (he has pitched one game more than JJ and only leads by 3) and is 0.02 WHIP behind JJ. As much as JJ is more deserving, Halladay will get votes over JJ and when you combine Jimenez (Wins leader) it becomes a 3-way dance and JJ won’t win that one with ERA alone.
NY Jets = NFL's Chicago Cubs
There's a fine line between hopeful and desperate. Just look @ Jets fans.
by TheFinReaper on Jul 29, 2010 4:29 PM EDT up reply actions
That's the problem with voting...
It’s too subjective. Never mind if someone deserves the award, it’s the vote that counts. Why can’t it be completely objective based on some kind of formula. It can weigh ERA, K’s/9, BB/9, WHIP, etc. and come up with a clear point leader. Perhaps something similar to the QB rating calculation. Win percentage shouldn’t even factor in, because a good pitcher can be screwed by a bad bullpen or a toothless offense, neither of which are his fault.
Josh Johnson for NL Cy Young 2010
by marlinsfan315 on Aug 18, 2010 11:26 AM EDT up reply actions
JJ better win it
No one else in the NL is really as deserving. Ubaldo has cooled off, Halladay isn’t worthy of it. Mat Latos could win it, but I doubt he’d get enough consideration.
Dont forget Wainwright either
He has 14 wins(2 more than Doc) and is only .02 behind Halladay with a 2.23 ERA
"Don’t do drugs, don’t have unprotected sex, don’t be violent. Leave that to me." - Eminem
eh.. i think ppl are being a little hard on media/writers
the game is really changing from how it was even 10-15 years ago.
- writers & media & fans have really bought into more stats than era & wins (moneyball/sabremetrics)
- b/c of all the espns & fsns & blogs: everyone is just more aware of how good a guy is no matter which market he’s in or how bad the rest of his bp/team is IE peavy (w/ padres), greinke, marlins rotation when we started 11-1 last year
jj has a solid rep in mlb. JJ could even have some games to pitch in that actually matter b/c we may improve for the last 2 months of the year
stanton is still only 20 years old; lomo only has 20 mlb ABs; haley is having worst year since he was a rookie; gabys only a rookie; cogs could come back & be great again; i doubt the BP could get any worse
Yet, all we heard was how Ubaldo was the greatest pitcher ever because he started 15-1
Never mind that he got tremendously lucky on fly-ball rates. Writers have gotten better, but until they quit giving a damn about wins (a stat the pitcher has virtually no control over), I will have little faith in their ability to discern true talent.
Roy Oswalt is 6-13 this year. That doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a top 10-15 NL pitcher.
Chris Coghlan is the 2009 NLRoY (that's a +1 for me!)
Josh Johnson for the 2010 NL Cy Young!
what
everyone was talking about him so much because he had a sub-1.00 era in june while also sporting a 11-1 record. meaning it was one of the best starts ever for a starting pitcher to open a season.
His ERA was low, but ERA isn't a great means of evaluating pitching success
Ask Ricky Nolasco how he feels about that. And no, I don’t think Ubaldo’s start was one of the best ever, because his other pitching statistics weren’t even the best of the year to that point. Johnson, Wainwright, and Halladay all had better stats (K/9, BB/9, WHIP, K/BB, DIPS) in more expressive categories than Jimenez did up to the All-Star break.
And what I meant about luck on fly balls in Jimenez’s very low BIPA (Balls in play average), which is .238 currently, to the more normal BIPA’s of the aforementioned trio (.277, .254, .281, respectively). He’s had a good season, but he was getting very lucky in the first half of the year, and now, we’re starting to see him regress. Despite that, I still hear him at the top of NL Cy Young discussions. Much like how Heyward tends to dominate NL RoY discussions, despite the superior and more consistent performances of Gaby Sanchez, Buster Posey, Stephen Strasburg, and Jaime Garcia.
Chris Coghlan is the 2009 NLRoY (that's a +1 for me!)
Josh Johnson for the 2010 NL Cy Young!
not sure what to say here
the point is to win the game. pitchers best help their team by keeping the other team from scoring. ERA is the best stat at determining how many runs a pitcher gives up…… not k/9 or bb/9 or k/bb.
ubaldo opened the season with 14 straight quality starts. let me know the last time a pitcher did that….
ubaldo had a .93 ERA on june 6. let me know of the last starting pitcher with an ERA that good after that many IP
ubaldo had consecutive scoreless IP streaks of 25 & 33. let me know of the last pitcher to do that before all-star break….
not sure how or why one would even mention walks or strikeouts after stats like that….
how is gaby’s .288 BA, .352 OBP, 12 HR, 49 RBI, 49 R thru 100 games superior to
to heyward’s .268 BA, .380 OBP, 11 HR, 50 RBI, 53 R thru 88 games?
how can you call strasburg consistent so far? he’s only started 9 games total. with 5 QS. & he’s gone more than 6 IP 3 times
Prepare for an epically long post...
It depends on whether or not you care about defense. A pitcher is not responsible for what happens to a ball after it has been put into play. Sure, a certain number of balls will find gaps, but when you see a low BIPA, like .238 for example, you can tell that this can either be due to a great defense (which the Rockies aren’t, they’re about average), or a very lucky placement of balls near gloves. This directly affects how many runs are scored. Similarly, by looking at K/9, BB/9, and K/BB ratios, you can tell which pitchers have been more effective at minimizing the most direct mistake a pitcher can make (issuing a walk) or maximizing the most direct method a pitcher can use to get an out (a strikeout). However, the best statistic I know of (read: I’m not a sabermetrician by any means, though I like reading their research) to measure defense-independent ERA is a measure called DIPS. This measure seeks to neutralize the impact of a pitcher’s defense on his ERA.
The current leader in DIPS (w/at least 60 IP) in the NL is Josh Johnson at 2.46. Yovani Gallardo is at 2.85, Halladay at 2.87, Wainwright at 3.03, Clayton Kershaw at 3.12, Lincecum at 3.14, you get the idea. Jimenez falls in at 3.39, which ranks 15th among players who qualify under the 60 IP condition. (And if you’re curious, one of the reasons I think Stephen Strasburg has been so impressive this year is his DIPS of 2.07, which puts him in the same category as this year’s lights-out relievers, like Joaquin Benoit, Carlos Marmol, Leo Nunez, Luke Gregersen, and Brian Wilson. This is pretty remarkable from a rookie, even if it comes from a rather small sample size.)
Or you can consider the metric WAR, Wins Above Replacement. JJ has a 5.7 WAR, Gallardo has a 3.1 WAR, Halladay has a 5.3 WAR, Wainwright has a 4.7 WAR, Kershaw has a 3.1 WAR, and Lincecum has a 3.1 WAR. Jimenez has a 4.3 WAR this season, which puts him among the middle of the upper-tier NL pitchers. For a historical perspective, Pedro Martinez put up a 10.1 WAR in 2000 and Zack Greinke put up a 9.0 WAR last season, so yeah, I’d say Jimenez was far from a historical level of value to start the year.
My point is that their are other metrics that point to Jimenez having a very good season thus far, but not the seemingly incredible one that win total and ERA seemed to point to him having. I trust the more intricate measures of DIPS and WAR, so I tend to think that Josh Johnson, Roy Halladay, and Adam Wainwright are the ones having truly exceptional seasons, and are more deserving of the NL Cy Young.
As for Heyward, I believe that he has been more prone to streaks of production than Gaby has been. I think Gaby has been a more consistent hitter this season, and that he has been hitting behind a less-productive 1-slot hitter (Martin Prado>Chris Coghlan at getting on-base this season). That being said, I think the front-runners far and away are Buster Posey and Jaime Garcia.
Posey: .350 BA, .392 OBP, .929 OPS, 8 HR, 34 RBI, 20 XBH, 30 R, 71 H through 203 ABs for a 1.5 WAR
Heyward: .268 BA, .380 OBP, .834 OPS, 11 HR, 50 RBI, 34 XBH, 53 R, 86 H through 321 ABs for a 2.3 WAR
Sanchez: .288 BA, .352 OBP, .807 OPS, 12 HR, 49 RBI, 38 XBH, 49 R, 110 H through 382 ABs for a 0.8 WAR (keep in mind, WAR is position-based, so Gaby is going against other 1Bs)
Tyler Colvin: .263 BA, .324 OBP, .862 OPS, 16 HR, 38 RBI, 33 XBH, 43 R, 65 H through 247 ABs for a 0.8 WAR.
Jaime Garcia: 10-5, 3.45 DIPS, 2.33 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, .236 BAA, .287 BIPA, 7.3 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, 15 QS, through 20 starts for a 3.2 WAR
Stephen Strasburg: 5-2, 2.07 DIPS, 2.32 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, .216 BAA, .328 BIPA, 12.4 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 6 QS, through 9 starts for a 1.8 WAR
Again, just my opinion, but I definitely believe these guys warrant the same consideration (and some more so) as Jason Heyward.
Chris Coghlan is the 2009 NLRoY (that's a +1 for me!)
Josh Johnson for the 2010 NL Cy Young!
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