2012 awards thread

Jared Weaver's got the best record, the best ERA, and the best Thor haircut in the American League. But do those things make him the best pitcher?

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/8/7/3226421/jered-weaver-justin-verlander-al-cy-young

AL

mvp - trout
cy - weaver
ROY - trout

NL

mvp - mccutchen
cy - dickey, i guess? lots of guys in the mix, even AJ!
roy - miley? rizzo emerging as a potential candidate w/the cubs too.

i think dickey has lost the narrative.

i'd probably say gio & cueto have a better shot than him

maybe even stras if he doesn't get scaled back

also matt cain, if the giants make a push into the playoffs

i feel like cueto has the best chance to challenge dickey but i still think people like RA for the award, right now. if the trends continue i would go with cueto.

although he's more like johnny cute-o~

http://www.straitpinkie.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/cueto2.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0amCfgnwY8

(An inexplicable force compels me to post this once a season. Sorry.)

if the narrative matters, I guess Obama will win the Cy unless the economy tanks.

God, what nonstop sports/news channels have done to the young....

cutch me

AL MVP: Trout
AL Cy: Weaver
Comeback: Alex Rios

NL MVP: McCutchen
NL Cy: Dickey
Comeback: Wright

AL MVP: Trout
AL CY: Weaver

NL MVP: Cutch
NL CY: no idea, Cueto?

Cabrera is a solid MVP candidate in the AL, if the Tigers make the playoffs and the Angels don't then I wouldn't be surprised if he won.

NL CY is totally wide open, there are probably ten guys who have a shot if they can go 7-1, 1.50 ERA down the stretch and their teams make the playoffs.

Al mvp: Miguel Cabrera
roy: Mike Trout
cy: Weaver

Nl mvp: Andrew McCutchen
roy: Wade Miley
cy: RA Dickey

I started listing runners-up and had Cabrera. He's just so good. He must be rapidly moving up the list of greatest position players who never won an MVP--and, like Pujols, he still hasn't had a season where he didn't draw votes.

dickey ain't winning the cy young

That's easy to say bcz he's slumped in the last month, but there is no clear alternative winner he can't be ruled out. ie, thread is too soon.

(also Dickey doesn't do well in the the advanced metrics, which I will discount as much as possible this year because he is a Met)

Miggy is in a virtual tie for 3rd in WAR (B-R version) for AL position players -- with Josh Reddick! Cano is 2nd.

i think for dickey to win he'd have to finish with noticeably better stats than the rest of the NL... like a verlander-level no-brainer last year

he'll end up finishing as one of the best pitchers in the NL, but he'll be competing with guys on winning teams. i see him finishing third or something.

Unless you treat WAR as gospel, though--where Cueto's ahead--I think Dickey has a better overall case. Cueto has the better ERA by 0.24, and a better adjusted ERA. Dickey has better numbers in WHIP (#1, with Cueto outside the Top 10), H/9, K/BB, and W-L record. Slight edge to Cueto in quality starts, 17/23 vs. 16/23. Like Weaver, Dickey's numbers improve quite a bit if you throw out one disastrous start back in April against Atlanta (4.1 innings, 8 runs). It's very close...either one could go on to win.

i'm not making a should argument

Going way back to the '70s, I think Niekro and Wilbur Wood tended to get shortchanged in Cy Young voting. Throwing a freak pitch didn't seem to go over well with voters.

AL MVP and ROY have to be Trout right now. I just looked at his stats and had my mind blown, again. Cy is probably Verlander but King Felix is right on his tail, Weaver's got the best ERA but his peripherals aren't as good.

As far as the NL goes - MVP is probably going to be Cutch, as the voters aren't going to go for Braun now and Votto's been hurt for too long. Cueto, Dickey, and Kershaw could all win the Cy Young, if Strasburg wasn't going to be limited I would think he could win it too. Also you can give Chapman an outside chance, because holy cow his K/9 is at 16.77 and he's put up 2.9 WAR over about 50 innings, it's not out of the realm of possibility to think that he could put up 9 WAR or more over a season as a starter. ROY is probably Miley but Fiers has got to be catching up to him, he's only .4 WAR behind despite pitching 50 less innings; the voters have to at least consider him at this point.

Zimmermann has better advanced numbers than Strasburg; he's #2 in B-R WAR behind Cueto in the league.

kershaw has been great obviously, tho i don't think he's been great enough for the voters to give him his second straight

i'd put the top 4 nl cy young contenders (in no order) as: cueto, gio, dickey & cain

i think trout wins ROY & MVP as well, don't see anyone else challenging him

if trout slumps badly in the last month or something, i'd give cano a better shot of winning than miggy

Zimmermann has better advanced numbers than Strasburg; he's #2 in B-R WAR behind Cueto in the league.

Strasburg's K rate is nearly twice what Zimmermann's is; I'm curious what B-R is rating so highly

If this were the late '80s or early '90s, when they were handing out Cys to relievers left and right, I think Chapman might have even been the favourite. What he's doing is miles ahead of Mark Davis and Steve Bedrosian, and better even than Eckersley's 1990 (when he didn't win) or 1992 (when he did).

Strasburg's K rate is nearly twice what Zimmermann's is; I'm curious what B-R is rating so highly

― frogbs, Wednesday, August 8, 2012 10:54 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

the main difference is that bWAR takes ERA instead of FIP, right? theirs looks a bit wacky... matt harrison and kuroda in the top 10

I didn't realize Chapman had thrown 113+ innings. Has anyone done 162 relief IP since Mike Marshall?

? He's thrown 53.2 so far--not many, but if he keeps going at the same rate, he'll be around 80 for the season. Which would bring him into the range of Davis (92.2), Bedrosian (89), Eckersley (80), and Gagne (82.1) the years they won. I'm not advocating for Chapman, by the way; just saying that there was a time when he'd be getting more serious consideration.

ok I was looking at career totals, pay me no mind

dickey ain't winning the cy young

― tauheed & cambria (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, August 8, 2012 9:52 AM

hey baby boy, think the Fish just put him back in the driver's seat!

• 1st in NL in W (15)
• 1st in NL in IP (162.1)
• 1st in NL in SO (166)
• 4th in NL in ERA (2.72)
• 1st in NL in WHIP (1.00)
• 2nd in NL in W% (.833)
• 1st in NL in CG (3)

Big comeback for wins and winning pct.! (To be fair, you admitted as much yesterday.)

a knuckleballer leading the league in STRIKEOUTS, WHIP and wins? That's quite a leg up, wdn't you say??

I posted yesterday that Dickey was my choice; today's start strengthens his case. But it's so close between a few guys, one or two bad starts can knock somebody out of the running.

Basically what I said about Chapman above--that there was a time when he would have been very much in the running--but instead of Chapman, Kimbrel:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/27851/could-craig-kimbrel-win-nl-cy-young

Followed by what awards are for: many reader comments where people argue and tell each other they don't know what they're talking about.

just noticed on BR that someone gave him an mvp vote last year!

Man, it's hard to not go with Mike Trout. I want to change from Cabrera.

The AL Cy is even closer after the weekend. Price and Sale had very good starts and won; Verlander, very good no-decision; Weaver had a decent start and lost.

How can Felix keep up with that?

Never mind.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8277193/mlb-case-miguel-cabrera-al-mvp

Using Leverage Index, we can quantify the relative impact any given plate appearance has on the outcome of a game, based on the score, inning, number of base runners, and how many outs there are at the time. At FanGraphs, we break every player's plate appearances into three tiers, ranging from low leverage (game already decided) to high leverage (high chance of determining who wins and loses) and can evaluate how players have done in the "clutch" opportunities they've been given.

Miguel Cabrera: Mr. Clutch?
Situation BA OBP OPS w/OBA
Low Leverage .332 .389 .613 .424
Medium Leverage .305 .365 .508 .369
High Leverage .417 .500 .833 .524

As it turns out, Cabrera has been a shining star in such situations this year. In the chart to the right, check out Cabrera's performance, by leverage:

In 44 high-leverage plate appearances, Cabrera has 15 hits, 11 of which have gone for extra bases. He's also drawn seven walks, creating an even higher pressure situation for the pitcher, who now has to face Prince Fielder without first base being open. Cabrera's .526 wOBA in high leverage situations easily paces the American League.

The fact that Alejandro de Aza and Alex Rios -- neither exactly known as fearsome clutch hitters -- are also in the top five should tell you something about the year-to-year variability of clutch performance, but we're not trying to predict whether Cabrera can keep hitting like this in high pressure situations, we're just noting that he has so far this year.

Mike Trout: No pressure
Situation BA OBP OPS w/OBA
Low Leverage .376 .459 .700 .499
Medium Leverage .317 .369 .511 .394
High Leverage .276 .289 .517 .345

On the other end of the spectrum, the best hitter in low-leverage situations in the AL? None other than Trout. In fact, Trout's leverage splits are basically a mirror opposite of Cabrera's. Check out the chart to the right to see Trout's performance, by leverage:

Trout has been a monster when the game is already determined one way or another but just a little better than league average when the game is on the line. Now, you should not take these numbers to mean that Trout folds under pressure or that he lacks some personality trait that allows him to answer the call when necessary, as we're just dealing with 38 plate appearances, and these splits will even out over a larger sample of data. I am not arguing that Cabrera has a clutch gene that Trout does not.

this is unbelievably stupid. this guy is using a 44-plate appearance sample to make an MVP case. it's the same vapid argument people have used forever but dressed up in pseudo-sabermetric legitimacy

On a similar note, isn't it time we kicked Ted Williams out of the baseball Hall of Fame? He never won the big one.

GARBAGE TIME TROUT

Meanwhile, Young Weaver is not having a good night.

9 ER = .52 ERA spike

Disaster for Weaver--he may be out of the running. Poor start for Sale, loss; adequate start for Verlander, no decision. Price fantastic yesterday, the other guy coming up fast on the outside.

this is unbelievably stupid. this guy is using a 44-plate appearance sample to make an MVP case. it's the same vapid argument people have used forever but dressed up in pseudo-sabermetric legitimacy

I hate when someone writes a long article and crunches a million numbers but says "well, it's only 38 PA's, so we can't really conclude anything." Then why write the article in the first place?

His leverage numbers also don't take in account that Trout leads off the game, so around 20% of his game at bats occur each and every time with no men on and no men out.

Kyle Lohse is 3rd among NL pitchers in bWAR!

I hate when someone writes a long article and crunches a million numbers but says "well, it's only 38 PA's, so we can't really conclude anything." Then why write the article in the first place?

Ultimately this is why I only really trust Fangraphs to deliver articles that are both interesting from a statistical point of view and not completely stupid

Weaver has fallen back in the Cy Young race, which would seem to make Verlander the front runner again. But after King Felix's last two starts, their numbers are almost identical!

"I was a little concerned. I thought the new thing about computer stuff, I thought Trout's going to win because they put his numbers over me," Cabrera said. "I was like relax. ... if he wins, it's going to be fair because he had a great season."

His victory is a win for the traditional statistics.

"At the end of the game, it's going to be the same baseball played back in the day," Cabrera said.

Among Trout's superlative numbers was a WAR of 10.7, highest by a position player since Barry Bonds' 11.6 in 2002. Cabrera's WAR was 6.9, fourth in the AL behind Trout, Cano and Verlander.

*FACEPALM*

whatever i dont care.. 27 or 28 teams know the real valuations behind the beauty pageant. id rather the writers be behind than ownership. who cares.

I thought the AL vote would be closer--must be a very different set of voters from the Felix vote in 2010. I don't think this changes the move towards sabermetrics at all, which the Triple Crown threw a monkey wrench into. If this had been even 10 years ago, a TC winner probably would have been an automatic unanimous winner. 10 years from now, I think Trout would win.

Jeter 7th. He'll keep getting down-ballot votes after he retires.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/481697_10151233838241702_824928274_n.png

pity that probably doesn't come exclusively in kids' sizes

I agree completely with Cliff Corcoran here:

The Trout vs. Cabrera argument may be a bore at this point, but it won't go away, nor would it have had Trout won. The fact of the matter is that this sort of debate is one of the things that makes baseball so much fun to follow. If every award had a clear and correct winner, how many fans would spend their time pouring over every extra base Mike Trout took, researching Miguel Cabrera's double-play rate, the strength of the lineups David Price and Justin Verlander faced, or the relative value of Buster Posey's defense and Ryan Braun's hitting?

Being a baseball fan is a year-round occupation in large part because of this sort of debate and the resulting research and analysis. It keeps the game alive in the cold winter months. Every fan debating Trout vs. Cabrera or Posey vs. Braun, Andrew McCutchen and Yadier Molina is reliving those players' seasons over and over again. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I love award and HOF debates. I don't want them ever to go away.

you can keep them in exchange for the Democratic & Republican parties going away.

oh my god

http://www.freep.com/article/20121116/COL01/311160108/1050/sports02?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+FreepDetroitTigers+(freep.com+%7C+Detroit+Tigers)

http://i47.tinypic.com/10nf3i9.jpg

"There is no end to the appetite for categories -- from OBP to OPS to WAR. I mean, OMG! "

- "Mitch" "Albom" "," "November 16, 2012"

http://i48.tinypic.com/2i9oupt.jpg

"The number of triples hit while wearing a certain-colored underwear is probably being measured as we speak."

- "Mitch" "Albom" "," "November 16, 2012"

http://i47.tinypic.com/24gk7c1.jpg

"And this WAR statistic -- which measures the number of wins a player gives his team versus a replacement player of minor league/bench talent (honestly, who comes up with this stuff?) -- is another way of declaring, "Nerds win!"

- "Mitch" "Albom" "," "November 16, 2012"

it's true, 20 years ago we literally could not measure how often a player got on base.

honestly, who would ever think of figuring out how player performance correlates with winning? madness

NO NO NO I WILL NOT READ THAT

NO

Maybe the most eye-opening paragraph:

But if you are going to go molten deep into intangibles, why stop at things like "which guy hit more homers into the power alleys?" (A real statistic, I am sorry to say.)

As the guy who's often said on this board that I'm not quite ready to abandon intangibles altogether, I'll at least point out that I know what the word means.

i keep thinking "why isn't mitch albom dead yet" but then i remember tuesdays with morrie was about the other guy dying

there's just this irrational part of me that feels like he shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways

"He was the meat in the stew that became the American League champions..."

If you factor in each player's Stew Quotient, I've gotta go with Trout. I don't even know what a Cabrera is.

it's when you go for the subway veggie delite because you don't know anything else

Mitch Albom on MP3:

So now, these geeks are telling us they can compress an entire song into a file? If I'm looking for a record, I head on over to my shelf and pull it off the rack. If I want to pull out a file, I do...what, exactly? I opened my computer...where is this so-called "file"? You're telling me you take something like the rusticness of Elvis's legendary Sun Sessions and turn it into 0's and 1's? How am I supposed to enjoy a 0 or a 1? What's next, movies into MP3s? What a laugh that would be! Would you want to be the one to tell Paul McCartney that his entire life's work just went from music to microchips? Enjoy your "MP3" "files", nerds (and really, is it any wonder it took them three tries?). Those of us who actually enjoy music will stick with our grammophones, thank you very much.

Mitch, I've got just the song for a cranky old guy lost in the "what can we come up with next?" machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dRh7muJduM

http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/neil_young/piece_of_crap.html

The eyes have it.

i wonder how many baseball games mitch albom saw this year

btw this was the ballot of his free press colleague john lowe:

1. cabrera
2. trout
3. jim johnson
4. beltre
5. jeter
6. hamilton
7. rodney
8. yoenis
9. fielder
10. ibanez

ie, dude picked *two* yankees ahead of robbie canoe, one of whom had a .308 obp and played 130 games. also, jim johnson?

that is quite literally the dumbest ballot i have ever seen based on a mere two choices

haha when i first looked at it i was like 'johnson who?'

John Lowe is 174 years old.

Before becoming a journalist, Albom was briefly an amateur boxer, nightclub singer, and pianist.

For anyone who pays attention to such stuff (pretty much me):

Cabrera's 0.92 MVP share moves him into a tie for 22nd (with Eddie Murray) on Baseball Reference's all-time list (ahead of Brett/Stargell, behind Hornsby--you pretty much have to discount anyone who played most of his career pre-'30).

Verlander moves into 17th on the Cy Young Share list, ahead of Schilling and behind Guidry; I'd be very surprised if he doesn't eventually move into the top 10.

Braun moved into the Top 100 on the MVP list, Price and Kershaw into the Top 40 on the Cy list (tied at #37, actually), Felix into the Top 25. No one else moved much.

What's the nerd judgment on Posey vs. Braun?

PS can't tell if that mp3 paragraph is real or not, please let it be so.

Think it's fake, but well done frogbs!

Feel like the field of parody journalism is burgeoning

nerds throw up their hands @ quantifying catcher so say "whatever" iirc

The implication that Mike Trout is Barack Obama will horrify at least one person:

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2012/11/miguel_cabrera_is_mitt_romney_this_time_the_candidate_of_old_white_men_won.html

(Maybe "corollary" would be more accurate than "implication.")

I thought the AL vote would be closer--must be a very different set of voters from the Felix vote in 2010.

It's the same set of guys, but somehow the Cy Young became the award for the best pitcher while the MVP is still given to the guy with the best numbers + best narrative who plays for a first place team. I'm not sure exactly why and when this change happened (and why it didn't carry over to MVP) but it wasn't that long ago that the CY always went to the pitcher on a first place team with the best W-L rec. Colon over Santana was just seven years ago, there's no way that happens today.

Posnanski tackled this the other day:

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.ca/2012/11/mvp-aftermath.html

different members of the BBWAA vote for different awards in different years. I didn't know this until KLaw and some of the BP turks got admitted and started writing about it.

(I wouldn't think the rotation would make that huge a difference, but in a case where two ballots can swing the result it might)

When I wrote that it was the "same set of guys" voting, I didn't mean literally the exact same people voting for the same awards every year, but the same organization of writers. You'd expect the basic mentality of the voters to stay the same, with some slow rate of turnover. And yet Cy Young voting patterns really have changed (contrary to what Pos claims), besides Felix's award, there's Lincecum's second Cy (with 15 wins) and Kershaw finishing 2nd ahead of Gonzalez this year and maybe even Greinke's win in '09 over a bunch of other pitchers who had great years and had more wins. In almost any year in the 80's and 90's, I think Sabathia would have won the award for finishing 19-8 on a team with the league's best record.

i think it's easier for these writers to discard the win and use their observation skills watching pitchers all the time. there's historical memory of what a truly dominant pitcher looks like, and the mental flip flop of what would Felix would do on the Rangers is a lot easier than park/team accounting two different position players like M Cab and Trout.

not even sure if the Cy changes are a validation of saber tools as much as its a few individuals ceding the win.

its kind of weird how hard some of these guys fight against stuff like WRC+ and FIP when W-L is really the most convoluted and useless stat there is

"Well, Slusser gets docked a few points because she admits talking to Brandon McCarthy who TOLD HER that Trout was MVP, and she decided to listen to other players. Susan, listen: Brandon McCarthy is smarter than all other players. All of them. Listen to him. Always. You should know this by now."

Major LOLs at this.

http://blog.sfgate.com/athletics/2012/11/15/why-i-voted-for-miguel-cabrera/

Actual McCarthy and Slusser discussions as told by Slusser pretty funny.

so i don't know why i didn't do this before, but that stat my coworkers and I created (Bases Advanced Per Out), which tries to take into account everything short of fielding, has Cabrera at *just* over a base per out, at 1.009 - and Trout doing significantly better at 1.121. I was honestly expecting Cabrera to do much better than 1.009!

I think that stat has been (pretty much) created before (so don't patent it).

Tom Boswell's Total Average (TA)
(Total Bases + SB + BB + HBP - CS) / (AB - Hits + CS + GIDP)

and

Barry Codell's Base-Out Percentage (BOP)
(Total Bases + BB + HBP + SB + SH + SF) / (AB - Hits + CS + GIDP + SH + SF)

well both those guys patented it don't see why they can't let in a third

ya - it's almost exactly like BOP (which i'd never heard of). anyways, we like it. we like saying "BAPO!"
and it favours Trout!

Better than Boswell, and better than OPS, was Allen Barra's SLOB: Slugging Pct. x OBP. (Basically the same as James' RC/27, but easier to figure out.)