Last week, a lot of people ended up being very wrong in their predictions about a very important event. Some people were less wrong: FiveThirtyEight was relentlessly mocked on other left-leaning sites for giving Trump a 25-30% chance of winning the election, only to emerge (once again) with the best read of polling data. The Huffington Post, which rated Clinton’s chances at ‘10’ on the John McLaughlin Scale of Metaphysical Certitude, should consider send bottles of spirits around to all of us fooled into anticipating an early night.
In the aftermath of that election, there’s been a lot of articled written trying to understand the errors of pollsters and prognosticators. How did so many people miscalculate so drastically? What happened?
The answers, in these articles, is usually phrased as a narrative; a ‘story.’ The story of Tuesday is that the Democrats abandoned the white working class. The story is that Latinos didn’t vote enough. The story is that women forgot to vote their gender. The story is that America is racist, or sexist, or both. Rasexist? The story is that the FBI screwed Hillary. The story is that Russia is in the bag for Trump. Bigly in the bag.
This is a natural instinct: constructing a story in the aftermath of an event event. We do this all the time. If we read about a fatal car accident, we look for details that will let us to construct a narrative. Was the driver drunk? Was it raining? What is the road like? Seatbelt? Sunroof?
Why do we do that?
You know why. We construct stories so that we can assure ourselves that the event can’t be us. I don’t want to die in a car accident, so I look for details to make the car accident not me. I want to know that the poor sap impaled on a tree forgot his seatbelt, or had too many shots of tequila. I want to know that he was driving a convertible, because I don’t drive a convertible. Please, Lord, don’t let it be a minivan.
We construct stories to evade the knowledge of our own mortality. That’s the reason stories exist: that’s their root. We tell stories so that we can hold the knowledge of our inevitable death at a distance. Otherwise it's a long plunge towards the abyss.
Saying something like ‘Donald Trump is our future President; it’s the Latino voters fault’ allows us to keep the world at a distance. It makes the event easier to process: something vast and complicated (a year-long campaign with thousands of ebbs and flows, taking place across a massive country) becomes simple (Clinton should have campaigned more in Michigan).
These stories help us: they take the vast universe and give it a manageable order. They free us from the knowledge of our own death. They let us live.
That doesn’t mean they’re right.
* * *
Wait a minute….this is a baseball site?
Sorry, I forgot. It’s been a distracting couple of weeks in the world, and baseball has been just about the furthest thing from my mind. Also, we’re having a lot of earthquakes down here in New Zealand, so my thinking tends to get sidetracked every time the house jostles about.
Let’s talk about baseball.
Yesterday the Cy Young Award winners were announced. The American League winner was Red Sox starting pitcher Rick Porcello.
Porcello won the award despite netting only eight of thirty first-place votes, a fact so fracturing of the cosmos that supermodel Kate Upton voiced her disapproval on social media. I’m not sure why Kate Upton is so angry about this: Melvin and Justin are position players, not really eligible for the award.
You can anticipate the narrative that is going to come from this less-than-consequential event, at least in our saber-circles. The story will be that BBWAA voters are still obsessed with the ‘win’ statistic, and that they gave Porcello the award because he won twenty-two games to Verlander’s sixteen. Somewhere in the world, Brian Kenny is launching a new campaign to not just kill the win, but to dismember its corpse and bury it deep in the Mojave Desert. A little long for a hashtag, I suppose.
Is this narrative accurate? Is this the right story?
We’re lucky that this is the first year in which the BBWAA has published the individual votes of the writers voting on baseball’s major awards. It’s a useful collection of data to tell us how these voters were thinking.
So I looked at the thirty ballots, and started sorting them out.
First, I cut out all of the votes for relief pitchers. A bunch of relief pitchers had incredible years in the American League, and two of them (Britton and Andrew Miller) received some votes. I’m just going to ignore those guys now. It’s not because I dislike relief pitchers, it’s just because those votes probably can’t tell us whether or not the BBWAA has an intrinsic bias for ‘wins’ over some of the more advanced metrics used to evaluate starting pitching.
And cutting out the RP’s makes it easier to see the ballots. Instead of trying to figure out something like this:
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
4th
|
5th
|
Writer A
|
Britton
|
Verlander
|
A. Miller
|
Sale
|
Kluber
|
Writer B
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
Porcello
|
Price
|
I can look at this:
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
4th
|
5th
|
Writer A
|
Velander
|
Sale
|
Kluber
|
x
|
X
|
Writer B
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
Porcello
|
Price
|
It’s a clarity thing. Both of these imagined writers are probably rating starting pitchers in the same approximate way. It’s just that one of them tossed in a few relief pitchers earlier on the ballot.
What I discovered, first, was that most of theballots had the same four starting pitchers on them: Rick Porcello, Corey Kluber, Justin Verlander, and Chris Sale. Porcello and Kluber appeared on every single ballot. Justin Verlander was on twenty-eight of thirty. Chris Sale was on twenty ballots.
Just an aside: Kate Upton’s central argument about the AL CY vote was that Justin Verlander derserved the award because he received the most first-place votes. Verlander did receive the most first place votes, and that does matter. But he was also left off two ballots entirely, while Porcello was named on every single ballots. Maybe that matters, too.
Anyway…getting to those ballots.
For now we’ll call those four pitchers (Verlander, Kluber, Porcello, and Sale) our ‘consensus’ pitchers. All of the voters were in general agreement that they were the best four starters in the American League. All of them ended up on a majority of ballots. It’s a little hard to draw inferences of prejudice when everyone is in agreement.
So we can strike, for the moment, all of the BBWAA ballots that only listed those four starters. Here’s a list of those voters, if you’re interested:
Name
|
Chapter
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
4th
|
5th
|
Roch Kubatko
|
BAL
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Verlander
|
Sale
|
x
|
Rich Dubroff
|
BAL
|
Porcello
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
x
|
Ian Browne
|
BOS
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Sale
|
Kluber
|
x
|
Dan Hayes
|
CHI
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Sale
|
Kluber
|
x
|
Chris McCosky
|
DET
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
x
|
Anthony Fenech
|
DET
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Sale
|
Kluber
|
x
|
Moise Bower
|
HOU
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
x
|
Sam Mellinger
|
KC
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
x
|
Tim Brown
|
LA
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
Verlander
|
x
|
Mike Berardino
|
MIN
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Porcello
|
x
|
x
|
Wallace Matthews
|
NY
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Verlander
|
Sale
|
x
|
Joe Stiglich
|
OAK
|
Porcello
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
x
|
Ryan Divish
|
SEA
|
Porcello
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
x
|
Jeff Wilson
|
TEX
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
x
|
Shi Davidi
|
TOR
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Porcello
|
Sale
|
x
|
That’s half the ballots….fifteen. Those ‘x’s are blank spots for relief pitchers of course. Mostly, they’re votes for Zack Britton, but writer Mike Berardino put on Andrew Miller as well.
That leaves us with fifteen ballots where a voter selected a starting pitcher not in our consensus group. What pitchers did those voters vote for?
They voted for J.A. Happ (6 votes), Mashahiro Tanaka (5), Aaron Sanchez (4), Michael Fulmer (1), and Jose Quintana (1).
We can start with J.A. Happ. The one selling point for J.A. Happ being a candidate for the AL CY is that he won a lot of baseball games. He doesn’t have a great ERA or a ton of strikeouts. He didn’t hit 200 innings pitched, and he doesn’t blow anyone away on the advanced metrics. If a voter selected J.A. Happ, it is reasonable to expect that the voter selected him because they give a lot of weight to the ‘win’ statistic
And we can draw inferences from that. If a voter liked J.A. Happ over, it’s reasonable to guess they would probably rate someone likeRick Porcello (22 wins) ahead of Justin Verlander (16 wins).
Let’s see if that holds:
Name
|
Chapter
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
4th
|
5th
|
Christopher Smith
|
BOS
|
Porcello
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Happ
|
x
|
Scot Gregor
|
CHI
|
Kluber
|
Porcello
|
Happ
|
Verlander
|
x
|
La Velle Neal III
|
MIN
|
Kluber
|
Porcello
|
Verlander
|
Happ
|
Sale
|
Pete Caldera
|
NY
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Happ
|
Verlander
|
x
|
John McGrath
|
SEA
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Happ
|
Verlander
|
x
|
Fred Goodall
|
TB
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Happ
|
Sanchez
|
x
|
All of them preferred Porcello over Verlander. Most of them ranked J.A. Happ over Verlander. If you’re on Team Verlander, you can certainly lay the blame for his loss on this group.
But…they’re not totally on team ‘Win’. Two of these voters picked Kluber (17 wins) over Porcello, while another guy ranked Verlander second on his ballot. It leans win, but I don’t think any of these ballots are purely counting the W’s.
And that’s only six voters…what about the rest?
Tanaka and Sanchez were the other pitchers who received strong support. What kind of voter would support them?
Both pitchers had similar years. They both had sparkling W-L records (14-4, 15-2), but neither one managed 200 innings pitched. They both had high WAR tallies (4.6 and 3.9), pitching for teams in the tough AL East.
Forced to pick, what kind of voter would be inclined to vote for pitchers like Tanaka and Sanchez? A more sabermetic-leaning fan, or a traditional numbers guy?
I’m thinking they’re apt to be a bit more saber-candidates than wins candidates. A 14-4 record screams ‘Felix Hernandez’ more than ‘Bob Welch.’
Let’s check the vote:
Name
|
Chapter
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
4th
|
5th
|
Zack Meisel
|
CLE
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
Tanaka
|
Jake Kaplan
|
HOU
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Porcello
|
Sale
|
Tanaka
|
John Shea
|
OAK
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Tanaka
|
x
|
Bill Chastain
|
TB
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Sale
|
Tanaka
|
x
|
Mark Whicker
|
LA
|
Porcello
|
Verlander
|
Kluber
|
Sanchez
|
x
|
Gerry Fraley
|
TEX
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Verlander
|
Sanchez
|
x
|
Brendan Kennedy
|
TOR
|
Verlander
|
Porcello
|
Sanchez
|
Tanaka
|
Kluber
|
It’s not as clear a correlation at the Happ crowd, but this group seems at least a little more Verlander-leaning than Porcello leaning. More telling, this group just likes starting pitchers…three of these voters didn’t list any relief pitchers on their ballots.
What about the other two?
If you put Carlos Quintana on your ballot, you’re definitely in with big saber. Just one voter included the extremely underrated White Sox hurler. He’s also the only voter to put Chris Sale second. This guy is clearly on team WAR.
Name
|
Chapter
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
4th
|
5th
|
Jordan Bastian
|
CLE
|
Verlander
|
Sale
|
Porcello
|
Kluber
|
Quintana
|
Finally, one voter wrote in Michael Fulmer:
Name
|
Chapter
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
4th
|
5th
|
Jeffrey Flanagan
|
KC
|
Kluber
|
Porcello
|
Verlander
|
Sale
|
Fulmer
|
I don’t know how to interpret a vote for Michael Fulmer, honestly. I don’t know if it indicates a saber-lean or a wins-lean. Probably, it just represents a Michael Fulmer lean. I think this voter is someone who just enjoyed Fulmer’s season, and felt like tossing the Tigers rookie a little down-ballot love. There’s nothing wrong with that.
So what kind of conclusions can we make so far?
Nothing definitive, of course. Six voters went strong for Porcello and Happ, which suggests that some of the voters had a slight bias towards the ‘win’ metric. But it’s not that typical to see guys like Tanaka, Sanchez, and Quintana post 13- or 14-win seasons and draw votes for the Cy Young. Those guys landed more votes than Happ, so I think we’re at least seeing a balanced scale.
I don’t think the real story of the 2016 American League Cy Young Award vote is that ‘wins’ carried the day. If you want to figure out what metric really drove the AL vote, I’d encourage you to check out the pitching leaderboards over at FanGraphs, and see what conclusions they drew.
Here, I’ll post the top of the table for you:
Name
|
Team
|
W
|
L
|
ERA
|
WAR
|
Rick Porcello
|
Red Sox
|
22
|
4
|
3.15
|
5.2
|
Justin Verlander
|
Tigers
|
16
|
9
|
3.04
|
5.2
|
Chris Sale
|
White Sox
|
17
|
10
|
3.34
|
5.2
|
Corey Kluber
|
Indians
|
18
|
9
|
3.14
|
5.1
|
Jose Quintana
|
White Sox
|
13
|
12
|
3.20
|
4.8
|
Mas.Tanaka
|
Yankees
|
14
|
4
|
3.07
|
4.6
|
David Price
|
Red Sox
|
17
|
9
|
3.99
|
4.5
|
Aaron Sanchez
|
Blue Jays
|
15
|
2
|
3.00
|
3.9
|
Didja notice anything?
The four consensus starters who showed up on the majority of the ballots cast happen to be the same four starters who show up at the top of FanGraph’s WAR leaderboard. They’re dead-even: nothing separates Porcello, Verlander, Sale and Kluber according to fWAR.
If you want to complain about the hegemony of one statistic having too much control over baseball awards, it is not ‘wins’ that are the problem…it’s Fangraph’s version of WAR that is swaying the vote.
Except that’s not accurate either.
Clayton Kershaw, Noah Syndergaard, and Jose Fernandez paced the National League in FanGraph’s WAR, but they finished 5th , 7th, and 8th in the overall vote. If WAR was really calling the shots in these votes, then Kershaw would have won another trophy for his crowded den. Instead it went to Max Scherzer, a pitcher that no one had ever heard of until this year. He plays for Expos, I think.
Scherzer led the NL in wins, just like Porcello led the AL. But if ‘wins’ really shifted the NL Cy Young Award to Scherzer instead of Kershaw, then how come Johnny Cueto’s eighteen wins weren’t enough to push him past teammate Madison Bumgarner, who only won fifteen games in 2016? And if the BBWAA voters are really still fixated on wins, how do you explain Felix's Cy Young in 2010 (13 wins), or Lincecum in 2009 (15)?
What’s the real real story?
* * *
The real story is this: a lot of pitchers in the American League had good years, and no one had a really great year. No one ran the table on all of the various metrics that exist, and no one put in a performance that seemed to capstone the season. Voters were left to juggle multiple data points in drawing up their ballots. Verlander led in strikeouts, but Porcello led in wins. Sanchez led in ERA, but Price led in innings pitched. Kluber led in shutout, but Sale led in complete games. Four guys tied in fWAR, and two guys tied in Baseball-Reference’s WAR. No one was running the table.
No one really deserved to win, but someone has to win. This year, that someone was Rick Porcello.
And maybe that the story of the bigger ballot event of this week. Maybe the story of the 2016 election isn’t about Latino voter turnout, or media bias, or white workers with blue collars. Maybe the real story is that no one really deserved to win, but someone had to win.
Ah, maybe not. Let’s have a recount.
David Fleming is a writer living in New Zealand. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com.