This isn’t exactly the article that I initially planned to write. I was originally going to write about Jacob deGrom and the prospects of him taking home his 2nd consecutive Cy Young Award despite having a very modest W-L record both seasons…..10-8 in 2018, 11-8 in 2019. My impression, which I’ll circle back to later, is that if you asked a Magic 8-Ball if he were going to win, you’d probably get a reply of "Outlook good" or "Signs point to yes". I don’t think he’s a lock…..but I do think he’s going to win (more on that later).
However, I wasn’t happy with how the article was unfolding, so I scrapped it and refocused the topic more towards the subject of one of the other top contenders for the 2019 NL Cy Young Award, Hyun-Jin Ryu of the Dodgers.
As you may be aware, Ryu had a helluva a season in 2019, and he was especially impressive for the first half of the year. These are his game-by-game earned runs allowed totals for his first 15 starts:
1,2,2,2,2,1,0,0,0,2,0,0,1,0,1
Through June 27, Ryu stood with a 9-1 record and a microscopic 1.27 ERA. Then, he had an unfortunate incident, one that has been known to cause pitchers great pain over the years.
He started a game at Coors Field.
Ryu only lasted 4 innings, giving up 7 earned runs. His ERA ballooned by more than half a run, although it was a still-impressive 1.83.
Undeterred, he recovered from that setback, and over the next 6 starts he yielded, in order, 0,0,1,1,0,0 (with one of those "zeros" being a rematch at Coors Field in which Ryu pitched much better). That brought his record to 12-2 on the year through a total of 22 starts, with his ERA back down to 1.45. The date on the calendar at that time was August 11th, roughly three-fourths of the season in the rear view mirror.
Ryu’s season was not without its challenges, as he spent 2 different stints on the injured list, missing time in mid-April with a groin strain, then some additional time in early August with neck soreness. But, if you could eliminate that one bad outing at Coors, Ryu would have stood at 12-1 with an incredible 1.04 ERA.
You all probably know what happened from that point on. Over his final 7 starts on the season, Ryu gave up 7 runs twice, 4 runs once, and 3 runs twice. He did have 2 more 0-run outings, but his final ERA for the season ended up at 2.32, which was still good enough to lead the league, but it left one with a sense of what might have been.
Ryu’s success, with an ERA in the low 1’s for the majority of the year, put me in sentimental mood, reminding me of that amazing and historic Bob Gibson season of 1968 when he posted his stunning 1.12 ERA, which still looks like a typo after all these years.
Gibson 1968, in Review
One of the true pleasures of being a baseball fan today, especially if you like researching a topic, is the ability to easily take a deep dive into virtually anything you want to look at by leveraging sites such as baseball-reference.com. I had never dug in deep to Gibson’s historic 1968 season before, but seeing Ryu’s performance put me in a mind to do so.
Now, there are some caveats in making these comparisons, because they were very different pitchers in very different times. Gibson completed 28 of his 34 starts (younger baseball fans might ask at this point, "what is this complete game metric of which you speak?"). Ryu completed 1 of his 29 starts. Gibson logged over 300 innings, while Ryu managed just over 180. Definitely different times as far as starting pitcher expectations.
They both struck out about 8 batters per 9 innings, but even those aren’t really comparable because of the stark difference in how often batters were striking out in each context. Gibson led the league in total strikeouts in 1968, and achieved his rate of 7.9 K/9 in a league where the number of strikeouts per team per game was only 5.8. On the other hand, while Ryu’s K/9 rate was about the same (8.0), the overall 2019 NL rate was up to 8.9. So, Gibson was basically striking out batters at a rate about 35% above the norm, where as Ryu was about 10% below.
Also, while Gibson did display his best season ever in terms of limiting walks (1.8 per 9 innings, much better than his 3.1 career rate), Ryu only gave up 1.2, which led the NL in 2019 by a healthy margin.
So, while I am making comparisons between the seasons the 2 pitchers were having, it’s mostly due to the "bottom line" of their low ERA’s. They were very different pitchers in very different eras…..and we haven’t even really talked about the differences in terms of run context between the 2 seasons.
It’s hard to believe Gibson’s landmark season was more than 50 years ago now. I just missed experiencing that season as it occurred, as my first true season of following baseball was 1970, although I have faint memories of 1969.
You probably know some fundamental facts about Gibson’s 1968 season, and I suspect most of you know that 1968 was famously the "Year of the Pitcher", as runs scored were at near-record lows:
- MLB teams averaged only 3.42 runs per game, just barely missing the all-time low of 3.38 in 1908.
- Batting averages were at an all-time low at .237.
- 1968 also saw the last occurrence of a 30-game winner (Denny McLain, who became the first one since Dizzy Dean in 1934 to reach that level), Don Drysdale set a mark (since broken) for 58 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings, and Luis Tiant posted a 1.60 ERA.
You probably have also heard the observation that many have wondered how in the hell Gibson, with his 1.12 ERA, managed to lose 9 games. It doesn’t seem to fit. You probably also know that he threw 13 shutouts and struck on 17 Tigers in game 1 of the World Series.
In any case, here are some other significant data points that I found interesting when diving into Gibson’s 1968 season.
- Gibson not only won both the NL Cy Young Award and the NL MVP (which is rare enough, having only been done only 10 times), he also won the Gold Glove, making him the only pitcher to do all 3 in the same year.
- Gibson completed 28 of his 34 starts (ah, remember those days?). Gibson averaged 9.0 innings per start (he had several games where he pitched into extra innings).
- Gibson was 5-0 when supported with 6 runs or more and 8-1 when supported with 3-5 runs. Almost all of his losses occurred whey supported with 2 runs or less (he had a 9-8 ledger in those games), although he posted a rather impressive 0.97 ERA in those circumstances.
Overall, Gibson only received an average run support of 3.0 runs per game, by far the lowest of his career. Yes, it was 1968, but even in the context of that year, it was pretty meager support, and was certainly part of the reason why he was ultimately tagged with 9 losses.
- In his 22 victories, Gibson had a 0.57 ERA. In his 9 losses, he had a 2.14 ERA.
- He was dominant basically all year long, but he really got on a roll in the months of June & July, when he went a combined 12-0 with an 0.50 ERA, hurling 8 shutouts in 12 starts, including 5 in a row.
May was a hard-luck month for him, going 2-4 despite a 1.27 ERA. Those 4 losses occurred in his last 4 starts of the month. He lost by scores of 3-2, 1-0, 2-0, and 3-1. At the end of May, his season-to-date record stood at 3-5 despite a 1.52 ERA.
Here’s his full monthly breakout:
|
Split
|
W
|
L
|
ERA
|
G
|
GS
|
CG
|
SHO
|
IP
|
H
|
ER
|
HR
|
BB
|
SO
|
SO9
|
|
April/March
|
1
|
1
|
1.97
|
4
|
4
|
2
|
0
|
32.0
|
25
|
7
|
2
|
6
|
18
|
5.1
|
|
May
|
2
|
4
|
1.27
|
6
|
6
|
4
|
0
|
56.2
|
33
|
8
|
2
|
15
|
44
|
7.0
|
|
June
|
6
|
0
|
0.50
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
5
|
54.0
|
28
|
3
|
1
|
8
|
43
|
7.2
|
|
July
|
6
|
0
|
0.50
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
3
|
54.0
|
35
|
3
|
0
|
8
|
48
|
8.0
|
|
August
|
4
|
1
|
1.29
|
6
|
6
|
5
|
3
|
56.0
|
36
|
8
|
3
|
13
|
62
|
10.0
|
|
Sept/Oct
|
3
|
3
|
1.56
|
6
|
6
|
5
|
2
|
52.0
|
41
|
9
|
3
|
12
|
53
|
9.2
|
- At the end of July, his season record stood at 15-5 with a 0.96 ERA, which, except for immediately after his first start (when he pitched 7 scoreless innings), was his lowest ERA at any point in the season.
- Only one team hung Gibson with an ERA of 2.00 or higher (the Dodgers at 2.12).
- The Giants were the only team against whom Gibson had a losing record (1-3, despite a 1.64 ERA).
- Gibson was especially deadly at night, going 17-5 with a 0.93 ERA.
- Gibson never surrendered more than 4 earned runs in a game (he did that twice).
Gibson has one other very interesting split in his record:
|
Split
|
W
|
L
|
ERA
|
G
|
GS
|
CG
|
SHO
|
IP
|
H
|
R
|
ER
|
BB
|
SO
|
SO9
|
BB9
|
SO/W
|
H9
|
|
Home
|
10
|
6
|
1.41
|
18
|
18
|
13
|
6
|
160.0
|
111
|
34
|
25
|
18
|
147
|
8.3
|
1.0
|
8.2
|
6.2
|
|
Away
|
12
|
3
|
0.81
|
16
|
16
|
15
|
7
|
144.2
|
87
|
15
|
13
|
44
|
121
|
7.5
|
2.7
|
2.8
|
5.4
|
Gibson’s ERA was quite a bit better on the road even though his walk rate was nearly 3 times as high on the road vs. it was at home. He did give up fewer hits per 9 on the road, but his K/BB ratio of 8.2 at home vs. just 2.8 on the road is a pretty striking contrast.
Back to 2019
So, what are Ryu’s chances of winning the Cy Young Award in 2019? Will his late season swoon likely prevent him from winning the award?
In all likelihood, yes.
There’s a nifty projection tool developed by Tom Tango a few years ago that attempts to project the winners of the Cy Young awards each year by calculating a point total based on 4 simple data markers (innings pitched, earned runs allowed, strikeouts, and wins). The more points you have, the more likely you are to win the award.
As someone who does forecasting for a living, it has 2 very appealing features for me:
1) It’s proven to be very accurate
2) It’s very simple
The basic formula is Cy Young Points = (IP/2 - ER) + SO/10 + W (there’s another version he developed that would extend to relievers as well, but for the most part, the overwhelming majority of true Cy Young Award contenders at this point are starters). As Tango puts it, "it’s so simple you can do it in your head". It captures 4 key attributes that tend to be fundamental in voter evaluation of starting pitchers:
· Workload (Innings)
· Run prevention (Earned Runs)
· Ability to make batters miss (Strikeouts)
· Contributing to team victories (Wins)
No WAR, no ERA+. No FIP, no WHIP. No muss, no fuss. I don’t know, but I suspect that Tango kept it simple because, when you get right down to it, the formula predicts the results pretty reliably just by using those 4 data points all by themselves. At this point, I don’t know how much voters tend to consider those other metrics anyway. I’m sure some look at them, but maybe the 4 basic ones are all you need, so why complicate it?
The formula correctly predicted deGrom over Scherzer and Nola in the NL last year, as well as Snell over Verlander in the AL. It correctly predicted Scherzer and Kluber the year before, and Scherzer as well in 2016 (although it misfired on Porcello vs. Verlander, much to the dismay of Kate Upton). In 2015, it got Arrieta and Kuechel right. It has a really good track record, and does a nice job of predicting not only the winner, but also identifying the top contenders in the right order (or at least really close to it). It’s not perfect, of course…..but it has a really solid track record.
On the site BaseballMusings.com, there’s a cool little page that calculates the Tango Cy Young Award points for any season (it looks like it has a back end of 1957, which is around the time that the Award started). And not only that, it calculates it at through any day in the season, so you can see how different pitchers were tracking at any point in the season. It also displays "Bill James Cy Young points" using a formula introduced about 15 years ago in the "Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers", as well as Bill’s "Season Score", which (I believe) dates back to around 2007.
By way of example, here are the final 2018 results for the top pitchers (it always displays both leagues together).
Sorted by Tango Cy Young points:
|
Pitcher
|
W
|
L
|
Innings
|
Earned Runs
|
Strikeouts
|
Tom Tango Cy Young Pts
|
Bill James Cy Young Pts
|
Season Score
|
|
Jacob deGrom
|
10
|
9
|
217
|
41
|
269
|
104.4
|
144.0
|
267.3
|
|
Max Scherzer
|
18
|
7
|
220 2/3
|
62
|
300
|
96.3
|
180.6
|
312.2
|
|
Blake Snell
|
21
|
5
|
180 2/3
|
38
|
221
|
95.4
|
196.8
|
325.8
|
|
Justin Verlander
|
16
|
9
|
214
|
60
|
290
|
92.0
|
174.1
|
283.5
|
|
Aaron Nola
|
17
|
6
|
212 1/3
|
56
|
224
|
89.6
|
170.6
|
296.9
|
|
Corey Kluber
|
20
|
7
|
215
|
69
|
222
|
80.7
|
187.9
|
292.7
|
|
Gerrit Cole
|
15
|
5
|
200 1/3
|
64
|
276
|
78.8
|
163.3
|
260.8
|
|
Trevor Bauer
|
12
|
6
|
175 1/3
|
43
|
221
|
78.8
|
147.3
|
231.6
|
|
Chris Sale
|
12
|
4
|
158
|
37
|
237
|
77.7
|
146.5
|
242.1
|
|
Kyle Freeland
|
17
|
7
|
202 1/3
|
64
|
173
|
71.5
|
150.8
|
251.6
|
One of the things I like about the formula is that, although it doesn’t weigh wins as heavily as other formulas ( which certainly reflects the trend in voter preferences), it doesn’t entirely dismiss them either. It recognizes that wins still carry some weight with some of the voters, and can help sway some votes if pitchers are close in other regards. I think that’s reasonable – clearly wins don’t mean as much as they used to in winning the Cy Young Award, but they do still mean something. deGrom was able to win the award in 2018 despite a modest win total because his ERA was light years better than everyone else’s, but if it was closer, you can bet that his lack of wins would likely have become a bigger factor.
How can I say that? Well, in late August 2018, there was a poll taken among a portion of potential Cy Young voters, and it was basically a toss up between deGrom (who was 8-8, 1.68 at the time) and Max Scherzer (16-6, 2.22 at the time), essentially splitting the votes. At that time, deGrom had a decent advantage in ERA, but Scherzer’s ERA was pretty sparkling as well, plus he doubled deGrom’s wins. Combine that with Scherzer’s impressive strikeout totals, and it was basically a coin flip. In addition, the Tango Tracker had it shaping up as a tight race as well – as of 8/31/18, they were separated by less than a point.
Here’s what the tracker looked like as of 8/31/18 for the top 3 NL contenders:
|
Pitcher
|
W
|
L
|
Innings
|
Earned Runs
|
Strikeouts
|
Tom Tango Cy Young Pts
|
Bill James Cy Young Pts
|
Season Score
|
|
Max Scherzer
|
16
|
6
|
186 2/3
|
46
|
249
|
88.2
|
163.5
|
280.8
|
|
Jacob deGrom
|
8
|
8
|
182
|
34
|
224
|
87.4
|
117.8
|
217.7
|
|
Aaron Nola
|
15
|
3
|
176
|
41
|
177
|
79.7
|
155.5
|
272.4
|
However, over the rest of the season, deGrom went 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA (meaning that he at least ended up with a winning record and reached doube-digit wins, both of which probably psychologically helped with some voters), while Scherzer went 2-1 with a 4.24 ERA, by far his worst ERA month of the year. His final ERA of 2.53 didn’t seem quite as glitzy as 2.22. I think there was just too much distance between their ERA’s at that point.
Here are the top 10 results for pitchers from both leagues for 2019 (sorted by Tango Cy Young Points):
|
Pitcher
|
W
|
L
|
Innings
|
Earned Runs
|
Strikeouts
|
Tom Tango Cy Young Pts
|
Bill James Cy Young Pts
|
Season Score
|
|
Gerrit Cole
|
20
|
5
|
212 1/3
|
59
|
326
|
99.8
|
208.1
|
336.3
|
|
Justin Verlander
|
21
|
6
|
223
|
64
|
300
|
98.5
|
211.9
|
343.9
|
|
Jacob deGrom
|
11
|
8
|
204
|
55
|
255
|
83.5
|
129.6
|
236.3
|
|
Hyun-Jin Ryu
|
14
|
5
|
182 2/3
|
47
|
163
|
74.6
|
155.1
|
247.7
|
|
Zack Greinke
|
18
|
5
|
208 2/3
|
68
|
187
|
73.0
|
173.5
|
275.5
|
|
Jack Flaherty
|
11
|
8
|
196 1/3
|
60
|
231
|
72.3
|
130.3
|
211.5
|
|
Charlie Morton
|
16
|
6
|
194 2/3
|
66
|
240
|
71.3
|
146.1
|
245.8
|
|
Stephen Strasburg
|
18
|
6
|
209
|
77
|
251
|
70.6
|
156.0
|
263.5
|
|
Shane Bieber
|
15
|
8
|
214 1/3
|
78
|
259
|
70.1
|
138.7
|
233.8
|
|
Patrick Corbin
|
14
|
7
|
202
|
73
|
238
|
65.8
|
130.1
|
214.2
|
So, the Tango Point System implies that Cole vs. Verlander is a toss up in the AL (which seems likely, as there’s very little separating the pitching records of those 2 teammates across the board), and that deGrom should prevail over Ryu, Flaherty, and Strasburg in the NL (Greinke split his time between the 2 leagues, and unless you have a Rick Sutcliffe 1984 type of season, you’re probably not going to win the award in either league in that situation).
What about if you go back to August 11th, when Ryu’s ERA was still at 1.45? Here were the results at that point:
|
Pitcher
|
W
|
L
|
Innings
|
Earned Runs
|
Strikeouts
|
Tom Tango Cy Young Pts
|
Bill James Cy Young Pts
|
Season Score
|
|
Hyun-Jin Ryu
|
12
|
2
|
142 2/3
|
23
|
121
|
72.4
|
147.3
|
236.7
|
|
Justin Verlander
|
15
|
4
|
162 2/3
|
51
|
217
|
67.0
|
151.5
|
240.0
|
|
Gerrit Cole
|
14
|
5
|
156 2/3
|
50
|
226
|
64.9
|
141.9
|
218.2
|
|
Max Scherzer
|
9
|
5
|
134 1/3
|
36
|
189
|
59.1
|
98.4
|
176.1
|
|
Charlie Morton
|
13
|
4
|
149
|
48
|
184
|
57.9
|
120.1
|
202.2
|
|
Luis Castillo
|
11
|
4
|
143 2/3
|
43
|
172
|
57.0
|
109.1
|
183.4
|
|
Jacob deGrom
|
7
|
7
|
148
|
44
|
189
|
55.9
|
82.0
|
148.3
|
|
Mike Minor
|
11
|
6
|
155
|
50
|
159
|
54.4
|
104.4
|
176.2
|
|
Shane Bieber
|
12
|
4
|
156 1/3
|
57
|
193
|
52.5
|
123.9
|
191.3
|
|
Zack Greinke
|
11
|
4
|
152
|
49
|
137
|
51.7
|
116.9
|
182.6
|
With a month and a half to go, Ryu was in the NL driver’s seat. No other NL pitcher was very close. But, Ryu struggled down the stretch, while at the same time deGrom once again had a tremendous finishing kick (1.44 ERA in the 2nd half, 1.29 in September), and now he looks to be the favorite to repeat. He’s not a lock….but everything I’ve read online seems to imply that he is the odds-on favorite.
Would I like to see Ryu win? I would. He has a shot…..Ryu has 3 more wins and 3 fewer losses than deGrom, but those don’t seem to count as much as they used to. He did lead the league in ERA (and ERA+) and displayed tremendous control, yielding only 1.2 BB/9 (which led the league by a substantial margin). But deGrom once again had an outstanding season without much support, and he led the league in K’s (he also led in pitching WAR, although it’s not entirely clear whether voters place much value on that at this point). Strasburg led in wins and innings, but his ERA is about a run per game higher than deGrom and Ryu, and that will likely hurt him.
Scherzer, Kershaw, Flaherty, Corbin, Soroka, Gray….any of them could get some down ballot votes. When I scan articles for different writers’ takes on the NL Cy Young race, the name I see mentioned most often, after deGrom, is Scherzer. Scherzer did lead the league in FIP, K/9 and K/BB, and for voters that like WAR, he’s 2nd in fWAR and 4th in rWAR despite missing several starts, but I’m not sure how many voters really rely on WAR when it comes to the Cy Young award (for what it’s worth, deGrom led the NL in both fWAR and rWAR).
And, for the 2nd straight season, Scherzer had his worst month of the year in September (5.16 ERA), which pushed his final ERA up to 2.92. I’m just not seeing the case for Scherzer, but maybe I’m missing something. I think it’s going to come down to deGrom, Ryu, and Strasburg as the top 3.
One last thought….if deGrom had his 2019 season in 2018 instead, he would not have won last year. At best, I think he’d have been third in 2018 behind Scherzer and Nola. In my opinion, the 2019 list of top contenders in the NL is far weaker than it was in 2018, which is a big reason why deGrom, despite another modest win total, could take home his 2nd Cy Young in a row.
Thanks for reading,
Dan