Winning Isn't Everything...Or is it?

There is a philosophical debate among the "Old School" and "New School" baseball lifers that comes to a head again with this year's AL Cy Young race. The "wins" crowd versus the advanced SABR crowd.

The three candidates are: Yu Darvish, Felix Hernandez and Max Scherzer.

Some newer statistics that have really piqued my interest are the LOB-Wins, BIP-Wins, FDP-Wins and RA9-WAR. The Crawfish Boxes, the SBNation site for the Houston Astros, does a great job explaining LOB, BIP and FDP in depth. But for expediency purposes here is the Reader's Digest version:

The new stat "BIP-Wins" quantifies the difference between FIP and RA which is due to the impact of BABIP. Conventional SABRmetrics attributes excessive or very low BABIP mostly to luck. However, the quality of the defense behind the pitcher also affects the BABIP level.

The new stat "LOB-Wins" quantifies the difference between FIP and RA which is due to the stranding of base runners. In effect, LOB-Wins is a clutch-like measure, in that the new stat reflects the timing of run prevention actions (whether hits, Ks, BBs, pick offs, etc.). 

FDP is the combination of both of these stats to give you a Fielder Dependent Pitching number of wins a pitcher is worth given all the things that a pitcher can control. so the formula to calculate FDP would like like:                                                   FDP= BIP-Wins + LOB-Wins

Just looking at the raw numbers and the leaders in each of the categories the tally would go as follows:

Hernandez-8
Darvish-6
Scherzer-6

*Note: I am giving the RS/9 (Run Support/9 innings) edge to the lowest run support recipient*

Max Scherzer has a sparkling 19-1 record and receives almost 7.5 runs per game of run support from his juggernaut of an offense. 17 starts (out of his total 26) have resulted in him giving up two runs or less, not earned runs, runs. I find that looking at the amount of runs (not earned runs) can show you how the game was controlled by the pitcher. (A pitcher can give up 8 runs and only 1 earned, and although the defense was terrible he didn't keep them in the game) The LOB-Wins category certainly hurts Scherzer because on average when men are reaching base compared to the two others they are scoring far more often despite being only .10 away from Hernandez in ERA.

Scherzer has an absurdly low .247 BABIP. I say absurd because his career BABIP is .304, which means that, despite pitching very well this year he is the recipient of a lot of good fortune for all the balls in play that he has relinquished. It would also seem to be very lucky because Detroit has one of the poorer defenses in the league.

Statistically Scherzer has the worst SIERA of the three (Still excellent, by the way) but the worst of the three. SIERA is defined as such by Fangraphs:

SIERA adds in complexity in an attempt to more accurately model what makes a pitcher successful. SIERA doesn’t ignore balls in play, but attempts to explain why certain pitchers are more successful at limiting hits and preventing runs. This is the strength of SIERA; while it is only slightly more predictive than xFIP, SIERA tells us more about the how and why of pitching.

Felix Hernandez has a 12-7 record and receives 4.73 runs per game of run support from his paltry offense. He has 19 starts (out of 27 thus far) that he has given up 2 runs or less. Hernandez is walking fewer guys, and allowing fewer home runs than the other two per nine innings. Hernandez also has thrown more innings and barring injury will finish the year with more than the other two.

He has the best GB% of the group, which probably works to his detriment because he plays for the worst defensive team in the league by almost every advanced metric. But every other time a batter gets to the plate they are hitting the ball on the ground and thus making less solid contact allowing for fewer balls to leave the yard. Hernandez is on one of the worst teams in baseball yet pitching better than Scherzer or Darvish in more comparable categories.

Hernandez SIERA predicts that his ERA would be a little bit higher than his tally for the year but is still good enough for second on this list behind Darvish and in front of Scherzer.

Yu Darvish has a 12-5 record and receives a middling 5.25 runs per game of support from his offense. 11 (out of his 25 starts) he has given up 2 runs or fewer. Darvish has been a strikeout machine with 10 of his 25 starts recording double digit strikeouts including five starts of at least 14.

It is expected that Darvish would be giving up more home runs (and he has) given that he plays in a far more hitter-friendly park than the other two pitchers. He also has a moderately high BB/9 at 3.11 and a full 1.0 BB more than the next player on the list.

Darvish SIERA was actually a tick lower than his actual ERA but generally in line which means his stats are essentially as "non-fluky" as they come and he has pitched to his Skill-Independent level.

Ultimately, this should come down to which pitcher has pitched the best for their team. Darvish has been striking people out at a crazy reliever-like rate but ultimately he finishes third on my list in the Cy Young voting.

Felix Hernandez and Max Scherzer are essentially equal in WAR meaning that they are both worth about the same amount of wins to their club as one another. Scherzer has been very lucky with regards how low his BABIP is considering his team's poor defense and Hernandez has essentially matched or bested him in just about every statistical category while playing on a worse defensive team while pitching more in line to his career norms in terms of BABIP.

The fact that Scherzer has 19 wins and only 1 loss is remarkable, but far more indicative of the fact that his team scores more than 7 runs per game during his starts and is arguably the class of the American League. Being that Hernandez is close to or better in terms of production in more categories than Scherzer you'd have to think he'd fare just as well with that kind of offense supporting him.

If I had a vote for AL Cy Young it goes to King Felix, by a nose, but Felix nonetheless.

Stay Tuned,

Norton