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Written by Bill
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Monday, 09 August 2010 09:00 |
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 During a Twins broadcast a few days ago (it might be close to a week by now), Bert Blyleven was talking with play-by-play man Dick Bremer about pitchers’ wins and how so much of that statistic is out of the pitchers’ control...which is a big step in the right direction for Dick ‘n’ Bert. Blyleven has a vested personal interest in the argument that “wins” are overrated, of course, but whatever the reason, it was nice to see them have a discussion that didn’t unthinkingly embrace cliches and traditional thought.
Anyway, Bert inevitably got around to talking about his own career, and he mentioned in passing that he thought that 1984, when he went 19-7 with a 2.67 ERA for Cleveland, was his best season, and even went so far as to say that he felt he should have won the Cy Young Award that season.
So the question, naturally, is: is he right? Bert finished third in the voting that season, but was the top-vote-getting starting pitcher, finishing behind closers Willie Hernandez (who also won the MVP) and Dan Quisenberry.
I can tell you right off the bat that I’m not going to agree with the voters. Hernandez threw almost twice as many innings (140 and a third) as modern closers tend to, but that’s still a little over half the number of innings thrown by the best and most durable starters of the day. To be the league’s best pitcher (let alone the entire league’s MVP) while throwing half as many innings as much of your competition, you’d better put up historically great numbers. And Hernandez was pretty great, but really not historically great. By the same logic, you can eliminate Quisenberry (he wasn’t even all that great and pitched even fewer innings, but did rack up a near-record 44 saves).
Looking good for Bert so far, as the top vote-getter who isn’t a closer, but let’s open up the field. The following chart shows the eight pitchers receiving Cy Young votes along with every other pitcher who finished in the top ten in the AL in either Baseball Reference’s WAR (BWAR) or Baseball Prospectus’ WARP1 (WARP), and gives each pitcher’s BWAR, FanGraphs’ WAR (FWAR, which doesn’t have a leaderboard that far back), WARP and the average of the three:
| Name |
W-L(Sv) |
ERA |
IP |
K/BB |
BWAR |
FWAR |
WARP |
Avg. |
| Hernandez |
9-3(32) |
1.92 |
140.1 |
3.11 |
4.8 |
3.1 |
6.3 |
4.7 |
| Quisenberry |
6-3(44) |
2.64 |
129.1 |
3.42 |
3.2 |
1.7 |
4.7 |
3.2 |
| Blyleven |
19-7 |
2.87 |
245.0 |
2.30 |
6.2 |
5.2 |
6.7 |
6.0 |
| Boddicker |
20-11 |
2.79 |
261.1 |
1.58 |
4.7 |
3.4 |
5.5 |
4.5 |
| Petry |
18-8 |
3.24 |
233.1 |
2.18 |
3.2 |
4.0 |
3.4 |
3.5 |
| Viola |
18-12 |
3.21 |
257.2 |
2.04 |
4.1 |
4.3 |
4.4 |
4.3 |
| Morris |
19-11 |
3.60 |
240.1 |
1.70 |
2.3 |
3.7 |
2.3 |
2.8 |
| Stieb |
16-8 |
2.83 |
267.0 |
2.25 |
7.7 |
6.1 |
6.5 |
6.8 |
| Alexander |
17-6 |
3.13 |
261.2 |
2.36 |
5.6 |
5.5 |
4.8 |
5.3 |
| Beattie |
12-16 |
3.41 |
211.0 |
1.59 |
4.8 |
4.1 |
6.7 |
5.2 |
| Hough |
16-14 |
3.76 |
266.0 |
1.74 |
4.5 |
3.5 |
4.4 |
4.1 |
| Black |
17-12 |
3.12 |
257.0 |
2.19 |
4.5 |
4.7 |
4.7 |
4.6 |
| Langston |
17-10 |
3.40 |
225.0 |
1.73 |
4.4 |
4.4 |
5.5 |
4.8 |
| Niekro |
16-8 |
3.09 |
215.2 |
1.79 |
4.3 |
3.8 |
5.4 |
4.5 |
| Caudill |
9-7(36) |
2.71 |
96.1 |
2.87 |
2.7 |
1.7 |
5.0 |
3.1 |
| Righetti |
5-6(31) |
2.34 |
96.1 |
2.43 |
3.3 |
2.6 |
4.8 |
3.6 |
Four pitchers averaged at least five wins above replacement under the three systems: Cleveland's Blyleven, Dave Stieb and Doyle Alexander of the Blue Jays, and Jim Beattie of the Mariners. I’m going to throw in a fifth strong candidate, the Orioles’ Mike Boddicker.
I think we can drop Beattie straight away. The average above is boosted by a WARP1 that’s way out of line with the other two WARs -- he’s actually tied with Blyleven for highest WARP1 among all pitchers in the AL -- and frankly, I can’t even figure out why the other two numbers are as high as they are. He had a very nice season, but apart from completing a bunch of games and a very low HR rate (he was 4th in the AL in both), he didn’t do anything else all that well. Beattie’s teammate, rookie Mark Langston, looks to me like a considerably better pticher (and a more interesting one -- he led the league in both strikeouts and walks). I don’t think either really compares to the other four guys above.
The other four all had really, really good years. Alexander was third in innings, fourth in walk rate, sixth in K/BB, and eighth in ERA but fourth in adjusted ERA+. He was 17-6, if you care about that sort of thing, for a league-leading .739 winning percentage. It’s a little surprising that Boddicker didn’t win the award; he led the league in both wins and ERA, which you’ve got to think is usually enough. He wasn’t in the top ten in K/BB or home run rate, which is why he slips under FanGraphs’ system (his FIP was 3.92, more than a run higher than his ERA), but he was in the top ten in a whole bunch of pitching categories, and he certainly wouldn’t be the worst pick they’ve ever made (better, in fact, than the pick they actually made in 1984).
I don’t think Blyleven was right that 1984 was his best year -- I think that was 1973, coincidentally his lone 20-win year, and most of the advanced systems appear to agree, and maybe 1985 was better too -- but it was really, really good. He was third in ERA and second in ERA+, eighth in K/BB, and fourth in strikeouts. Oddly enough, he missed the top ten in innings pitched (he’d go on to lead the league in IP both ‘85 and ‘86), but by just two-thirds of an inning. He won 19 games for a sixth-place team. He was better than Boddicker, and arguably a little better than (but at least equal to) Alexander. Blyleven absolutely could have won the 1984 AL Cy Young Award (in which case he'd very likely be in the Hall by now), and it would be hard to say he was a bad choice.
 But I don’t think he deserved it. My hypothetical Cy Young re-gifting goes to the Official Retired Pitcher of TDS, all-time greatest Blue Jay, and runaway best pitcher of the 1980s, Dave Stieb. No truth to the rumor that I am secretly Dave Stieb himself, by the way; he just really was that good and that underappreciated. He threw six more innings than Boddicker or Alexander, but racked up 60-70 more strikeouts. He walked a few more (quite a few more than Alexander, actually, who ends up with the slightly better K/BB rate), but the overall package, to me, at least narrowly wins out (as the various WAR numbers tend to show). Stieb was almost exactly as effective as Blyleven, but for 22 more innings. If he wasn’t the best pitcher in the league, he was very, very difficult to distinguish from the best pitcher in the league. And yet he got one third place vote, same as the more or less average Jack Morris. Sigh.
So Stieb should have won it in 1984 (or so say I), just like he probably should have won in ‘85...and he arguably should’ve won in ‘82 and ‘83 as well. Blyleven could have won in ‘84, but probably should have won in ‘73 and ‘81. That’s right, two pitchers probably deserved a total of six Cy Young Awards...and neither ever finished higher than third. Life just ain’t fair.
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