I wasn't able to watch the game yesterday - did Sale throw any in the bullpen once he was lifted? He didn't throw too many pitches in his 3 innings.
Rebirth of a Sale, man
- Thread starter reggiecleveland
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I'm pretty sure there's no IP qualification for the Cy (otherwise how could relievers win it?), only for the ERA title.
But I don't think Sale gets the nod anyway. Volume does count. I think if Snell can win one more game and get to 20, it's his. And it might be his even if he doesn't. Which is as it should be--he's had an amazing season. What really stands out for me is that he's been strongest against the strongest competition: he has a record of 9-2 with a 2.00 ERA and 0.99 WHIP against the 5 AL playoff teams, who have collectively averaged just over 5 runs a game. That's absurd.
I wonder how long it will be before he's traded to the MFY. I'm only kind of kidding. He's exactly the kind of pitcher the Yankees should be willing to back up their ample-sized minor league system for. 25 years old. Dynamic. Lefty. Highly successful in the toughest division in baseball. Excellent against the best teams. If I'm the Yankees, I offer Chance Adams, Andujar, and Sanchez (maybe another prospect as well if that's what it takes) in exchange for Snell and Ramos. Adams probably will develop into a quality major league pitcher, Andujar has an extremely high ceiling, and Sanchez we know is a 35+ hr type catcher. All very affordable, and when they get expensive, Tampa can just turn around and flip them. Ramos would be a great fit for the Yankees and of course Snell gives them a total stud.
Not that I want to give NY any ideas, but if I'm Cashman, I'm pushing hard for a deal for Snell.
No, I'm totally embarrassed but I was referring to Wilson Ramos. I remember he was with Tampa earlier this year (he killed the Sox at the end of April) and totally forgot that he got traded to Philly.
Ah well, nonetheless, if I'm NY, I still try to pursue Snell and offer a ton for him.
Do you expect him to go 5 vs Cleveland (I do) and then 7 vs. Baltimore ( I definitely do not)
For all the talk about Snell, he's at 164.0 IP. Sale is at 150. Maybe that gap widens by the end of the year but by how much?
If Snell is at 180 IP at years end and Sale is at 160, does 20 innings really make a difference in the eyes of the voters? In 2016, Max had 79.1 more innings than Kershaw. That's more than a 1/3 of a season for most SP.
If Snell is at 180 IP at years end and Sale is at 160, does 20 innings really make a difference in the eyes of the voters? In 2016, Max had 79.1 more innings than Kershaw. That's more than a 1/3 of a season for most SP.
They wouldn't want to. But they'd do it because the package they'd get back would be incredible.
But like 99% of things suggested on SoSH, it likely won't happen.
I've been totally flabbergasted as to why the yankees haven't sunk some money into solid starting pitchers. Wouldn't phase me if they blow money on Manny/Bryce instead of Kershaw in the off season. Thank you MLB for making the athletes wear stupid commemorative t-shirts that made one pitcher real uncomfortable.
Even then, your package seems pretty light. I'm not sure the Rays would even want Sanchez. He's going to be just as expensive as Snell, is a poor defensive catcher and has struggled mightily this year. Chance Adams might develop into a back end rotation starter but is hardly a sure thing. Andujar is definitely a great get.
I might be underselling Gary Sanchez and Chance Adams though. It just seems like another team could and would beat that offer for Snell. I'd guess the Rays would hold out for Torres, if not Torres and Andujar.
It's not like RAA and WAR don't take opposition and volume into account. And Sale has had a better year by those and about every other metric except wins.
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Don't get hung up on the details of the package I suggested. The Yankees have the ammo to essentially give TB whatever they want. They have tons of legit pieces they could move. Maybe a deal couldn't be brokered, but if I'm Cashman, I give it a hell of a try.
I get why Cashman would want to talk to the Rays, and the Tampa brass would be justified if something was willing to ridiculously overpay for Snell, but the Rays farm system is generally ranked top 5 already - if they have confidence that Snell is the real deal, they should hang onto him.
Agreed. The Rays have been very good in the 2d half. They're a couple of pieces and good health away from competing next season.
WAR takes volume of contribution into account, but only in bulk. It doesn't account for volume of high-contribution games and innings. The difference in W shouldn't matter to voters (though it probably will, to some), but the differences in GS and IP should. Snell has helped his team win a game more times, though he hasn't helped quite as much each time, on average. How do you evaluate that? I don't think WAR is a sufficient answer here. Is it more valuable to provide 7.0 WAR over 27 starts and 160 innings, or 6.5 WAR over 31 starts and 180 innings (roughly what Sale and Snell, respectively, will probably end up with*)? I'm not sure. It would be an interesting problem to try to work out.
*I'm using rWAR here because when you're evaluating past performance for the purposes of awards, as opposed to predicting future performance or contract value, I think RA is a better measure than FIP. The gap between Sale and Snell is much larger by fWAR because Snell's FIP has been fine but not extraordinary.
Does that really clear it up for you? Because I've read that post multiple times trying to figure out how that flows from the Yankees going after hitting and not pitching, and I've got nothing.
Well, yes, you're correct, I have no idea what was intended. And I thought it was a jersey.
Moving on...
What does that mean? "Helped his team win a game more times." Snell's team record in games he's pitched is 19-9. Sale's is 17-8. So presumably Snell "helped his team win" two more times than Sale, but he "helped his team lose" one more time.
As to the answer of whether it's more valuable to provide 7.0 WAR in 160 innings or 6.5 in 180 innings, my answer would almost certainly be the 7.0. Presumably, your team can find a replacement level pitcher for those extra 20 innings, and for the Red Sox specifically, i think only Pomeranz has been negative WAR. But if you're going to try to answer differently, I'm not sure you can make the math work without saying Kluber or Verlander, who have around 40 IP (and 5-6 QS) on Snell, are even more valuable.
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Sale still with a significant lead in mlb.com’s final BBWA poll: https://www.mlb.com/news/chris-sale-jacob-degrom-lead-cy-young-poll/c-294961442
This actually confirms my point, since the team records in the two pitchers' games are essentially identical. Snell's level of excellence has been good enough to produce a .679 winning percentage, while Sale's has produced a .680. If Sale had pitched three more games and the Sox had matched their pace in the rest of his games, his team record and Snell's would be identical.
In other words, being as much better than Snell as Sale has been has not translated into a higher rate of success for his team, so by that measure, Sale's superiority is superfluous, and therefore Snell's advantage in GS should be decisive.
Uh, right. So you're basically basing your vote on wins. So for those keeping score at home, Savin Hillbilly thinks we can judge a CF's defense by the difference between his team's record in games with him in and out of the lineup, and we can judge a pitcher's value by the team's winning percentage in games in which he appears.
Last I checked, the Cy Young Award wasn't called the "Pitcher WAR Leader" Award or that the only criteria should be a statistical approximation that includes significant error bars.
There is some value to innings pitched; more innings by the ace of the staff means fewer innings pitched by a lesser pitcher coming out of the bullpen. It's not always a slam dunk that the gap in innings will be filled by a replacement level pitcher.
And I never said it was. But Snell has pitched only 14 more innings than Sale. And Sale has bettered him in every stat except for wins. Meanwhile, Snell has pitched 38 fewer innings than Verlander, who has also pitched better than Snell according to most metrics. So basically it's wins.
Excuse me, you brought team W-L record into it. All I said was that it was possible that being (let's say) an 8.5 pitcher on a 1-10 scale for 28 games might be more valuable than being a 9 pitcher for 25.
No, I didn't. I was trying to interpret what you meant by "helped his team win a game more times." If you meant something other than team wins in appearances, I'd love to hear it.
I was talking in WAR terms, i.e., without reference to actual game outcomes. I just meant that by making more starts, Snell had brought his way-above-average performance to bear on more of his team's games than Sale has brought his way-way-above-average performance, and that this might make him more valuable in a way that I'm not sure WAR will account for.
Put it another way: at what point does superior performance become overkill? Imagine a league where the average RA/9 is 10. You have two pitchers, A who gives up 4 runs a game, and B who gives up 2 runs a game. 2 is obviously better than 4, but 4 is still really really good: pitcher A is giving his team an excellent chance of winning every time he goes out.
So if pitcher A pitches 30 games, how many games does pitcher B have to pitch before his superior per-game results make him more valuable? And will WAR track the answer to this accurately? That's what I was getting at.
That's a question worthy of examination, but the real-world context in which you're trying to apply it in this case is one in which the clearly superior pitcher has pitched 91% of the innings as the inferior pitcher. If we were talking about the difference between Sale and Verlander, where Sale has pitched less than 75% of the innings it might be persuasive, but not here, where the difference in IP facially pales in comparison to the difference in performance.
Depends on how you're defining performance. In terms of runs allowed, they're quite close: 2.04 per 9 for Sale vs. 2.20 for Snell. If you're looking at FIP (or at K/BB, which is related), the difference gets much bigger, of course.
Right, and if you take the average of his fWAR and bWAR, which are derived from those, Snell is behind not only Sale, over whom he enjoys a small innings advantage, but others, including Verlander and Kluber to whom he has a bigger innings deficit.
There's no question Snell loses the fWAR battle, which makes sense because there's no question Sale is the better pitcher. But we're talking about the Cy Young award, which is not given to the best talent but the best performance, and for that purpose RA/9 is far more relevant than FIP.
I think saying the difference between FIP and RA/9 is a simple matter of "luck and defense" is an exaggeration. There is such a thing as being good at inducing bad contact and at pitching to make use of the defense behind you.
But sure, luck and defense play a role. I agree that FIP is more descriptive of true talent, and therefore more predictive, than RA/9. But the Cy is not about prediction, it's about achievement. Whether FIP describes achievement better than RA/9 is, at best, debatable.
It really isn’t debatable that it’s better to strike guys out than allow balls in play, or that it’s better not to walk guys.
Look, you started this all by saying volume matters. If it does, and you’re going to give the AL award to a starter with fewer than 200 IP for the first time in history, it seems to me it should be someone who was actually the best in the league in at least one pitching category that’s not wildly team dependent like wins. Strikeouts, K/9, K:BB, FIP...something.
And his fluctuating BABIP from year to year, as well as his 35.9% hard-hit ball percentage this year suggests he's not as "good at inducing bad contact" as you imply.
Look, you started this all by saying volume matters. If it does, and you’re going to give the AL award to a starter with fewer than 200 IP for the first time in history, it seems to me it should be someone who was actually the best in the league in at least one pitching category that’s not wildly team dependent like wins. Strikeouts, K/9, K:BB, FIP...something.
And his fluctuating BABIP from year to year, as well as his 35.9% hard-hit ball percentage this year suggests he's not as "good at inducing bad contact" as you imply.
Snell went 5 innings tonight, no runs, 1 hit, 2bb's, 5 k's, and if TB can hang onto the 4-0 lead they currently have, he'll get to 20-5. With a 1.97 ERA, and a sub 1.00 WHIP, I think him and Sale have had almost identical seasons. IMO, if Snell continues to get starts and continues to dominate, and finishes with 25 or so more innings than Sale, he'd get my vote. Wins don't mean a lot, but they mean something, and he doesn't just have more of them, he's heading up into twice as many territory. That's something, and when everything other category is pretty damn equal, it's as good a tiebreaker as any, IMO.
Needler, Admit it, you're still mad about Bob Welch stealing the Cy Young from Clemens in 1990. Sure, it'd be nice if Snell led the league in a category besides wins, but this isn't Welch, who basically wasn't in the top 20 of anything besides wins. Besides being 1st in wins, Snell is 2nd in ERA, 2nd in WAR, 4th in WHIP, 8th in k's, 7th in k/9, 2nd in ERA+, 4th in WPA, etc. He's having a fantastic season, that is absolutely CY worthy. Sale is too, but he took a month+ off. I think that means something too.
Also, talking about Snell's "fluctuating BABIP from year to year" kind of shows your bias. The guy had a total of 218 Major League innings, over two years, under his belt coming into this season. There's not much sample size there to make any real judgments about him based on that (not to mention that it's obviously irrelevant to the Cy Young voting this year). In 2015, he had a 49 consecutive inning scoreless streak and was named Minor League Player of the Year with a 1.41 ERA over 25 starts. In the minors, it took him about 2.5 years to get his legs and start dominating, and he's basically doing the same thing at the major league level. Kid's the real deal, and if he finishes strong and wins the award, he's most definitely a deserving winner.
Needler, Admit it, you're still mad about Bob Welch stealing the Cy Young from Clemens in 1990. Sure, it'd be nice if Snell led the league in a category besides wins, but this isn't Welch, who basically wasn't in the top 20 of anything besides wins. Besides being 1st in wins, Snell is 2nd in ERA, 2nd in WAR, 4th in WHIP, 8th in k's, 7th in k/9, 2nd in ERA+, 4th in WPA, etc. He's having a fantastic season, that is absolutely CY worthy. Sale is too, but he took a month+ off. I think that means something too.
Also, talking about Snell's "fluctuating BABIP from year to year" kind of shows your bias. The guy had a total of 218 Major League innings, over two years, under his belt coming into this season. There's not much sample size there to make any real judgments about him based on that (not to mention that it's obviously irrelevant to the Cy Young voting this year). In 2015, he had a 49 consecutive inning scoreless streak and was named Minor League Player of the Year with a 1.41 ERA over 25 starts. In the minors, it took him about 2.5 years to get his legs and start dominating, and he's basically doing the same thing at the major league level. Kid's the real deal, and if he finishes strong and wins the award, he's most definitely a deserving winner.
Right, and not first in any of those things. And we're getting close to beating this to death, but he's second in baseball-reference's WAR. He's 9th in fangraphs' WAR. For that matter, he's not even second based on fangraphs' WAR calculated from runs against, excluding defense.
Yes, he's had a good year, but Sale's has been much better, and frankly, so have Verlander's and Kluber's. By fWAR, Verlander is 2nd; he's 1st in Ks, 1st in QS; 2nd in BB:9; 3rd in K/9; 1st in K:BB; 2nd in WHIP; 3rd in WPA, 4th in FIP etc. etc. while also being 1st in GS and IP.
I don't think you can ignore either, how much of a benefit it is to routinely not face guys in their third time around the order because you've been pulled after 5 innings and 60 pitches. He's not even among the top 10 in quality starts.
No, I don;t think it does show my bias. It shows that he hasn't been any better at "inducing bad contact" this year than he's been in prior years. He's got his highest rate of hard contact (right around league average), highest exit velocity, highest rate of barreled balls, and yet his lowest ever BABIP. He's been very fortunate.
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Runner on first, 1 down, Mike Trout on deck, would you rather a K or a weak grounder to short on the first pitch?
Is this a real question? A K has a 0% chance of hurting you. No seeing eye grounders, no possible boot by a fielder or an advancing of the runner. Sure a double play would be super but there is a non zero chance that something could go wrong. If you throw the third strike past him, there us no way he can hurt you.
You don't need a savvy marketer to tell you that Snell has provided the most WAR per dollar given he hasn't hit arbitration yet.
As someone who lived through 1986, weak grounders still give me nightmares.
More seriously, there are situations where the ground ball is ideal. Of course, that assumes that the pitcher can induce the ground ball to be hit in the range of speed that it is indeed catchable by the fielders, as opposed to finding the hole or taking a funny hop that results in there being one (or zero) outs instead of two. Granted, the K assumes that the catcher doesn't lose the ball and have to chase it to the backstop.
In aggregate over the course of the season, you want the K's from your pitcher. BABIP is still mostly random and completely unpredictable.
More seriously, there are situations where the ground ball is ideal. Of course, that assumes that the pitcher can induce the ground ball to be hit in the range of speed that it is indeed catchable by the fielders, as opposed to finding the hole or taking a funny hop that results in there being one (or zero) outs instead of two. Granted, the K assumes that the catcher doesn't lose the ball and have to chase it to the backstop.
In aggregate over the course of the season, you want the K's from your pitcher. BABIP is still mostly random and completely unpredictable.
Sure, but how much better? How much does the difference between a 10.7 and a 13.3 K/9 matter? How do you weigh that against the GS/IP difference?
I said volume matters. I didn't say it was the only thing that mattered, or that it mattered more than anything else.
And I think it's irrational to say that to deserve the Cy a pitcher must be best in at least one category. Being near the top in many categories, where others may lead one category but be down the pack in others, also makes a valid case.
His BABIP has "fluctuated" in the same sense that Mookie's walk rate has "fluctuated" -- i.e., it's gotten steadily better (as has his BB/9).
There's a good way to check this, which is to look at expected vs. actual stats. And yes, Snell has benefited from a bit of luck/defense, but not a lot. His xBABIP is .278, as opposed to his actual BABIP of .243. Which in turn produces an xOBA of .276 as opposed to his real wOBA of .253. So he's benefited from luck to the tune of .023 points of wOBA, as opposed to Sale, who has only benefited .007.
Again, these are fairly small differences, and it's reasonable to question whether they are enough to outweigh the difference in GS and IP. I'm not saying I have the answer to that. I think it's difficult. I'm glad I'm not a Cy voter this year.
EDIT: In the above, I was using the expected numbers at xstats.com. This FG article, which uses Baseball Savant numbers, makes a more convincing case that Snell has benefited significantly from luck and/or defense. Verlander looks like the best choice based on this analysis, with Sale right on his heels and Snell/Kluber/Bauer etc. in the next tier.
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