Felix and the 2014 CY

[PolarVortex]

I guess we have a few bitter Mariner fans this morning. Many thought that the 2014 CY Young Award belonged to Felix.

I really don't care. Here are my two thoughts on the subject:
1. Felix does not need a second Cy Young Award to get national recognition. He already has national recognition. He does not need a second Cy Young Award to authenticate himself. He is certainly authentic. Did he not start the All star game?
2. If Chris Sale hadn't missed 8 starts, the award would have been his. When he was on the mound, he was the best pitcher in the AL last year.

I like to play around with non-traditional stats to try to determine the CY winner. In head-to-head competition with Kluber, I compared Felix' stats to Kluber's in the follwing categories. (The categories in which Felix was better are bolded):

Innings pitched per start
Average WAR per start
BAA
ERA+ (ERA+ is tabulated in a manner that neutralizes the advantage of a pitcher-friendly park. I think the voters may have given Felix enough votes to win if they had given this stat more credibility.)
WHIP
K/9
Quality Start/Start percentage
Difference in team winning percentage when starting versus team winning percentage when not starting

 

[cezero]

subtract any 8 starts from Felix's year, and his numbers are categorically better than sale's i'd wager.

i have little problem with kluber winning.

as for felix, far too much was made of that 1 bad start in toronto. 4 runs in 4.2 innings did little to negate his great season for objective baseball fans.

overall, the only way felix wins in a close race like this where the media votes is if he plays for a california team or plays west of the mississippi entirely. that's just the way the establishment works.

 

[SeattleCoug]

subtract any 8 starts from Felix's year, and his numbers are categorically better than sale's i'd wager.

i have little problem with kluber winning.

as for felix, far too much was made of that 1 bad start in toronto. 4 runs in 4.2 innings did little to negate his great season for objective baseball fans.

overall, the only way felix wins in a close race like this where the media votes is if he plays for a california team or plays west of the mississippi entirely. that's just the way the establishment works.

I agree 100% with you post. I think people keep pointing to that Toronto start for Felix but ignoring a start in early September where Kluber got beat up by the Tigers. I hate to think that an award that should be given for a 6 month season was decided by 1 start that happened in the final week.

I also heard some people rationalize the Kluber choice by citing ballpark metrics (Safeco vs. Progressvive), team defense and catcher's framing ability. In those cases it could be writers just trying be that "outside the box thinker."

I reiterate that Kluber was a stud this year and well deserving of the award. I just hope that he won because all of those writers thought he was the better pitcher over 6 months and not anything else.

 

[PolarVortex]

subtract any 8 starts from Felix's year, and his numbers are categorically better than sale's i'd wager.

i have little problem with kluber winning.

as for felix, far too much was made of that 1 bad start in toronto. 4 runs in 4.2 innings did little to negate his great season for objective baseball fans.

overall, the only way felix wins in a close race like this where the media votes is if he plays for a california team or plays west of the mississippi entirely. that's just the way the establishment works.

I took the 7 starters who got CY votes and compared them to each other in the categories I mentioned above. I ranked them 1-7 in each category with 1 being the best score and 7 being the worst score. And then added each of their scores together for a total score. The end result looked like this:
1. Sale (18)
2. Hernadnez (24)
3. Lester (27)
4. Kluber (28)
5. Scherzer (38)
6. Price (40)
7. Hughes (49)

Sale placed first in ERA+, K/9, and average WAR per start. Felix placed first in BAA and WHIP.

Statistics are flawed in that they can never tell the whole story, regardless of what they represent. Sale, Kluber and Hernandez all would have been solid selections. You can even make a case for Lester. The other three were never in the hunt.

 

[gowazzu02]

I heard this stat on the radio. Dont quote me on the actual numbers but you get the gist.

Kluber vs the AL's top 3 offenses Det, Anaheim, Oak. 6 games. 5.40 ERA
Felix vs the same top 3 offense, 12 games 1.30 ERA

 

[PolarVortex]

I heard this stat on the radio. Dont quote me on the actual numbers but you get the gist.

Kluber vs the AL's top 3 offenses Det, Anaheim, Oak. 6 games. 5.40 ERA
Felix vs the same top 3 offense, 12 games 1.30 ERA

I don't doubt that at all. It's a reflection of a disease shared by both the Mariners and Seahawks. They tend to over-achieve against tough opponents and under-achieve against crappy opponents.

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

I heard this stat on the radio. Dont quote me on the actual numbers but you get the gist.

Kluber vs the AL's top 3 offenses Det, Anaheim, Oak. 6 games. 5.40 ERA
Felix vs the same top 3 offense, 12 games 1.30 ERA

Meh. It's tough to chop up seasons like that. Maybe the teams were offensively slumping some when Hernandez saw them? Six starts is also a pretty small sample. That 5.40 ERA in six starts was significantly skewed by the two worst starts of Kluber's season when he went a combined 6 INN and gave up 10 ER for a combined 15.00 ERA.

Regardless, it looks pretty close to me and, honestly, I'm a little surprised Kluber won it. I'm not surprised there are a lot of butthurt Mariners fans.

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

I don't doubt that at all. It's a reflection of a disease shared by both the Mariners and Seahawks. They tend to over-achieve against tough opponents and under-achieve against crappy opponents.

I was going to say that the flip side of kicking so much ass against the top teams means he might have been shitting the bed against lesser teams.

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

I just hope that he won because all of those writers thought he was the better pitcher over 6 months and not anything else.

My hope is that they opted not to give Hernandez the CY because of his neck tattoo.

 

[gowazzu02]

I was going to say that the flip side of kicking so much ass against the top teams means he might have been shitting the bed against lesser teams.

Felix hernandez doesn't shit the bed vs anyone.

 

[cezero]

... I'm not surprised there are a lot of butthurt Mariners fans.

nobody has said kluber was undeserving, girlfriend.

if there are butthurt M's fans on here, feel free to talk to them about it. otherwise, take your trolling punk ass off of the m's board, please.

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

Felix hernandez doesn't shit the bed vs anyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, please let me introduce you to Felix Hernandez's grandmother, gowazzu02!

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

nobody has said kluber was undeserving, girlfriend.

if there are butthurt M's fans on here, feel free to talk to them about it. otherwise, take your trolling punk ass off of the m's board, please.

You are a giant pussy. Huge.

I did not direct that to anyone on this thread, and even if I had, it wouldn't be offensive to anyone but a thin-skinned giant pussy. Yet there you go, name calling and labeling me a troll.

Sorry I said something not nice about Hernandez, fanboy.

 

[PolarVortex]

subtract any 8 starts from Felix's year, and his numbers are categorically better than sale's i'd wager.

i have little problem with kluber winning.

as for felix, far too much was made of that 1 bad start in toronto. 4 runs in 4.2 innings did little to negate his great season for objective baseball fans.

overall, the only way felix wins in a close race like this where the media votes is if he plays for a california team or plays west of the mississippi entirely. that's just the way the establishment works.

I think you probably meant East off the Mississippi?

If so, I totally agree with that. I post on another site where this subject of East of the Mississippi bias comes up so much that we just made acronyms (EOTM and WOTM) and I usually end up trolling the shit out of the EOTMers.

 

[PolarVortex]

Felix hernandez doesn't shit the bed vs anyone.

Well, that is not entirely true. it's rare when it happens but it does happen.

Unless, of course, we are literally talking about shitting the bed, in which case I would not know.

 

[PolarVortex]

My hope is that they opted not to give Hernandez the CY because of his neck tattoo.

Word. Similarly, I was hoping they would not give the 1999 MVP to Robbie Alomar because of the guarded knowledge that he was an AIDS-infested homosexual.

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

subtract any 8 starts from Felix's year, and his numbers are categorically better than sale's i'd wager.

You'd probably lose that one.

 

[SlinkyRedfoot]

Word. Similarly, I was hoping they would not give the 1999 MVP to Robbie Alomar because of the guarded knowledge that he was an AIDS-infested homosexual.

hahahaha.

I like you.

 

[PolarVortex]

hahahaha.

I like you.

That's fine, as long as you don't like me in a Robbie Alomar kind of way.

 

[cezero]

You are a giant pussy. Huge.

I did not direct that to anyone on this thread, and even if I had, it wouldn't be offensive to anyone but a thin-skinned giant pussy. Yet there you go, name calling and labeling me a troll.

Sorry I said something not nice about Hernandez, fanboy.

terrible troll