So I am a little late to this and no one will read it but here it is anyway. I would have voted for Wheeler.
While BR is far better at rating position players (partially because Fangraphs sucks at rating defense, using the archaic UZR) they both have problems rating pitching. Fangraphs problem is bigger, because they basically go entirely by FIP. It is a fine tool for predicting whether a guy can repeat, but for all the luck it tries to take out, home run luck is one of the biggest fluctuations for pitchers, and K's are overrated as a positive for pitchers. (And underrated as a negative for hitters. They are the exact same amount positive for one side as they are negative for the other -somewhere in the middle.) BR should emphasize defense a bit less, but defense absolutely does make a difference. The funny thing is that they are trying to take luck out of it, and no one does this for hitters.
It is my belief that a hitter could go say .300/.370/.600 one year, and .264/.330/.522 the next with the same average launch angle and speed. Both are great seasons, but a big difference in WAR. Half a dozen home runs (1 a month) go away because he had good luck hitting borderline home runs in smaller parks the first year and hits the same flies in bigger parks the second year - luck of the draw. He has 1 more play made per month against him in the field. He doesn't get as many borderline pitches and strikes out 6 more times and walks 6 more. (If you don't think that is possible, you haven't watched enough borderline pitches) This is not even counting fielding. Anyone who pays attention knows that for any fielder, it can fluctuate a lot year to year.
Speaking of fielding, team defense absolutely should factor in to pitcher WAR, but maybe not as much. DRS looks at every play. A team averaged +16 last year, because good fielders play more. But the Brewers were 45 above that. On average based on innings pitched, 5 of those runs saved happen with Burnes on the mound which changes his ERA from 2.43 to 2.69, still great. The Phillies were an incredible 70 runs below average, which could have cost Wheeler 10.5 on average taking his ERA form 2.78 to 2.34
I don't think you could go all the way with that though, because of a few things: The first is that Better pitchers put less balls in play. (Burnes had 11.6% of innings, and only 10.5% of balls in play, Wheeler had 15% of innings and 14% of balls in play) They have less base runners. Runs saved or cost happen much more often with more runners on base. Bad pitchers are affected much more. Wheeler with that 15% of innings only allowed 11.9% of base runners. Burnes with 11.6% of innings allowed only 9.7% of base runners. The third is that they don't assign runs saved to a pitcher. They don't keep track. They should probably cut the defensive influence in half just because of these things. That would put Burnes at 2.56, and Wheeler at 2.56
I wanted to make those points, even if no one reads this book, but the defining thing for Wheeler to me is that WAR is a counting stat, and should be. Wheeler pitched about 28% more innings than Burnes. For Fangraphs to have Burnes ahead of Wheeler, they are not saying he is a little bit better than Wheeler, they are saying he is a 31% better pitcher, and that is certifiably crazy.
Also, that is Fangraphs saying that Burnes is 31% better than Wheeler based on the innings IF they had even defense behind them, which they clearly do not. I am not sure that there has ever been a pitcher 31% better than the 2nd best pitcher. Maybe it happened for hitting once or twice. Maybe Ruth in 1921 or one the years Bonds broke the game, but NEVER for pitching. It may seem OK for Burnes to have a little more WAR on the surface, but it is a clear sign that Fangraphs is broken. While the numbers look more different on BR, when you factor in defense and innings, they are pretty much still saying Burnes is a little better with even defense behind them.
The context of the spate of closers who won the Cy Young is helpful to this discussion. Growing up, along with wins, strikeouts, innings pitches, and ERA, starting pitchers were relief on enough to give them an eye test. Every 4th day, Carlton or Gibson or Seaver and the like took the hill and probably threw 8 innings. On an off day. We didn't need WAR, FIP, and other fantasy stats to assess pitchers.
These days, pitchers are fairly interchangeable. They are a means of getting from here to there; starters are no longer described as "horses." They're like those e-scooters that people rent for a 10-block trip in San Diego and then toss all over the place.
I wonder if there's even a point in awarding pitchers anymore, at least under the name of the Man o'War of horses. It's like awarding 4th outfielders. Rename the award after some high-percentage, just second-tier talent: the Don Gullet Award. No offense to Gullet, but he seemed to have a knack for staying out of trouble more than an ability to dominate.
Finally, I'm a massive Phillies fan, but despite me thinking Wheeler had a great season, watching him up close, he didn't pass my eye test for a slam-dunk Cy Young. I can live with Burns winning the Don Gullet.
Way back in the mists of time (2014 and 2017), I did some statistical analyses to see if the "Win" stat was actually a decent summation of quality for a starting pitcher.
"I’m convinced that the “win” stat does have validity, especially for a starting pitcher. After all, “wins” are how teams are organized in the standings. True, there’s not going to be a big difference between a pitcher with a 21-5 record and one with a 19-7 record. But both are likely to be significantly better than one with a 14-12 record."
"With the expanded and revised data set, it is still clear that a for full-time starters, the Win (or at least Won-Loss Percentage) is still a good, easy to understand “stat” that reflects their real talent and ability. So as the season progresses, when people tell you that the “Win” is outdated, tell them that while it might be the case for relief pitchers, it still works for starters. Simply put, better pitchers win more games. So a pitcher with more wins….."
I've got another project I'm working on (I should be posting it in January), so I'm not going to update those analyses with more recent stats. If someone else wants to, go for it!
Yes, wins are correlated with how good a starting pitcher has been. But the correlation is not nearly as strong as with other stats, or a combination of other stats. It’s pretty easy to find examples of W-L that hide how good or bad a pitcher really was - even easier as starters leave more of the game to relievers. I think Julio Urias would have been a nearly automatic choice 20 years ago. (Easy comparison: 20 years ago, Roger Clemens went 20-3 and won the Cy. That vote would have gone much differently this year.)
Some times, win-loss record looks useful but wins and losses have too many anomalous cases that can lead to weak selections. A pitcher’s performance is independent of how many runs their own team scores.
Joe had the perfect rebuttal to your argument in his article. In 1987, Nolan Ryan led the league with a 2.76 ERA, 270 strikeouts and a homeruns per 9 of 6.5. His record, was only 8-16. Again, How meaningful is the Win Statistic?
Ah, the exception that tests the rule! NEVER use just one single stat - be it W-L record, ERA, WHIP, FIP, WAR, what have you - to determine a pitcher's talent.
Corbin Burnes had some absolutely historic rate stats. Would Wheeler have been more dominant in the innings which he pitched, if the Phillies philosophy was to have starters pitch fewer innings (as the Brewers philosophy is)? We'll never know. And as for who I would have voted for in the NL... I'm a Brewers fan, and I myself don't know!
That is a good point, that how teams approach their starting pitcher usage will be a bigger factor in Cy voting than in the past, when every Cy candidate would basically go 7/8/9 each time out.
Lest we forget, and as a grumpy old ex sportswriter, this is a vote, and as an American, that means you can decide for any darn fool reason you want. Personally, I'd vote for the pitcher who did the most to help his team succeed that season, and Burnes certainly qualifies.b
Three pitchers in the strike-shortened 1981 season threw more innings than this year's AL innings pitched leader. Dennis Leonard led the AL in '81 with 201.2 innings, for a team that played 103 games. In '94, Greg Maddux led baseball with 202 innings pitched, and in '95 28 pitchers threw more innings than AL leader Robbie Ray did this year.
The problem isn't the number-crunching, it's the desire to simplify a complex decision by boiling it down to one crunch. All the data matters. Including results-oriented numbers like W-L record.
I'm quite surprised at Burnes winning over Wheeler. I would have thought that, with declining starter usage being such a huge story, the value of a workhouse would *increase*. Guys that go 7 are so rare now, and their value in terms of saving the bullpen is so significant. Wheeler made 4 more starts than Burnes, and pitched the equivalent of about 8 more starts worth of innings! But as Joe says, the times are a'changing...
I dunno if Wheeler should get extra credit for keeping 46 or so extra innings out of the Phillies' bullpen's hands in particular, but I hafta think so. Nominally the difference between them is 46 innings of slightly over 4.00 ERA ball, but realistically I think it's fair to have expected that bullpen (admittedly not the dumpster Phire it was in 2020, but still not good, converting only about half of its Save Opps) to have given up several more runs in those 46 innings than Wheeler actually did.
I mean, I love the numbers as much as anybody, but baseball is supposed to be about winning games, and a starter's job is to give your team as good of a chance as possible to do that, which means primarily pitching well enough to KEEP pitching, as Wheeler did.
The thing about his FIP is a fascinating footnote, but I'm never gonna go to a game with my son and say, "Oh, boy, you shoulda seen the FIP that this guy Burnes put up back in 2021! It was really spectacular!"
In my mind, Burnes was great, just not often enough.
Fascinating how the view of the award has changed so much.
Love the Cy Stieb article Joe put together that goes back and award who "should" have won the award if looking through a modern lens.
it just makes me wonder if despite all the advanced metrics, something will come along that will change again our perspective so in 15 years we look back and think how could we have been so silly like the Seaver/Bryant comparison or the reliever rush in the late 70's and 80's.
I will be the first to admit I am not a deep advanced stat diver, but I have no problem showing my age here. I just really don’t agree with FIP. For much of my life I heard about the value of a ‘ground ball pitcher’, and of course I get that if your team has a solid defensive infield this will make a serious difference. But I think that to absolutely disregard the pitcher’s ability to control balls put in play makes FIP a pretty minor stat, in the scope of things.
The ground ball pitcher tends to get credit in FIP indirectly, as they are also the pitchers that allow the fewest home runs. So I do think they are generally fairly well accounted for.
I am not the biggest FIP fan because I think there's a difference between unsustainability (which FIP is quite good at pointing out), and luck (which is what it ultimately chalks all batted balls in play up to). But I think my opinions on it has changed for the positive over the past 10 years.
There was huge controversy when FIP was first described as a concept, back in 2001 or so. Voros McCracken, who did the initial research that led to FIP, faced exactly the sort of skepticism you describe. It is probably the most revolutionary sabermetric conclusion of the last 25 years.
It’s my impression that subsequent research led to a more nuanced view, that some pitchers control some aspect of success on balls in play, aside from defensive contributions. But the revolutionary concept of pitchers “only” controlling Ks, BBs, and HRs has now become ingrained, and as baseball continues to trend toward those three outcomes, it’s become difficult to carve out that more nuanced view.
While the Cy Young didn't exist in 1950, Jim Konstanty of the Phillies won the NL MVP as a reliever with 18 of 22 first place votes. Given this, he almost certainly would have won the Cy Young if it existed. Konstanty's conventional numbers were outstanding: his 62 games for 152 innings and a 1.12 ERA.
More modern stats were a mixed bag. He had 151 ERA+, but only a 3.77 FIP due to a 56/50 K/BB ratio with 11 HRs given up. Today we could see that his 4.7 bWAR was only the 9th highest pitcher bWAR in the league--and second on his own team to Robin Roberts' 7.4 bWAR. Because of his FIP and innings pitched, Konstanty's fWAR was a paltry 0.9 which was only tied for *sixth* among Phillies pitchers!
I wasn't around back then, but maybe his election was why another reliever didn't win for over two decades.
Konstanty's ERA that year was 2.66. (His K/W was 1.12, maybe that was what you saw?) But at the time he was a unicorn, as nobody had ever picked up 14+ Wins without making any starts. He went 16-7 overall and led the NL with 22 Saves, even though that wouldn't be an official stat for almost 20 years.
The BBWAA likes unicorns, that is, some of them really like it when players do unprecedented things, which is why Pudge Rodriguez won the AL MVP instead of Pedro Martinez in 1999, even though Pedro was demonstrably a more valuable player. Ditto for Eric Gagne vs. Mark Prior in 2003, Clemens vs. Welch in 1990, and a bunch of relievers who won it in the 15-year span that Posnanski mentioned.
I guess the FIP thing counts toward Burnes' Unicorn-ness, though I am surprised to learn that the BBWAA is digging that deep these days.
The Rodriguez MVP is an example of how the hitter thing has changed. In 1999, Irod had 35 catcher home runs, he threw out 62% more runners than average, had 125 OPS+ and 6.4 WAR, and he beat out some great seasons because unicorns.
This year, Salvador Perez led in home runs and RBI with 46 and 121. He had a 126 OPS+, threw out 91% more runners than average and had 5.3 WAR. The WAR is probably less because he played some games at DH, which lowers your score, but he still caught in 124 games and played in 161. He finished 7th and got left off 6 ballots.
Thanks for correcting me on his ERA. That's an embarrassing mistake. I was only off by a dozen or so columns ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
1950 was definitely a unicorn season for the Phillies. Their 91 wins in '50 were an anomaly compared to 81 in 1949 and 73 in 1951.
I wonder if any of his 16 wins were "vulture" wins, giving up the starter's lead only to have the team come back to win. I wish BBref had stats from back then on blown saves and inherited runners scoring.
Sometimes I just can't help myself, so I looked them up. Here are each of Konstanty's 16 Wins in 1950, in order:
1: Entered a 5-5 game in the 7th, pitched 3 scoreless and the Phils scored 2 to win it.
2: Entered in the 6th, down 6-5, gave up 1 run in 3IP, Phils scored 4.
3: Entered down 3-0 in the 8th, pitched 2 scoreless, Phils scored 6 to win.
4: Entered in the 7th, tied 2-2, pitched 5 scoreless innings, Phils scored 3 in the 11th.
5: Entered in the 7th, down 4-2, pitched 2 innings, Phils scored 5 and he held on to win despite allowing 2 in the 9th.
6: The Blown Save you mentioned, but a forgivable one, IMO. Entered in the middle of the 6th with nobody out, up 4-3 but with runners at 1st and 3rd. Gil Hodges singled to tie the game, but Konstanty got out of the inning without further trouble and pitched through the 8th unscathed to "vulture" a win. Since Robin Roberts had allowed a solo HR to Snider and singles to Jackie, Campy and Jim Russell already, I think it's fair to say that Konstanty did not "vulture" this win. ;-) Bubba Church got the Save.
7: Entered in the 8th, tied 1-1, pitched 2 scoreless, Phils scored 3 in the 9th.
8: Entered in the 7th, down 2-0, pitched 2 scoreless, Phils scored 4 in the 8th. Russ Meyer got the Save, but moved to Hollywood when he discovered he preferred making movies about women with big boobs better than baseball. ;-)
9. Entered with 2 out in the 8th, tied 5-5, pitched 2.1 scoreless and the Phillies walked it off in the 9th.
10: Entered in the 8th, tied 4-4, pitched 4 scoreless and the Phillies walked it off in the 11th.
11: Entered in the 7th, tied 6-6 and pitched NINE innings of relief, allowing only a solo homer to Ralph Kiner. Then he singled in the winning run in the top of the 15th, in what might be the greatest relief appearance in MLB history! I mean, Ernie Shore once basically threw a no-hitter in relief of Babe Ruth, but he didn't get a hit or drive in a run!
12: Entered in the middle of the 6th, tied 5-5 and pitched 3.2 scoreless. Phillies scored 4 over the last three innings to win it.
13: Entered in the 7th, tied 6-6. Gave up 2 runs in 2 IP, but the Phils scored 3 in the bottom of the 9th to win it for him. Curt Simmons got the Save.
14: Entered in the 8th, tied 4-4. Phils scored 2 in the 8th but he gave up 2 runs in the 9th to tie it up again before the Phils walked it off in the 9th.
15: Entered in the middle of the 7th, tied 2-2, pitched scoreless ball til the Phillies walked it off in the 9th.
16: Entered in the middle of the 6th, down 5-4, pitched 3.2 IP, and allowed just a run in the 9th, by which time the Phils had gone up 9-5, so they won 9-6.
And there you have them, all 16 of his Wins, all of them pretty hard earned, if you ask me.
I wrote a little about a tangentially related subject a few years ago in response to one of Joe's columns. I think Konstanty represented the culmination of a brief trend in the 50s of the sportswriters figuring out how to value relief pitchers. Ironically, that (over)emphasis on relief pitching probably cost Konstanty's teammate the 1952 MVP award, as I argue here:
So I am a little late to this and no one will read it but here it is anyway. I would have voted for Wheeler.
While BR is far better at rating position players (partially because Fangraphs sucks at rating defense, using the archaic UZR) they both have problems rating pitching. Fangraphs problem is bigger, because they basically go entirely by FIP. It is a fine tool for predicting whether a guy can repeat, but for all the luck it tries to take out, home run luck is one of the biggest fluctuations for pitchers, and K's are overrated as a positive for pitchers. (And underrated as a negative for hitters. They are the exact same amount positive for one side as they are negative for the other -somewhere in the middle.) BR should emphasize defense a bit less, but defense absolutely does make a difference. The funny thing is that they are trying to take luck out of it, and no one does this for hitters.
It is my belief that a hitter could go say .300/.370/.600 one year, and .264/.330/.522 the next with the same average launch angle and speed. Both are great seasons, but a big difference in WAR. Half a dozen home runs (1 a month) go away because he had good luck hitting borderline home runs in smaller parks the first year and hits the same flies in bigger parks the second year - luck of the draw. He has 1 more play made per month against him in the field. He doesn't get as many borderline pitches and strikes out 6 more times and walks 6 more. (If you don't think that is possible, you haven't watched enough borderline pitches) This is not even counting fielding. Anyone who pays attention knows that for any fielder, it can fluctuate a lot year to year.
Speaking of fielding, team defense absolutely should factor in to pitcher WAR, but maybe not as much. DRS looks at every play. A team averaged +16 last year, because good fielders play more. But the Brewers were 45 above that. On average based on innings pitched, 5 of those runs saved happen with Burnes on the mound which changes his ERA from 2.43 to 2.69, still great. The Phillies were an incredible 70 runs below average, which could have cost Wheeler 10.5 on average taking his ERA form 2.78 to 2.34
I don't think you could go all the way with that though, because of a few things: The first is that Better pitchers put less balls in play. (Burnes had 11.6% of innings, and only 10.5% of balls in play, Wheeler had 15% of innings and 14% of balls in play) They have less base runners. Runs saved or cost happen much more often with more runners on base. Bad pitchers are affected much more. Wheeler with that 15% of innings only allowed 11.9% of base runners. Burnes with 11.6% of innings allowed only 9.7% of base runners. The third is that they don't assign runs saved to a pitcher. They don't keep track. They should probably cut the defensive influence in half just because of these things. That would put Burnes at 2.56, and Wheeler at 2.56
I wanted to make those points, even if no one reads this book, but the defining thing for Wheeler to me is that WAR is a counting stat, and should be. Wheeler pitched about 28% more innings than Burnes. For Fangraphs to have Burnes ahead of Wheeler, they are not saying he is a little bit better than Wheeler, they are saying he is a 31% better pitcher, and that is certifiably crazy.
For what it's worth, baseball savant has outs above average, which takes into account how the fielders performed when a specific pitcher was on the mound, and they have wheeler as having the second BEST defense behind him. (link https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/outs_above_average?type=Pitcher&startYear=2021&endYear=2021&split=no&team=&range=year&min=q&pos=if&roles=&viz=show&sort=5&sortDir=asc)
Also, that is Fangraphs saying that Burnes is 31% better than Wheeler based on the innings IF they had even defense behind them, which they clearly do not. I am not sure that there has ever been a pitcher 31% better than the 2nd best pitcher. Maybe it happened for hitting once or twice. Maybe Ruth in 1921 or one the years Bonds broke the game, but NEVER for pitching. It may seem OK for Burnes to have a little more WAR on the surface, but it is a clear sign that Fangraphs is broken. While the numbers look more different on BR, when you factor in defense and innings, they are pretty much still saying Burnes is a little better with even defense behind them.
The context of the spate of closers who won the Cy Young is helpful to this discussion. Growing up, along with wins, strikeouts, innings pitches, and ERA, starting pitchers were relief on enough to give them an eye test. Every 4th day, Carlton or Gibson or Seaver and the like took the hill and probably threw 8 innings. On an off day. We didn't need WAR, FIP, and other fantasy stats to assess pitchers.
These days, pitchers are fairly interchangeable. They are a means of getting from here to there; starters are no longer described as "horses." They're like those e-scooters that people rent for a 10-block trip in San Diego and then toss all over the place.
I wonder if there's even a point in awarding pitchers anymore, at least under the name of the Man o'War of horses. It's like awarding 4th outfielders. Rename the award after some high-percentage, just second-tier talent: the Don Gullet Award. No offense to Gullet, but he seemed to have a knack for staying out of trouble more than an ability to dominate.
Finally, I'm a massive Phillies fan, but despite me thinking Wheeler had a great season, watching him up close, he didn't pass my eye test for a slam-dunk Cy Young. I can live with Burns winning the Don Gullet.
That should have been "...were relied on enough..."
Way back in the mists of time (2014 and 2017), I did some statistical analyses to see if the "Win" stat was actually a decent summation of quality for a starting pitcher.
https://pureblather.com/2014/05/20/on-pitchers-wins/
"I’m convinced that the “win” stat does have validity, especially for a starting pitcher. After all, “wins” are how teams are organized in the standings. True, there’s not going to be a big difference between a pitcher with a 21-5 record and one with a 19-7 record. But both are likely to be significantly better than one with a 14-12 record."
https://pureblather.com/2017/03/28/on-pitchers-wins-ii/
"With the expanded and revised data set, it is still clear that a for full-time starters, the Win (or at least Won-Loss Percentage) is still a good, easy to understand “stat” that reflects their real talent and ability. So as the season progresses, when people tell you that the “Win” is outdated, tell them that while it might be the case for relief pitchers, it still works for starters. Simply put, better pitchers win more games. So a pitcher with more wins….."
I've got another project I'm working on (I should be posting it in January), so I'm not going to update those analyses with more recent stats. If someone else wants to, go for it!
Yes, wins are correlated with how good a starting pitcher has been. But the correlation is not nearly as strong as with other stats, or a combination of other stats. It’s pretty easy to find examples of W-L that hide how good or bad a pitcher really was - even easier as starters leave more of the game to relievers. I think Julio Urias would have been a nearly automatic choice 20 years ago. (Easy comparison: 20 years ago, Roger Clemens went 20-3 and won the Cy. That vote would have gone much differently this year.)
Some times, win-loss record looks useful but wins and losses have too many anomalous cases that can lead to weak selections. A pitcher’s performance is independent of how many runs their own team scores.
Joe had the perfect rebuttal to your argument in his article. In 1987, Nolan Ryan led the league with a 2.76 ERA, 270 strikeouts and a homeruns per 9 of 6.5. His record, was only 8-16. Again, How meaningful is the Win Statistic?
Ah, the exception that tests the rule! NEVER use just one single stat - be it W-L record, ERA, WHIP, FIP, WAR, what have you - to determine a pitcher's talent.
Wins are meaingless.
Signed,
Gary Barta
Chairman of 2021 College Football Playoff Committee
Corbin Burnes had some absolutely historic rate stats. Would Wheeler have been more dominant in the innings which he pitched, if the Phillies philosophy was to have starters pitch fewer innings (as the Brewers philosophy is)? We'll never know. And as for who I would have voted for in the NL... I'm a Brewers fan, and I myself don't know!
That is a good point, that how teams approach their starting pitcher usage will be a bigger factor in Cy voting than in the past, when every Cy candidate would basically go 7/8/9 each time out.
Lest we forget, and as a grumpy old ex sportswriter, this is a vote, and as an American, that means you can decide for any darn fool reason you want. Personally, I'd vote for the pitcher who did the most to help his team succeed that season, and Burnes certainly qualifies.b
Is Rivera's 3rd place finish in 96 the best finish for a set up man (5 saves, 8 wins)? I think it has to be, right?
Three pitchers in the strike-shortened 1981 season threw more innings than this year's AL innings pitched leader. Dennis Leonard led the AL in '81 with 201.2 innings, for a team that played 103 games. In '94, Greg Maddux led baseball with 202 innings pitched, and in '95 28 pitchers threw more innings than AL leader Robbie Ray did this year.
The problem isn't the number-crunching, it's the desire to simplify a complex decision by boiling it down to one crunch. All the data matters. Including results-oriented numbers like W-L record.
I'm quite surprised at Burnes winning over Wheeler. I would have thought that, with declining starter usage being such a huge story, the value of a workhouse would *increase*. Guys that go 7 are so rare now, and their value in terms of saving the bullpen is so significant. Wheeler made 4 more starts than Burnes, and pitched the equivalent of about 8 more starts worth of innings! But as Joe says, the times are a'changing...
I dunno if Wheeler should get extra credit for keeping 46 or so extra innings out of the Phillies' bullpen's hands in particular, but I hafta think so. Nominally the difference between them is 46 innings of slightly over 4.00 ERA ball, but realistically I think it's fair to have expected that bullpen (admittedly not the dumpster Phire it was in 2020, but still not good, converting only about half of its Save Opps) to have given up several more runs in those 46 innings than Wheeler actually did.
I mean, I love the numbers as much as anybody, but baseball is supposed to be about winning games, and a starter's job is to give your team as good of a chance as possible to do that, which means primarily pitching well enough to KEEP pitching, as Wheeler did.
The thing about his FIP is a fascinating footnote, but I'm never gonna go to a game with my son and say, "Oh, boy, you shoulda seen the FIP that this guy Burnes put up back in 2021! It was really spectacular!"
In my mind, Burnes was great, just not often enough.
Great stuff.
Fascinating how the view of the award has changed so much.
Love the Cy Stieb article Joe put together that goes back and award who "should" have won the award if looking through a modern lens.
it just makes me wonder if despite all the advanced metrics, something will come along that will change again our perspective so in 15 years we look back and think how could we have been so silly like the Seaver/Bryant comparison or the reliever rush in the late 70's and 80's.
I will be the first to admit I am not a deep advanced stat diver, but I have no problem showing my age here. I just really don’t agree with FIP. For much of my life I heard about the value of a ‘ground ball pitcher’, and of course I get that if your team has a solid defensive infield this will make a serious difference. But I think that to absolutely disregard the pitcher’s ability to control balls put in play makes FIP a pretty minor stat, in the scope of things.
The ground ball pitcher tends to get credit in FIP indirectly, as they are also the pitchers that allow the fewest home runs. So I do think they are generally fairly well accounted for.
I am not the biggest FIP fan because I think there's a difference between unsustainability (which FIP is quite good at pointing out), and luck (which is what it ultimately chalks all batted balls in play up to). But I think my opinions on it has changed for the positive over the past 10 years.
I agree; I think that this also results in FWAR and Baseball Refs WAR both unfairly devaluing ground ball pitchers.
There was huge controversy when FIP was first described as a concept, back in 2001 or so. Voros McCracken, who did the initial research that led to FIP, faced exactly the sort of skepticism you describe. It is probably the most revolutionary sabermetric conclusion of the last 25 years.
It’s my impression that subsequent research led to a more nuanced view, that some pitchers control some aspect of success on balls in play, aside from defensive contributions. But the revolutionary concept of pitchers “only” controlling Ks, BBs, and HRs has now become ingrained, and as baseball continues to trend toward those three outcomes, it’s become difficult to carve out that more nuanced view.
2001? Voros first described FIP back in the mid-90s, IIRC, on the rec.sport.baseball Usenet group. And it did cause people's heads to explode.
"Anyway, in 1977, for the first time, the voters selected a reliever, the Yankees’ Sparky Lyle, as Cy Young winner."
Mike Marshall won the award a few years earlier when he set (the still standing) record for appearances in a season.
While the Cy Young didn't exist in 1950, Jim Konstanty of the Phillies won the NL MVP as a reliever with 18 of 22 first place votes. Given this, he almost certainly would have won the Cy Young if it existed. Konstanty's conventional numbers were outstanding: his 62 games for 152 innings and a 1.12 ERA.
More modern stats were a mixed bag. He had 151 ERA+, but only a 3.77 FIP due to a 56/50 K/BB ratio with 11 HRs given up. Today we could see that his 4.7 bWAR was only the 9th highest pitcher bWAR in the league--and second on his own team to Robin Roberts' 7.4 bWAR. Because of his FIP and innings pitched, Konstanty's fWAR was a paltry 0.9 which was only tied for *sixth* among Phillies pitchers!
I wasn't around back then, but maybe his election was why another reliever didn't win for over two decades.
Konstanty's ERA that year was 2.66. (His K/W was 1.12, maybe that was what you saw?) But at the time he was a unicorn, as nobody had ever picked up 14+ Wins without making any starts. He went 16-7 overall and led the NL with 22 Saves, even though that wouldn't be an official stat for almost 20 years.
The BBWAA likes unicorns, that is, some of them really like it when players do unprecedented things, which is why Pudge Rodriguez won the AL MVP instead of Pedro Martinez in 1999, even though Pedro was demonstrably a more valuable player. Ditto for Eric Gagne vs. Mark Prior in 2003, Clemens vs. Welch in 1990, and a bunch of relievers who won it in the 15-year span that Posnanski mentioned.
I guess the FIP thing counts toward Burnes' Unicorn-ness, though I am surprised to learn that the BBWAA is digging that deep these days.
The Rodriguez MVP is an example of how the hitter thing has changed. In 1999, Irod had 35 catcher home runs, he threw out 62% more runners than average, had 125 OPS+ and 6.4 WAR, and he beat out some great seasons because unicorns.
This year, Salvador Perez led in home runs and RBI with 46 and 121. He had a 126 OPS+, threw out 91% more runners than average and had 5.3 WAR. The WAR is probably less because he played some games at DH, which lowers your score, but he still caught in 124 games and played in 161. He finished 7th and got left off 6 ballots.
Thanks for correcting me on his ERA. That's an embarrassing mistake. I was only off by a dozen or so columns ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
1950 was definitely a unicorn season for the Phillies. Their 91 wins in '50 were an anomaly compared to 81 in 1949 and 73 in 1951.
I wonder if any of his 16 wins were "vulture" wins, giving up the starter's lead only to have the team come back to win. I wish BBref had stats from back then on blown saves and inherited runners scoring.
Looking more carefully Kostanty had only 4 blown saves but only one blown save leading to a win. His record was not padded with vulture wins.
Sometimes I just can't help myself, so I looked them up. Here are each of Konstanty's 16 Wins in 1950, in order:
1: Entered a 5-5 game in the 7th, pitched 3 scoreless and the Phils scored 2 to win it.
2: Entered in the 6th, down 6-5, gave up 1 run in 3IP, Phils scored 4.
3: Entered down 3-0 in the 8th, pitched 2 scoreless, Phils scored 6 to win.
4: Entered in the 7th, tied 2-2, pitched 5 scoreless innings, Phils scored 3 in the 11th.
5: Entered in the 7th, down 4-2, pitched 2 innings, Phils scored 5 and he held on to win despite allowing 2 in the 9th.
6: The Blown Save you mentioned, but a forgivable one, IMO. Entered in the middle of the 6th with nobody out, up 4-3 but with runners at 1st and 3rd. Gil Hodges singled to tie the game, but Konstanty got out of the inning without further trouble and pitched through the 8th unscathed to "vulture" a win. Since Robin Roberts had allowed a solo HR to Snider and singles to Jackie, Campy and Jim Russell already, I think it's fair to say that Konstanty did not "vulture" this win. ;-) Bubba Church got the Save.
7: Entered in the 8th, tied 1-1, pitched 2 scoreless, Phils scored 3 in the 9th.
8: Entered in the 7th, down 2-0, pitched 2 scoreless, Phils scored 4 in the 8th. Russ Meyer got the Save, but moved to Hollywood when he discovered he preferred making movies about women with big boobs better than baseball. ;-)
9. Entered with 2 out in the 8th, tied 5-5, pitched 2.1 scoreless and the Phillies walked it off in the 9th.
10: Entered in the 8th, tied 4-4, pitched 4 scoreless and the Phillies walked it off in the 11th.
11: Entered in the 7th, tied 6-6 and pitched NINE innings of relief, allowing only a solo homer to Ralph Kiner. Then he singled in the winning run in the top of the 15th, in what might be the greatest relief appearance in MLB history! I mean, Ernie Shore once basically threw a no-hitter in relief of Babe Ruth, but he didn't get a hit or drive in a run!
12: Entered in the middle of the 6th, tied 5-5 and pitched 3.2 scoreless. Phillies scored 4 over the last three innings to win it.
13: Entered in the 7th, tied 6-6. Gave up 2 runs in 2 IP, but the Phils scored 3 in the bottom of the 9th to win it for him. Curt Simmons got the Save.
14: Entered in the 8th, tied 4-4. Phils scored 2 in the 8th but he gave up 2 runs in the 9th to tie it up again before the Phils walked it off in the 9th.
15: Entered in the middle of the 7th, tied 2-2, pitched scoreless ball til the Phillies walked it off in the 9th.
16: Entered in the middle of the 6th, down 5-4, pitched 3.2 IP, and allowed just a run in the 9th, by which time the Phils had gone up 9-5, so they won 9-6.
And there you have them, all 16 of his Wins, all of them pretty hard earned, if you ask me.
I wrote a little about a tangentially related subject a few years ago in response to one of Joe's columns. I think Konstanty represented the culmination of a brief trend in the 50s of the sportswriters figuring out how to value relief pitchers. Ironically, that (over)emphasis on relief pitching probably cost Konstanty's teammate the 1952 MVP award, as I argue here:
http://www.boyofsummer.net/2020/01/how-did-robin-roberts-lose-nl-mvp-in.html
Very nice analysis on Roberts' 1952 season. Thanks for sharing.
Nice catch! Unthinkable that he pitched 208.1 innings that year as a reliever.
This is correct ... I overlooked Marshall because he threw 208 innings that year (absurd).
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