Talking To A Stone
Posted: September 25th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 45 Comments »
Got a pretty big J.P. Ricciardi post coming up … hold on. But I guess in the meantime we’ve become the repository for anti-Zack Greinke fodder to keep us nice and riled up for the last two weeks of the season.
Brilliant reader Cory passes along this Tweet from former Cy Young winner and my hometown guy Steve Stone. We’re both from South Euclid — Steve and I — and I love him for this. Plus we have some mutual friends, and they say he’s a great guy. And I have liked him as an announcer on TV too. I like Steve Stone!
But not for this:
“While zack greinke seems to be a lot of peoples choice for AL cy young, take a look at felix hernandez. Feliz is 17-5. Grienke is 15-8.”
I’ll say this in Steve’s defense: He won the Cy Young in 1980 because of wins. He won 25 and won the award over Mike . And I’ll admit, I had never really looked that closely at that year. Steve won the award even though Norris:
– PItched 34 more innings.
– Gave up 10 fewer earned runs — his ERA was 2.53 to Steve’s 3.23.
– Struck our 31 more. Walked 18 fewer. Gave up fewer hits. Threw 15 more complete games. Allowed the fewest hits per nine in the league. And so on.
– Won only three fewer games despite playing for a significantly inferior team. His A’s won 83 games. Steve’s Orioles won 100.
So yes, I fully appreciate Steve Stone standing up for wins. He should actually be president of the “Wins” fan club. He should have “Wins Rule!” bumper stickers made. And I didn’t not realize until this very moment — because I do love Steve Stone, even now — that this whole thing is not at all about the potential injustice of Zack Greinke losing the Cy Young. I do think Zack will win.
No, this is about the injustice of Mike Norris not winning the Cy Young in 1980.
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Well, at least Feldman can’t win 20 now.
Joe, what convinces you that Greinke will win? I really have no idea. I think he should, but it certainly won’t come as any big shock to me if he doesn’t. Not because the voters are “stupid” but because there is an established record of them putting a ton of weight on W-L record and relatively less weight on other numbers.
Just curious if you are exhibiting faith, reason or inside knowledge.
Meanwhile, from today’s Seattle Times article on yesterday’s Mariners game:
Even if Hernandez (17-5) isn’t thinking Cy Young, he is being reminded about it enough. When asked who would get his vote, he named the man he likely will have to beat out for the award: Kansas City’s Zack Greinke.
“I’d vote for Greinke,” Hernandez said. “He’s doing a great job, he’s tough, he’s nasty.”
Hernandez’s manager, Don Wakamatsu, has no doubt who would get his vote.
“I’d vote for Felix, without a doubt,” Wakamatsu said. “There’s a lot of things. There’s 17 starts where he has gone seven innings or so with one run or less. But again the impact he’s had on this ballclub, especially after last year.”
well said!
Being an Ohio boy, I like Stone.
But his opinion on this one is bullhostmonster.
Joe, perhaps you’ve been looking at this all wrong. I mean, the award itself is named after a guy who clearly is not the best pitcher ever… yet he does have the most wins.
“Joe, what convinces you that Greinke will win? I really have no idea. I think he should, but it certainly won’t come as any big shock to me if he doesn’t. Not because the voters are “stupid” but because there is an established record of them putting a ton of weight on W-L record and relatively less weight on other numbers.”
A pitcher should be judged on what he can control, and unfortunately he cannot control how many runs his team scores in his support, which determines whether or not he gets the W. Judge the pitcher on what he does on the mound, which all other metrics measure. By any metric in this lens, Greinke wins.
Stoney was Harry’s enabler in the booth for The Great One’s last dismal years.
Comments like this make me think Steve Stone deserved what he got when he volunteered to go on a date with a randomly selected Oriole fan in 1981. (He got my 3rd grade science teacher, whose measurements were something like 5′8″, 275 lbs, 44-52-48.)
pitcher a–2.48 ERA, 172 ERA+, 265 IP, 1.14 WHIP….14-13 record.
pitcher b–2.87 ERA, 145 ERA+, 235 IP,
1.05 WHIP…20-6 record.
Before your time in KC, but Joe, hypothetically, you wouldn’t have been a little upset if Dave Stieb had won the 1985 Cy Young over Bret Saberhagen? Do win/losses *ever* come into play?
(Of course he didn’t have a chance given the Way the World Works. He finished seventh, for chrissakes.)
Unrelated question for the saberstars on the site–is there a stat that takes into account the overall consistency of a pitcher’s season (e.g, what quality starts gets at) combined with ERA+? If a guy is consistently brilliant but has a couple bombs (like 8 ER or something), he might end up worse on ERA+ than a guy who over the course of the season didn’t give his team as good a chance of winning but simply was more consistently “pretty good.”
When I think about it, I think a Cy Young winner should be able to win the award because of WINS… after all, isn’t the award named after the winningest pitcher ever? It’s not named after the guy with the best ERA or best WHIP.
As overrated as W’s are, and as offense dependent as W’s are…the Cy Young is still named after the winningest hurler. The award really has little to do with who THE BEST pitcher really is.
Gaylord Perry would’ve ranked better in the ‘74 voting if it was about the best pitcher. Mike Norris would’ve won in ‘80. Pete Vuckovich wouldn’t have won in 1982… and so on…
All that being said, I’d love to see Greinke win the Cy. If he doesn’t, then Joe, I think you should make a new award — the Walter Johnson award… for the Best Pitcher in each league every year… and then blog about who were the best ones in each season & we can all vote on it and retroactively hand out the Walter Johnson’s.
Greinke’s ERA + is 36 points higher than Felix’s.
Norris’s ERA + in 1980 was 25 points higher than Cy Young winner Steve Stone.
I just want to point out that in 1971, Tom Seaver had a 51 point ERA + lead over Cy Young winner Fergie Jenkins.
Seaver allowed 56 earned runs all year, compared to 100 allowed by Jenkins. Seaver also gave up fewer unearned runs than Fergie.
Though Jenkins pitched 38.2 more innings than Seaver, Tom was so much more effective that if he could have made up those innings while pitching with an ERA of 10.23 he would have matched Jenkins’s ERA.
Just me here, but I think that that was a bigger snub than Norris’s snub or Greinke’s potential snub.
A post on J.P. Ricciardi coming up? Uh oh…
“the Cy Young is still named after the winningest hurler” – In that case, why vote at all? Just give it to the pitcher with the most wins….
Norris “threw 15 more complete games.” That’s priceless.
I like the above ideas:
Cy Young award for most wins
Walter Johnson award for best starting pitcher
and let’s make “Fireman Of The Year” mean something by calling it:
The Goose Gossage award.
Then we can have the Bobby Thigpen award for most saves.
Yeah, it’s kinda dumb, but I’d rather have more awards than less awards.
Wins shouldn’t be the only thing to make a Cy Young winner… just that the W’s would weigh heavier than other stats on the voting for Cy.
Oohh a Gossage award is a cool idea….or maybe it should be named the Fingers the Wilhelm award
The CY might be named after Cy Young, but it doesn’t go to the pitcher who was most like Cy Young.
The Larry O’brien Trophy doesn’t go to the NBA team that looked most like Larry O’Brien.
Norris Award in the NHL doesn’t go to the defenseman who was most like John Norris.
Isn’t the MVP award technically the “Kennesaw Mountain Landis” Award? And yet, it doesn’t go to the player who was most like Landis.
Point being names are just names. Each award defines the criteria for selection, and for the Cy Young, it doesn’t say, “Most like Cy Young”, it says best pitcher.
I always like to use Bill Simmons’ (Sports Guy) criteria for determining an MVP when choosing an MVP or Cy Young winner. His four are:
1. Ten years from now, who will be the first guy in my head?
2. In a giant pickup game where every fan picked their team, who would be the first player picked most often?
3. If you replaced each candidate with an average player at his position, how would it affect each team?
4. When explaining your pick to someone who likes someone else for the award, he will at least admit that you have a good argument.
Now if your answers to the first three questions aren’t Greinke, Greinke, and Greinke, then you are either delusional, insane, or Felix Hernandez’s mother.
Obviously in ten years, the pitcher we will remember from this season will not be Felix Hernandez, will not be Roy Halladay, will not be C.C. Sabathia. It will be Zack Greinke.
Nobody in their right mind, even the biggest Yankee homer, would choose Sabathia over Greinke in a giant pickup game this year. Imagine Greinke on the Yankees! He’d probably have 25-28 wins with their offense.
Finally, while yes, the Royals are bad, Greinke has saved them from utter embarrassment with his otherworldly season. If instead of Greinke they just had another Kyle Davies or Luke Hochevar, they’d be challenging the Nationals for world putridity.
So Greinke fits in pretty well with the Sports Guy’s definition of an MVP. There’s also the fact that every stat (excluding wins) points to Greinke…
To #19,
The funny thing is, despite not being a stat head (or stat anything), Bill Simmons with his third criteria has managed to capture the importance of Wins Above Replacement.
Stone was a well-spoken white guy. Norris was a surly black guy. This certainly factored in more in 1980 than now.
Is this the same Steve Stone who sits in a booth with Hawk Harrelson? I’d question anyone’s saanity if they were subjected to that.
A few weeks ago, I thought Greinke would have trouble with only 13 wins, and he might have. But not he has 15 wins, .652 W-L %, 2.08 ERA and 229 SO.
Since 1969, there have been 12 other pitchers with 15 wins, .652 W-L%, 2.08 ERA and 229 SO, and they ALL won the Cy Young Award.
He’s got it as long as he doesn’t implode and give up 9 runs in the 1st inning in his next outing or something.
Stone can be the Treasurer. Bob Welch is already the president.
Micah, I’m that Yankees homer you’re talking about.
No way would I give CC the Cy Young this year. Nor Beckett, nor Doc, nor Verlander. Which only leaves one other guy in the discussion to win it.
Zack Greinke
Just to clarify my post 2. I think Greinke SHOULD win. But given history, why does anyone think he’s a lock?
“Each award defines the criteria for selection, and for the Cy Young, it doesn’t say, “Most like Cy Young”, it says best pitcher.”
…I’ve heard people say that, but I’ve never seen any official thing saying that’s the definition. If it is official, then it seems that few with a vote understands “best pitcher” very often.
There are some serious numbskulls in this bunch.
#11 – what did you stick up your nose this morning????
I can’t go over everything others have said.
The whole point of sabermetrics is NOT stats – I’ll say it again: the whole point of sabermetrics is NOT stats. The name comes from SABR, and the R stands for *research.*
What happened was that over the last few decades, the STATS used in baseball circles – like WINS/LOSSES, a STAT – were not telling the truth behind performance. Certain mainstream STATS were not painting a correct pitcher of a player’s VALUE.
If true sabermatricians could use a Beethoven opus to explain why Joe Mauer should win the MVP this year, they would. If they could use a tulip plucked from a garden, they would. They use “stats” that aren’t in the mainstream with other STATS like RBI, BATTING AVERAGE, etc., because the stats sabermatricians use give a clearer picture of value than the STATS traditionally used.
Wins, #11, are irrelevant in 2009 – they were more relevant in 1909 when pitchers like CY YOUNG through 40 complete games a year, so his performance in each game he pitched dictated the outcome of the game. But if a pitcher goes 8 innings, and the closer blows it, how is it the starters fault? 50 years ago if the STARTER blew it in the 9th, then, yes, WINS matter. But not today. Take your head out of your rear end, please . . .
If the Cy Young Award is for the pitcher with the most wins, then why vote on it? It wasn’t intended to be that way. “Best Pitcher” will change definition over time. Right now, we are in the mainstream acceptance of sabermetrics era, and as such, “best pitcher” is going to reflect those tendencies. Even just last year, I don’t think Greinke wins.
There have only been 27 seasons pitched (since 1880 or so) that have matched or exceeded Greinke’s current ERA+ of 210. And only 6 of those were by a pitcher age 25 or younger.
Hehe Eyeb. Knew that would catch your attention.
The Cy Young will come down to the next two starts each pitcher makes. The one that has the best two starts will probably win the thing. Hope that Greinke is that guy.
Is every former major league baseball player a close minded idiot? The answer seems to be yes.
#28- for f***’s sake d***h***, here’s no need to be a f****** a******.
f****** try a little joe-inspired f****** civility. you’re the type of d***h*** that makes sabermetric guys seem like pompous a*******. no matter what the f*** sabermetrics is really f****** about…who’d want to f****** believe anything a f******* a****** like your sorry f****** a** f****** writes, you f****** s***h***? and of f****** course its f****** about f****** stats, but the g**d*** right f****** stats, to tell the real f****** story, no? Even us f****** numbskulls f****** know that, you f****** d*****b**.
Yeah, there have been a lot of pretty bad Cy choices over the years. The Bob Welsh Cy was the ultimate…but 27 wins is hard for guys to pass over.
What would the Three Finger Brown award be for?
“Wins Rule”
That would make a great bumper sticker, whether meant ironically or not.
“While zack greinke seems to be a lot of peoples choice for AL cy young, take a look at felix hernandez. Feliz is 17-5. Grienke is 15-8.”
Yes, why give any thought or analysis at all to the award, when all we need to look at is W/L. It’s dealing with idiots like this that often make me think I am the last sane person on earth…
~
OK, all you literalists out there, it isn’t like MLB came up with a new award, named it the “Cy Young Award” and let the voters have at it (thus free to define it in any way they wished). Instead, it is intended to go to the *best* pitcher in each league. While the award derives its name from the winningest pitcher in baseball – as opposed to the “best”, that is almost certainly a product of the fact that in 1956 people were not as advanced in their baseball analysis, and may be forgiven for conflating Cy Young’s record for wins with “best” (this was, after all, the same era that saw the induction of guys like Lloyd Waner into the HOF).
Rational, thinking people have since concluded that the correlation between wins and excellence is loose at best. And although rational, thinking people likely do not make up the majority of the BBWAA, we can only hope that Greinke’s excellence is so manifest that even the less advanced voters will see the merit in his case, even in the absence of the most wins.
I note that the NHL awards at least 3 major trophies to players based solely on objective criteria, so that there are no votes: the Art Ross goes to the leading point scorer, the Maurice Richard trophy to the leading goal scorer, and the Jennings trophy to the leading goals-against goalie(s). Baseball is free to introduce such a trophy to baseball (to the best W/L record) to preserve the Steve Stones of the world from expending any thought whatsoever, but until it does, we are stuck with the Cy Young and its ephemeral “best”…
@11- Yes, let us call it The Walter’s Johnson award. Give it to Greinke if he doesn’t win the Cy because he got DICKED.
I really think the voters are going to break your heart this year, Joe.
The Braves had a long rain delay last Sunday (20 Sep). They had the usual rain delay show, with Mark Lemke and some studio guy talking about different things and taking calls. One of their most discussed topics was the AL Cy Young race. They talked about how Mo Rivera and Sabathia are the front-runners (they think it should be Rivera). They talked about how King Felix is in the discussion, but then went into a bit about how there’s always a guy like him, who plays for a lesser team and does well and gets extra credit from people that “they don’t deserve,” because they’re not playing under pressure in a pennant race.
This went on and on and on, and at no time did either of them or any of the callers even mention Greinke. Not once. He was not even in the discussion.
#35: The Three Finger Brown award should be given to the player who most resembles half of Antonio Alfonseca.
I think a lot of posters (e.g., #7) are confusing two discussions: who *should* win the CYA, and who *will* win. If you’re reading this site, you almost certainly believe that Greinke is the best/most valuable/whatever pitcher in the AL and should win the award. What the voters will actually do is a separate issue, and one that is much less clear.
I think we are all Grienke/KC fans here, myself included, but please be realistic. There is absolutely no way the CY will go to a pitcher from a last place team as pathetic as the KC Royals are. It will go to a pitcher from a division champion or wild card team.
It’s funny when people complain so loudly and so frequently about these baseball awards and how idiotic the voters are and how the award won’t mean anything if it goes to the “wrong” player. Because all these complaints do is give more attention to these awards, which in the minds of MLB makes it even more important to keep things the way they are now– lots of arguments and discussion and controversy is exactly why they have these awards, to promote attention to the game.
If you really are mad about voting in things like MVP and Cy Young or even Hall of Fame, then the best thing to do is ignore it, and find other awards to discuss– maybe someone nationally prominent could come up with different awards, with clear guidelines, instead of the murky ones they have now.
If these Cy Young and MVP awards get LESS attention, then baseball might change the way they are awarded. But the murky criteria they have now is guaranteed to start discussions and arguments among fans and media people, which is exactly what MLB wants. Telling everyone you know how dumb the voting is and how irate you are over the voting for these awards just feeds the hype machine.
The Cy Young and MVP awards have become kind of dumb and unimportant, IMO. Not worth arguing over and not worth the attention. And the more they get discussed, the more attention they get.
Does SABR have their own year-end awards? They should, and they might be worth discussing.
Stone ranks dead last on the “Fewest home runs given up to Duane Kuiper” list.
Interesting that today’s Stat of the Week from ACTA says that by Total Runs, the AL MVP (most Total Runs Created) is Zack Greinke. Okay, he’s not going to win the MVP. Second on the list is Chone Figgins, third is Zobrist. Mauer is fourth, and not a particularly close fourth. Not that Figgins will win. A big chunk of Figgins’ value is defense, and I’m not sure that there’s enough defensive value at third base to justify that hypothesis. But it’s interesting to think that a guy who gets on base a lot and jump starts a playoff offense might actually get credit for it by some startistical methods, and that the best pitching year of recent memory deserves consideration as well.
#43 Joe M. –
That comment was absolutely priceless. BRAVO!!!