Perci Garner Deserves a Spot in the Indians Bullpen in 2017
November 16, 2016Not Enough: Cavs vs Pacers, Behind the Box Score
November 16, 2016Despite finishing at the top of the leader board in FIP and among the top five in advanced metrics like WAR, K-BB%, and ERA-, Cleveland Indians ace Corey Kluber finished third in American League Cy Young voting, finishing behind Boston’s Rick Porcello and Detroit’s Justin Verlander.
In a strange turn of events, it was Verlander who finished with the most first-place votes (14, including two from Cleveland writers Zack Meisel and Jordan Bastian), but lost a ton of ground with the vast majority of second-place votes going to Porcello while being completely left off of two ballots. (Both of whom were out of Tampa Bay.) Kluber was present on all 30 ballots and racked up enough second- and third-place votes to stay ahead of Baltimore’s Zach Britton, who finished fourth. Cleveland’s Andrew Miller received one third-place vote.1
Kluber finished the regular season with a record of 18-9, 227 strikeouts and 57 walks in 215 innings, and an ERA of 3.15. His last 15 starts featured a 10-1 record with a 2.41 ERA, including a AL Pitcher of the Month for August.
Unfortunately for Kluber, his postseason dominance—4-1, 1.63 ERA, 35 strikeouts in 24 1/3 innings—did not factor in to the voting as ballots were submitted prior to the MLB Playoffs. Porcello, conversely, won largely because of his league-leading 22 wins2 and K-BB rate. He also grades out well in a variety of advanced metrics (as discussed here), but the top three pitchers were a very close-knit group across the board, so much as having one-tenth of a run being the difference in their respective fWAR.3
https://t.co/yabFkD4BUM
This isn’t to short-change anything Porcello or Verlander did given their respective runs, even if Porcellos did get a league-best 6.6 runs of support per game. If there is any fun news to come out of this third-place finish, however, it was the subsequent outrage by super model, and girlfriend of Verlander, Kate Upton who unleashed a tweet storm following the results being aired.
Hey @MLB I thought I was the only person allowed to fuck @JustinVerlander ?! What 2 writers didn't have him on their ballot?
— Kate Upton (@KateUpton) November 16, 2016
He had the majority of 1st place votes and 2 writers didn't have him on their ballots?!! can you pick more out of touch people to vote?@MLB
— Kate Upton (@KateUpton) November 16, 2016
Sorry Rick but you didn't get any 1st place votes? you didn't win. #ByeFelicia @MLB keep up with the times and fire those writers
— Kate Upton (@KateUpton) November 16, 2016
In her defense, the BBWAA is a long-running joke of an organization—it’s the interrupting cow of professional sports. She also has a bit of a vested interest as it’s rumored that Verlander would be due an extra $500,000 had he won the Cy Young.
Also worth mentioning:
The results, in their entirety, can be found over at the BBWAA’s super high-tech website. Have at it, folks.
32 Comments
that was a hilarious tweet. Kluber got what he deserved. He was poor early.
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love Kate Upton defending her man … i am a little surprised Verlander almost won the award. not gloating , especially since i am wrong most of the time , but i did predict Porcello winning it early in the game.
i don’t think MG is going to be too pleased with where Kluber finished.
hi SAGGY … good unbiased opinion.
i love Verlander , but how in the hell can Porcello not receive any first place votes !! … ridiculous.
my ballot was :
1 – porcello
2 – kluber
3 – britton
yes , justin verlander is one lucky guy … https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/106e5bb2d0ebc1af04d967d6b16ee3ad58e89bcbc77971dcb54434756b2a34d9.jpg
hi SCOTT … in all fairness , you did not mention the categories Porcello did well in … you only mentioned his run support.
my bad … you did mention a few.
I enjoyed the run to the World Series more than postseason awards.
Congrats to Porcello. He and Kluber finished really strong and made it a good race with Verlander showing more overall consistency throughout the year.
hi MG … agreed.
I’ll always remember Porcello looking frazzled in that playoff start. lolz
Just think if the Tigers still had Porcello… maybe they would have beaten the Indians five **gasp** or six (!!!) times this year.
Verlander
Scherzer
Porcello
Price
But, naw, hitters are more important. Thanks Dombrowski!
https://media.giphy.com/media/l4Ki9A1PvIDZjG43S/giphy.gif
Would have been a great plot twist if Kate Upton’s tweet was:
“Hey @MLB I thought I was the only person allowed to f__k @CoreyKluber?! What writers didn’t have him on their ballot?”
Um, Kate? Yuck. Put the Twitter machine down.
He was “poor” due in no small part to BABIP and sequencing, things that, as we saw, usually regress to the mean.
Couldn’t have had both Porcello and Fulmer. The former got them Cespedes, the latter they got for Cespedes.
What stuck out to me was the process. Reading Meisel’s article revealed that writers didn’t know which ballot they were getting until August 19, about 75% of the way through the season. Would we not expect writers to pay closer attention to the contenders, and do a better job of analyzing them if they knew early in the season what their task was going to be?
Minor details… in any case, 4 outta 5 aint bad
certainly. He finished with a flourish, however, in K/9. over the second half he was more than 1 strikeout per 9 innings better than before the all-star break. In 2014 and 2015 he was 10.3 and 9.9 while regressing in 2016 to 9.5 due in large part to his first-half. That K/9 sets everything up, and he was hit better (see: BABIP) over the first few months.
By my eye test it seemed as though he was struggling with command for the first part of the year. Not sure what the numbers say about that but that’s what it looked like to me.
I also was unaware of just how many strikeouts Verlander had. He would have been my pick after leading the AL with 254 Ks and pitching 227 innings.
Chris, not sure how that detail is “minor” but I get your point!
“he was hit better (see: BABIP) over the first few months.”
BABIP shouldn’t be read as he was hit better, but that more balls just happened to fall in, which is a big difference. He also had a lower OPS allowed, kept the ball in the park better, and had a better k/bb in the first half.
But when you talk about being poor early, I’m assuming you mean those April and May ERAs over four. But that was almost all sequencing. His FIP, the things that he has the most control over, was actually just a tick better from April-May than the rest of the year.
I’m not sure to what article you’re referring… link please?
In an age when nearly every game is accessible with a subscription, highlights are available to all, and advanced stats quickly break down the facade of pretenders… there is absolutely no excuse for a professional writer to not already know who the contenders are. Even in the absence of a ballot, writers should independently be able to identify Porcello, Kluber, Verlander, and Britton as top-five candidates. If one is unsure by August 19 if someone like Jose Quintana should be on the ballot… then he sure as hell isn’t going to win anyway.
Sarcasm… we’re talking hypotheticals here!
http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2016/11/corey_kluber_justin_verlander.html
It’s not that he wouldn’t know who the contenders are, it’s that a person can prepare to do a job better with more notice.
Sorry this is stupid, but first thing I thought of after reading your post:
@JoeBuck:
“Hey @MLB I thought I was the only person allowed to f__k @KyleSchwarber?! What writers didn’t have him on their ballot?”
I did mean his April and May, when his velocity was a tick or two down.
BABIP must certainly include being hit better – it’s not all luck. Balls don’t just always luckily fall in. You know BABIP is related to velocity and K/9, etc…
I now realize that i hit the wrong tab when looking at his early stats. I am actually surprised that he pitched so well so early. He was hit pretty hard in July. Lots of little anomalies with his hard/soft and GB/FB rates all season long. Maybe I’ll have the time to get into it a little later.
Regardless, I still like what Verlander did this season.
“BABIP must certainly include being hit better – it’s not all luck. Balls don’t just always luckily fall in.”
On top of allowing a higher HR rate in the second half, he allowed a higher 2B/3B rate as well. The extra balls that we’re falling in in the first half were singles. That it’s not “all” luck doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a helluva lot of luck involved.
warmer air also doesn’t hurt. Especially in Cleveland. But i am surprised that his first half wasn’t far worse. I just keep remembering him getting hit every outing.
Was he covering MLB all season? If so, he shouldn’t have to be told who the contenders are… it’s his job to tell us! If he can’t do that without being prompted by the release of a ballot, then he’s not being proactive at his job.
The All-Star starter is almost a mini mid-season Cy Young anyway and these conversations and debates of Sale/Salazar/whomever start then. Then the season progresses, conversations continue, and the list evolves. Same goes for MVP, ROY, etc.
Waiting until August to start looking at these things, then just scrolling through stats to figure out your top-5 strikes me as lazy.
Well, we had a writer turn in a ballot with a week left in the season, so lazy is something we can’t put past this group. And again, it’s not that he needs to be told who the contenders are.
It’s like a manager of a department getting asked at the end of the year which employee communicated the best. Sure, he probably has a good grasp on the issue, but probably not as good as the manager who gets told at the beginning of the year that he’s going to be asked who the best communicator is at the end of the year, and not who was the most efficient, or punctual or anything else. The latter can hone in on his primary task, the former cannot.