Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, Gleyber Torres, Greg Bird, Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffield, Dillon Tate and Miguel Andujar.
Ok, still not enough, but that would be a helluva rebuild package.
Max Scherzer wins the NL Cy Young. Lester 2nd, Kyle Hendricks 3rd
Porcello wins the AL Cy Young.
Not that Porcello didn;t have a good season, because of course he did, but this is a victory of sorts for traditional stats over more advanced analytics.
Verlander led all pitchers in both leagues with a WAR of 6.6, Kluber had a 6.5, and Porcello “just” 5.0.
But Porcello’s 22-4 W/L record is much more impressive than Verlander’s or Kluber’s, and so…
(I had not realized, until I just now looked it up, that Porcello’s run support this season was 6.61 runs a game, more than half a run per game better than anyone else and a full run or more better than almost every other SP in the majors. 6.61! Verlander’s was 3.97.)
Congrats to both ex-Tigers. Scherzer and Porcello.
Yeah, congratulations to Porcello; he had an excellent year. But that was complete bullshit.
I have no rooting interest whatsoever in either the Tigers or the Red Sox, but it should have been Verlander. His WAR was better, his WHIP was better, his ERA was better, his ERA+ was a little bit worse, he had more K’s, he had far less run support, and he actually got more first-place votes than Porcello (14-8). About the only place where Porcello was noticeably better was in Wins.
What is perhaps even more staggering is that, if you look at the vote breakdown (on this page), it also becomes clear that, while all 30 voters gave Porcello at least one point, there were two voters who did not even rank Verlander among the** five best** AL pitchers of 2016! That is fucking idiotic.
I am not totally convinced that Verlander was THAT much better than Porcello, by which I mean “helped his team win more games.” I think his advantage might have been one additional win, and that’s a narrow thing. A lot of pitchers were around the same general range of value. This isn’t a really stupid travesty like them giving it to Pete Vuckovich in 1982. It was much more stupid for people to vote for Zach Britton.
What I think it exposes, though, is that the voting system is weird and prone to manipulation. Two writers, apparently both in Tampa, chose not to name Verlander at all. Isn’t that kinda weird?
The voting system is an artifact of the days when newspaper reporters were the only reliable source of baseball news. It’s a weird way to do it in 2016.
It’s not that he’s THAT much better. It’s that, by almost every rational measure of pitcher quality, he was just a little bit better. We’re talking, in the Cy Young discussion, about the four or five best pitchers on the planet, so differences are generally going to be relatively small anyway.
But when one guy is a bit better by almost every respectable and meaningful measure, and when the one measure where that guy is clearly behind is a stupid and outdated and almost meaningless measure of pitcher quality (Wins), and when that stupid measure was clearly over-emphasized in the voting, and when there are two voters who apparently don’t even know their asses from a hole in the ground and left the guy off the ballot altogether, then it seems rather unjust.
I’m not bitching at Porcello. He had a great year, he doesn’t control the voters, and i’m happy for him in his win. But Verlander was a better choice. He mightn’t have been a MUCH better choice, but at this level of competition, where everyone under consideration is really good, it’s those small differences that are supposed to matter.
You could have flipped a 3 headed coin between Porcello, Verlander and Kluber for the award and not been wrong.
Run support has nothing to do with the Cy Young award. Verlander had slightly better stats like WHIP and ERA, but as noted above by someone, his ERA+ (adjusted for ballpark) was, while still really good, lower than Porcello and Kluber.
You’re almost right.
It shouldn’t have anything to do with it, but i think that it does end up factoring in. It’s been clear over the years, and is still clear now, that the Wins total factors into the decisions made by at least some of the voters. And Wins is, in some considerable measure, especially at this level of pitching, a product of run support.
Imagine how Verlander’s W-L total might look if he had received 6.61 runs of support per game (like Porcello did), rather than the 3.97 runs that he actually got. And then ask yourself, all other stats being just what they are now, who would have won if Verlander had 20+ wins instead of 16.
And if you’re right, that a three-sided coin would be a reasonable way to choose between Verlander, Porcello, and Kluber (i don’t really disagree; all three were great candidates), then can you explain why two voters couldn’t even find room for Verlander in their top five? Even if we accept that Porcello did enough to get the win, the level of obliviousness that would result in Verlander not making the top five should be sufficient grounds for those two people to have their voting rights withdrawn altogether.
I agree it’s clear that Verlander was indeed better, even if not by much, and to the extent that the CYA ought to go to the best pitcher, well, this time around it didn’t. I don’t know that I’d describe the omission as “unjust”–it’s only an award and I haven’t gotten truly exercised about awards since Steve Garvey beat out Lou Brock for MVP in 1974–but it’s difficult to defend.
In any case, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that a bunch of voters were basing their votes solely on won-loss record, as you say. If Verlander had gotten 6.61 run support a game and Porcello 3.97, and if Verlander had gone 22-4 or whatever while Porcello had won just 16 games, I suspect Verlander would’ve won easily.
It’s just that I hear a lot lately about how voters are increasingly moving away from choosing award winners based on largely outmoded stats such as RBIs and pitcher wins–and then something like this happens, suggesting that the move toward more thoughtful analytics hasn’t gone as far or as fast as we might think.
Sure. This is not exactly keeping me up at night. I don’t get overly worked up about the trinkets won and lost by men making 8-figure salaries. Justin Verlander will be just fine, with his $28 million a year, his fast cars, and his model girlfriend.
I’m just debating for the fun of discussion, which is pretty much all we’re doing when we talk about sports anyway, because in the end none of it matters very much, no matter how important it seems when we’re biting our nails over a tight game.
Mike Schmidt should have won that award, anyway. Brock would have been an awful MVP choice.
It is perhaps somewhat nice to note that at least the vote was really close, and Verlander might have won the award if two writers had mentioned him. In 1983 LaMarr Hoyt, who was not one of the ten best pitchers in the league, won 24 games and won the Cy Young Award pretty handily. The actual best pitcher in the AL, Dave Stieb, didn’t get any votes at all.
It used to be the guy with the flashy W-L total didn’t just win, he won easily.
You’re right, of course, but you can cut me a little slack here–not only was it 1974, long before the advent of modern analytics, but I was a kid. As a kid, sticking up for your heroes when they get “overlooked” is what you do. 
(Also, I just looked it up–Garvey was a pretty awful choice too. Garvey’s WAR was 3.8, Brock’s 3.0. Between them, though, they collected almost all the first-place votes. Great as he was that year, Schmidt got just about no support. Defense still didn’t matter all that much and power mattered less than batting average. A different time.)
True, and you’re right, that’s a good thing.
One other thing I don’t understand about the AL Cy Young is the relatively large difference in voting for Verlander and Kluber. If win totals was pushing things towards Porcello, why didn’t Kluber’s 18 wins push him above Verlander as well particularly as. The “modal” voting was: Verlander 1, Porcello 2, Kluber 3.
You’d kind of suspect PKV on win totals or VKP on more modern statistics. And if anything I’d think Kluber might gain a bit as the Indians beat out Detroit.
But, of course, the real nonsense was anyone who left Verlander off the ballot entirely. Was there bad blood between Detroit and Tampa this year?
Well, 20 wins is the “money” stat: no one remembers or celebrates 18-game winners. Put that together with Porcello’s measly four losses, and I think it’s fair to say that 18-9 and 16-9 are at about the same level of impressiveness: it’s 22-4 that stands out.
Don’t know about bad blood, but Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk says that one of the two Tampa writers submitted his ballot a week-plus before the deadline, thereby missing Verlander’s last two (brilliant) starts and a couple of mediocre ones by Porcello. He also says the Rays faced Porcello five times on the season and Verlander just once…the implication being, these guys relied heavily on what they saw in person. I think I also saw that one of the two writers ranked JA Happ (and his 20 wins) in the top three…so winning 20 seems like a huge deal where this voter at least is concerned.
Nope, can’t explain the voting process as it took place. No excuse for not having those 3 guys in your top 3.
As for the run support, yes, Boston had a top offense in the AL. But Verlander’s overall run support is also somewhat a product of his home ballpark. As it was, he had 16 wins. A little shy of the magic 20 number but quite a bit better than the 13-12 mark that Felix Hernandez put up in his CY winning year.
Bottom line, it’s reasonable to say that any voter who left Verlander off the ballot entirely is an idiot. But I can’t agree that he should obviously have won the award.
Yankees trade Brian McCann to Houston for two pitching prospects.
Trout season!
Abreu is the better pitcher of the two prospects; apparently throws in the high 90s but has terrible control at the moment.
Astros also sign Josh Reddick for $52 million over 4 years, and earlier signed pitcher Charlie Morton (who I had never heard of) to a 2-year, $14 million deal. Looks like they’re going in for the mid-range and lower free agents and locking up their guys early instead of spending big - maybe Encarnacion is off the table now?
Kris Bryant wins NL MVP, garnering 29 of 30 first place votes.
Justin Verlander’s girlfriend, Kate Upton, wasn’t happy he didn’t win the Cy Young award, tweeting: