more Verlander stats:
FIP: 3.27
WHIP: 0.803
ERA+: 179
WAR: 7.7
K/BB: 7.14
BB/9: 1.7
more Cole stats:
FIP: 2.62
WHIP: 0.887
ERA+: 184
WAR: 6.6
K/BB: 6.87
BB/9: 2.0
It’s absurdly close. I wish there was a way to vote for a tie. My vote would go to Verlander, but man is Cole’s 2nd half one of the most dominant things I’ve seen in a long time.
Post-season thread here.
I guess a tie between Cole and Verlander is possible. There have been award ties before. Okay, just three I can think of. Still.
The WAR difference between Verlander and Cole baffles me. Baseball Reference says JV is 1.1 better than Cole; Fangraphs says Cole is 1 WAR better. 1 WAR is a significant gap; the method is asserting Verlander (or Cole) is definitely a better pitcher. But there’s just no underlying reason to explain that. Both pitchers gave up 66 runs, and Verlander pitched 11 more innings, but more of his runs were earned and more of his outs were balls in play, suggesting slightly better defensive assistance. Verlander surrendered fewer baserunners, but more home runs. Cole’s team went 26-7 in his starts, and they went 24-10 in Verlander’s. To my eyes an honest observer cannot really say Verlander is clearly superior but I cannot say Cole is either.
I went through the game logs. By my count, there are eleven games the Astros would have won that they would have probably lost had Cole been replaced by someone performing at a replacement level that day. The number for Verlander is ten, with a borderline case, so you can’t even pull out the “pitched well enough to win” argument for either guy. I cannot construct an argument to defend WAR valuing either man as better than the other.
In totally unrelated news, a member of the Kansas City Royals has won the AL home run championship for the first time in franchise history. Jorge Soler hit 48 homers to win the crown, 3 more than Mike Trout. Soler also had 117 RBIs and hit .265.