Scherzer is going to get an undeserved Cy Young

[shellback]

jmo Scherzer looks harder to hit in that he throws more hard stuff than Darvish. Darvish appears to throw alot of off speed crap (which is definitly hard to hit), however he looks like you could wait him out. in other words, make darvish throw strikes. Scherzer comes right at ya.

[sneaky_flute]

Darvish has better "stuff" than Scherzer and I'm willing to bet their strike zones over an entire season look considerably different.

[Blarg]

Please define stuff. Use of stats can be applicable in this instance and show your work.

[YouthofToday]

But who has the greater tWtW???

[arch stanton]

If Darvish hadn't missed time he'd be my pick by virtue of playing on a softball diamond but as it stands I'd hold my nose and vote for another Tigers player for a major award.

[Stradling]

In a league where if you win 60% of your games you are going to the playoffs how can you say pitchers wins are a horrible stat. You can't just ignore that he has won 95% of his decisions. I completely understand that wins aren't a perfect stat but at the end of the day wins are the only thing that matters.

[Blarg]

I would be on board with wins are irrelevant if he wasn't 19-1. Hernandez won the award with only 13 wins but he also has the home field advantage of having the park that has given up the fewest home runs.

But to say Davish is handicapped by Arlington is to ignore that Detroit's ballpark is ranked 5th this year in runs allowed while Arlington is ranked 16th.

[Angelsjunky]

There's not even a sabermetric argument that Scherzer would be "undeserving." No matter which way you look at it, he's been one of the best starters in the AL. Let's see...

 

• He leads the AL in fWAR, despite having two less starts than King Felix
• 3rd in FIP, 5th in xFIP
• 3rd in ERA, and only .12 behind the leader
• 2nd in K/9IP
• 2nd in strikeouts
• 3rd in K/BB

And so on. You can make an argument that he's been the best pitcher in the AL. You can't make an argument that he hasn't been one of the best. That makes him a Cy Young candidate at the least, certainly deserving.

[Erick McClendon]

.22 behind Darvish in ERA now after getting punked by the A's

[tdawg87]

And still better in WHIP and IP.

[Angel Oracle]

Brandon Moss is sick (25 HRs in just some 375 at bats).

[Tank]

But who has the greater tWtW???

 

i tried to pronounce this (tWtW). i sprained my tongue. that completely invalidates this stat for me.

[Tank]

In a league where if you win 60% of your games you are going to the playoffs how can you say pitchers wins are a horrible stat. You can't just ignore that he has won 95% of his decisions. I completely understand that wins aren't a perfect stat but at the end of the day wins are the only thing that matters.

 

i agree with you. wins are one component - put on them a fair amount of value in evaluating a pitcher. use whatever metrics you want, but pitcher wins tell us that a pitcher allowed fewer runs than his team scored.

 

it's not a coincidence that the best pitchers in the history of this game also tend to have the most wins.

[sneaky_flute]

Wins literally tell you nothing about a pitcher's performance. Unfortunately, wins have been used to determine some pretty mediocre Cy Young winners (Colon comes to mind).

[Tank]

wins tell me that a pitcher kept the other team from scoring more runs than his team, and he contributed to that.

 

would i use wins only by themselves? absolutely not. but they do have a place in the overall view of things.

 

if you don't want to use them, be my guest. but that shouldn't invalidate them for everyone else.

[sneaky_flute]

They don't provide any context, dude. A pitcher can get a win after giving up 12 runs.

[m0nkey]

I don't need kershaw's 13 wins and 8 losses to tell me he's having one of the best sessons in recent history

[tennischmp]

They don't provide any context, dude. A pitcher can get a win after giving up 12 runs.

It's not like ERA is much better

[Angel Oracle]

I look at W/L, ERA, WHIP, and Ks/BBs to generally tell me who is the best pitcher.

[happybat4]

Wins are great stats. Joe Saunders and Ramon Ortiz were two of the best angel pitchers when they were here.

[xboom28x]

If he was 19-1 with a 4.75 ERA then yes, I would agree that the wins don't really tell the story.

 

But 19-1 with everything else on his stat line? Tremendous season and a deserving Cy Young candidate.

 

If wins don't matter, how about losses? Are they a "false" stat as well?

[Tank]

They don't provide any context, dude. A pitcher can get a win after giving up 12 runs.

 

which is why i said they shouldn't be looked at in isolation.

[Mark68]

Yawn.

[AZMike]

Darvish went on the DL for a bit and he also leads in xFIP and siera. The issue is that he's not even in the Cy Young conversation when he absolutely should be.

according to xFIP Joe Blanton is a better pitcher than Jered Weaver

Edited August 30, 2013 by AZMike

[YouthofToday]

i tried to pronounce this (tWtW). i sprained my tongue. that completely invalidates this stat for me.

You clearly don't have the grit required to be a real fan of the game then...