The Cy Young Award has evolved a lot over the last decade. Felix Hernández’s triumph over a 21-win CC Sabathia and 19-win David Price in 2010 feels like a lifetime ago. This was a shock at the time—despite having the lowest ERA in baseball, Hernández had just 13 wins versus 12 losses for a paltry Mariners squad. That race sticks out to me as the moment where public pitching analysis began to modernize.
Using ERA as the primary means for evaluating pitchers seems foolish today, but this was a massive step. Of course, Hernández still checked most of the boxes old-school baseball writers look for when determining awards, such as throwing the most innings in the American League, starting the most games, and being one strikeout off the league lead. Still, the decision marked a philosophical shift that showed run prevention now trumped wins in terms of pitcher evaluations.
There was another surprise in 2018 when Blake Snell outlasted Justin Verlander for the award. Snell was dominant from the get-go, compiling 21 wins, 221 strikeouts, and an astounding 1.89 ERA. The only downside? He pitched just 180 2/3 innings compared to Verlander’s 214. Still, the writers bucked conventional wisdom and narrowly crowned Snell as the Cy Young.
Ironically, Verlander was better than Snell in most aspects of the game. Especially those that we no know are more meaningful in terms of evaluating pitchers.
| Snell | Verlander | |
|---|---|---|
| Wins | 21 | 16 |
| ERA | 1.89 | 2.52 |
| IP | 180.2 | 214 |
| K% | 31.6 | 34.8 |
| K-BB% | 9.1 | 4.4 |
| WHIP | 0.97 | 0.90 |
| SIERA | 3.30 | 2.63 |
| FIP | 2.95 | 2.78 |
| SwSt% | 15.1 | 14.5 |
| fWAR | 4.7 | 6.6 |
| bWAR | 7.1 | 6.9 |
While we learned innings could be overlooked, the writers also told us that “basic” stats still held more weight than advanced ones. At least three years ago they did.
This year should set another trend in Cy Young balloting: More emphasis should be placed on innings pitched than in years past with starting pitchers workloads decreasing rapidly. That should vault Zack Wheeler ahead of Corbin Burnes and Max Scherzer for the award.
Of course, you were already aware of this shift since John Smoltz mentioned it during every pitching change in the World Series, but that’s just part of his schtick. The old man did have a point, though. 45 starting pitchers completed 200 or more innings in 2010 while just three did this past season
2020’s shortened season helped to catalyze this massive decrease, but the trend is undeniable. As it turns out, Wheeler earned the third-highest share of his team’s innings since 2016 (15.02%), coming off a year where he threw just 71 innings. The only two pitchers with a greater share of innings were Justin Verlander in 2019, who won the Cy Young, and Max Scherzer in 2018, who lost out to Jacob deGrom.
Certainly, this is not a perfect argument. Scherzer and Burnes each had better stats than Wheeler across the board. In fact, Burnes’ season was arguably historic.
You see a massive regression across the board, but those barrels still make me chuckle. Hell, that is a serious jump for someone who allowed just barrels in 1.8% of PAs on the entire season. Nevertheless, it is hard to discount the fact that pitchers are more effective in fewer innings.
Zero pitchers in the National League who threw more than 180 innings earned a SIERA under 3.00 this past season. None. Zilch. Wheeler, on the other hand, was in a league of his own in terms of innings pitched and effectiveness.
He is completely by himself among qualified pitchers in the National League. There is no telling how Burnes would have performed with an increased workload, and it would be a fool’s (or super smart person’s) errand to try and accurately project that. What we do know is that Wheeler was in a class by himself if you consider his workload and effectiveness together.
I have focused a lot on Wheeler versus Burnes specifically. That is because I see him as the second most viable candidate. Some Scherzer analysis is coming, I just want to put a nail in this coffin first.
Last season’s award went to the player formerly known as T*evor B*uer. While he was very clearly the National League’s most dominant pitcher, some dissenters to his victory cited a massive advantage of pitching to weaker competition in the altered Central Division.
2020 was an anomaly with teams only playing 60 games against those in their geographically-based divisions, so those concerns were more valid than in a normal, 162 game schedule. However, Burnes threw 105.2 of his 167 innings against sub-.500 teams. It is difficult for me to call someone the best pitcher in baseball when nearly two-thirds of their innings were against objectively bad teams.
This is a big reason why Burnes’ bWAR (5.6) is so much lower than his fWAR (7.5). Baseball-Reference puts a greater emphasis on the level of opposition than FanGraphs and Burnes faced few winning teams. To be fair, he did still dominate those innings against teams better than .500, but Wheeler was better in more innings.
Put it all together and it’s hard to reason that Burnes’ results were impressive enough to supersede his own lack of innings, let alone Wheeler’s massive advantage there.
Now for Scherzer. He ended the season with nearly identical odds (+100 vs +115) as Burnes for the award, so Vegas sees him as a near-favorite. Like Burnes, he would set a new record low for innings pitched by a non-reliever Cy Young recipient in a full-season. Unlike Burnes, Scherzer was not historically great in 2021, just very good.
His WHIP (0.86) was foolishly low and the best in baseball. He also turned in the second-best K-BB% (28.9) of his career while dominating down the stretch for the Dodgers. Many of the writers who vote on this award love a good narrative and Scherzer certainly has that.
Ironically, he was also fantastic when facing lineups for the third time (2.23 ERA, .236 wOBA) and against winning teams (1.90 ERA, 0.80 WHIP). Just call him the anti-Burnes.
However, Scherzer was the beneficiary of some good luck that aided his success. He had the second-highest strand rate (84.3%) last season trailing only Robbie Ray. His ERA (2.46) also outperformed his FIP (2.97) and xFIP (3.24). The fact that he spent half his season in the neutral confines of Dodger Stadium while Wheeler toiled away in Citizens Bank Park should not be overlooked either.
I am once again nit-picking, but it is clear Scherzer was less valuable to his team(s) than Wheeler was to his, and those 30 additional innings were a big reason why. It is especially difficult to differentiate his success from Burnes’ when he prevented fewer runs and missed fewer bats with a similar workload.
Selecting Burnes and setting a new record-low for IP by a Cy Young winner would be a massive disservice to Wheeler, especially in a season where starters pitched less than ever before. It would be a misevaluation of present value by the voters if Wheeler did not win the award given his success with a significantly greater workload.
Photo by Kyle Ross/Icon Sportswire | Adapted by Doug Carlin (@Bdougals on Twitter)