People: We've Moved Beyond Wins and RBIs

The great thing about baseball is that it continues to evolve. One way it has certainly evolved is in the use of advanced metrics to be able to qualify players. So it was to very few people's surprise that after relying on statistics like "wins" and "saves"  "fielding percentage" and "stolen bases" and "RBIs" to judge a player, that some would start using more advanced statistics like "FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching)" and "WAR (Wins Above Replacement)" and "VORP (Value Over Replacement Player)" and "UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating)". Hey, we've finally got beyond hits and batting average and gone to the slashes and the overall OPS, so maybe that's a start. Yet many people want to discount the new, more advanced statistics and stick with a combination of the old stuff and their own two eyes. Well, it's time to move past that.

This is all on the heels of the voters getting it right for both the American League and National Cy Young Awards, so it seems a little strange to say. But after questioning why one Tweeter didn't like the results he answered me thusly: "They got both wrong. Combined 31 wins. They are saying the key to a Cy is pitching in a crap division."

Yes, like they say the key to Oscar gold is to be gay or in the Holocaust, the key to winning a Cy Young is pitching in a crap division. Um, what? Listen, the Cy Young award--unlike the MVP award which has the word "valuable" in there--is given to the the best pitcher in both leagues. Meaning, if you're on a bad team or in a "crap division" you can win the award*. And that's what happened. Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum both were the best pitchers in their leagues and won the awards.

*Side Note: I finally had to note this, but the NL West was a better division than the NL Central in 2009. Hands down. There were three teams that could have made the playoffs and two teams that did. The Cards were the only playoff-caliber team in the NL Central and they got swept in the first round by a team from the NL West. So which crap division does Tim Lincecum play in?

But let the griping begin...

STL Today writer Jeff Gordon  decides to rip into the decision saying that Wainwright got "jobbed" (with my comments afterward):

• * Many baseball writers downplayed the value of actually winning games, since Lincecum won just 15 times with a decent supporting team. - Yes, winning games is terribly unimportant. Let's just throw out the fact that wins are as much dependent on your bullpen (the Cards had an All-Star closer) and your run support (Sir Albert is going to be the MVP and Matt Holliday certainly helped) as it is on your own pitching. So decent supporting team?

• “Usually the guy with the most first-place votes wins,” observed Post-Dispatch baseball writer Rick Hummel, who seem baffled by the outcome. - I'm not sure if Mr. Hummel was aware, but the voting is done on a points system. So, technically, yes, you can have the most first-place votes and not win.

• Carpenter was left off two ballots, with Javier Vazquez and Danny Haren presumably getting some local love. If Carpenter made those two ballots, he could have won the award.- Two local writers? Not exactly. Keith Law and Will Carroll are national. And yes, let's make sure next time to put Carpenter on those two ballots so that he can take home the win. But wait! I know Gordon is not a "stathead", but his math here is wrong. Even if Law and Carroll were to have listed Carpenter third, he would have still finished behind Lincecum.
  

• [Wainwright] pitched more innings than any pitcher in the league. That is a huge statistic, since it represents physical sacrifice made for the sake of the team. -  Let's put that in perspective. He pitched 3.2 innings more than Dan Haren who the writer dismissed as a joke candidate and 7.2 innings more than Tim Lincecum who must not have had any physical sacrifice for the sake of the team. Oh...wait, Wainwright had two more starts than Lincecum? Hmmm. So Wainwright pitched 6.9 innings per start and Lincecum pitched 7.0 innings per start. So...
  

• Wainwright won the most games in the NL, 19. Winning games is the whole point of playing, so that statistic should carry great weight. - Ohhhhhhhh...that's the point of baseball! I was so confused up until this point
  

Oh, but the writer, Jeff Gordon, is not done:

• Revenge Of The Nerds: CYA Voting Ruined - No joke, that's the title of his post. Nerds have taken over baseball!!! Women, children, and jocks need to run for cover!!
  

• Perhaps someday baseball games will be played in a computer, not on the field. Statistical formulas will determine outcomes, not actual action. - What? The guy writes on a blog. And he's complaining about computers being used to enhance something that is being done before? I don't get it.

• In such a world, perhaps Vazquez would win the Cy Young every year. In the meanwhile, Tipsheet, old-fashioned to core, will insist that ACTUAL VICTORIES should count for something. - It's a tremendously dumb continuation from the thought above and it's about to get a lot worse in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

• We can’t wait until next week to see the stat guys argue that Albert Pujols was by no means the Most Valuable Player in the National League last season. - And there we go. This is a conspiracy against the St. Louis Cardinals from all the Geeks, Nerds, Statheads, and people not from the Midwest (who somehow found it fit to give Zack Greinke the Cy Young...)! A travesty! And they're gunning for the biggest travesty of all--robbing Sir Albert of his throne! This guy is a joke.
  

And the American League explanation from the one Detroit writer who put Justin Verlander first on his ballot:

• Verlander received my first-place vote because nobody was tougher on the mound with the season on the line for his team.- Ummm...not sure if you heard, buddy, but the Tigers didn't make the playoffs because the team fell apart with the season on the line. Verlander's two best months were May and July--what season was on the line then? In the final two months against Minnesota, Verlander was 1-2 with 14 earned runs allowed in 21.1 innings (5.91 ERA). Not exactly the toughness you described.

• He was an inspirational "horse," using Tigers manager Jim Leyland's term for him, on a fading team. - "Inspirational horse"? Really? REALLY?! Is that all you can muster? If he was so "inspirational" than how come he couldn't inspire his team to not collapse or inspire Miguel Cabrera not to go out partying the night before the biggest game of the season with your opponents? Jeez.
  

Keith Law explains his ballot and says, "Carpenter's innings total was the main reason he ended up off my ballot. He pitched extremely well when on the mound, but not well enough to close the value gap between him and the three pitchers I listed, each of whom threw at least 27 innings more than Carpenter. Both Carpenter and Wainwright received significant help from their defense, while neither Lincecum nor Vazquez could say the same."

Listen, you or I may not agree with that reasoning (or the reasoning Will Carroll gave for his pick), but when you look at the statistics for Carpenter, Wainwright, Haren, Lincecum, and Vazquez, they are very close. The fact that the Braves and Diamondbacks were bad this season kept Vazquez and Haren out of the discussion for most of the year, but they definitely deserve a spot. Yesterday and today the griping has been quite loud about the decisions made (Jon Heyman even called hashtagged them on Twitter as #dumbsportswriters). The writers finally made the correct decisions--let's step back and give them some credit for once and stop worrying about win total or the word "horse".