Should MLB replace Cy Young awards with the "C. Mathewson" and "W. Johnson" awards?
 

Hi all,

I just finished reading "Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train" by Henry W. Thomas (his grandson, who I understand is a Net54 member). It is a magnificent book, and I highly recommend it. Having grown up in Idaho, I especially enjoyed reading Chapter 2 "The Weiser Wonder" detailing his time in the Idaho Southern Idaho League! (As a kid I can fondly remember playing in baseball tournaments at Walter Johnson Field in Weiser, ID.)

As I was finishing the book, the idea occurred to me (probably not the first to have it): Should MLB not replace the NL and AL Cy Young Awards, respectively, with the Christy Mathewson (NL) and Walter Johnson (AL) Awards? (Could be colloquially referred to by their nicknames e.g. the "Matty" and the "Barney").

The great Cy Young has been duly honored as the namesake of the best pitcher awards since 1956. However, dating back even to the first HOF vote to the present day, it seems to be general (though obviously not universal) consensus that Mathewson and Johnson were historically the more dominant pitchers in their respective leagues.

I am sure it won't happen, but would be curious to hear other thoughts on the idea!

(Feel free to also post your favorite Mattys, Barneys, and Youngs).

I really hope they don't do that. I am probably in the minority but I hated the batting titles getting Gwynn's and Carew's name added to the award.

Im all about the traditions in Baseball and would like to keep as many of them as possible. Cy Young does hold the record for most wins career so I think its not so bad having the award in his honor.

I agree it is "not so bad" to honor Young. I simply feel a change would be especially timely now as voters no longer tend to blindly vote for the pitcher with the most wins. Also, would be cool to honor two greats with strong NL/AL associations, rather than just one!

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I'm right with your line of thought.

Baseball seems to be trying to make " things " current, and the significance of awards is diluted down imo.

Gwynn and Carew were fine players, but not deserving of their names to an award.

I agree. And they should have changed the batting title to the "Ty Cobb Award", if anything.

They can change it but maybe with more modern players like the Koufax , ,Gibson . I don't see why we have to have such a dated reference.

Because they (Cobb and Young) had the best numbers? (Highest avg and most wins)

Sounds like a good reason to me.

With baseball's rich history, i fully agree with you all that it is rather rediculous for MLB to attach modern player names to its awards. Cobb is obviously more worthy. Along the lines of my original post, then, how about e.g. Cobb (AL) and Hornsby (NL) awards for the batting titles?!

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No. Keep them as-is. Gwynn and Carew awards = horrible idea.

Because without the history/tradition the whole thing devolves into a situation like modern cards. I really can't see naming the awards after whoever led in that stat last year. Or more like new cards, last month or week or maybe named after some hyped minor leaguer who's expected to be special.

There's too much stuff where many younger people don't appreciate it because they're entirely unaware of anything that came earlier. There's also a boatload of stuff that's the "new" thing even if it's been around since the 1800's (Or 1970's, or whenever it was actually invented. )


Steve B

The less tradition MLB chooses to throw away, the better.

I say no. The CY award has a very special meaning to the game.


HoFAutoRookies.com

Plus I might have to find another favorite card. :cool:

Wow! That is a beauty!!


HoFAutoRookies.com

I really liked the name change with Gwynn and Carew. Don't like at all the idea of Cobb getting it, and I'm cool with the Cy Young award staying as is.

If I was forced to choose two names to be on the batting awards, it would have been Ted Williams and Stan Musial.

I get why cy young had it named after him. I just think the game has changed a ton since then. It's like the nfl mov award being called the red grange. It's
In the 56 it made more sense to name it cy young . If they were to name it today I don't think it should have any of the early players.

I'm surprised at the reaction to Gwynn. In my opinion he is an extremely worthy pick. The guy hit 300 19 years in a row. That's incredible. I am however really disappointed with the Carew pick. I don't care if he has the batting titles, Ted Williams is the obvious pick for AL. No one will think of Rod Carew when you ask them to name the top ten hitters of all time.

Well, MLB could do like the NHL where all the awards are known by a player's name (ie, the Calder Trophy for the ROY)

Let's see:

Jackie Robinson Award - ROY

Cy Young Award - Best pitcher in baseball
Christy Mathewson Award - NL
Walter Johnson Award - AL

Ty Cobb Award - Best hitter/highest BA in baseball
Honus Wagner/Tony Gwynn Award - NL
Ted Williams - AL

Hank Aaron Award - Most HRs in baseball
Babe Ruth Award - AL
Willie Mays Award - NL

Fielding Awards:

OF - Tris Speaker Award
2B - Joe Morgan Award
C - Johnny Bench Award
SS - Ozzie Smith Award
3B - Brooks Robinson Award

The only one I have a concern with would be the Walter Johnson Award. I'm afraid the name would be shortened, and it would euphemistically be known as "The Johnson Award" ;)

Steve

Edited to correct the name of the Calder Trophy (thanks to Paul H for the correction).

Change Aaron to Bonds :) (Aaron already has an award after him too), Bench to Pudge, OF Andruw Jones.


HoFAutoRookies.com

yup.
 

I would certainly be OK with that AL/NL duo as well.

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In my opinion the Cy Young award has little to do with Cy Young and its association is a historical one known only to purists. If you asked Kershaw to tell you anything about Cy Young I don't think he could. For that reason I don't really see any real need to change the name. It has taken on a different meaning and naming it after another pitcher I think would be a distraction. The award Cy Young has surpassed the player and man.

Be glad we're not talking about Randy Johnson, because then it would be "The Big Unit Award."

I think all MLB awards should have the name of a great player attached. For me, it doesn't even have to be the "best" player. Attaching names to awards encourages people to think (and care) about the the history of the game.

Same goes for other sports. I especially like the college football awards -- Heisman, Lombardi, Nagurski, Thorpe etc. etc.

No, please don't.

Steve, The NHL ROY is the Calder award. The Hobey Baker award is for college hockey's best player. BTW I'm always looking for Hobey items if anyone has any ;)

That being said, I like the idea of the Matty and WaJo awards but it will never happen!

You spelled Sandberg wrong. ;)

David, I'm ok with your suggestion, except that I prefer the "Big Train" rather than "Barney."

What is a Kershaw? Is it something like this?

The awards should be left as is! If you don't know who Cy Young is and what he did you should follow bowling or polo.

It should stay how it is, I think you'd be surprised by how many players know who the old timer are.

But, if you wanted to be a stickler and name the awards after the greatest players you'd have to go as follows:

AL MVP- Babe Ruth Award

NL MVP- Wille Mays Award

AL pitcher- Walter Johnson Award

NL Pitcher- Greg Maddux Award


AL Best Hitter- Ted Williams Award

NL Best Hitter- Rogers Hornsby Award


Gold Gloves by position:

C- Johnny Bench

1b- Keith Hernandez

2b-Bill Mazeroski

SS- Ozzie Smith (for now)

3b- Brooks Robinson

LF-Yastrzremski

CF- Andruw Jones

RF- Roberto Clemente

P- Jim Kaat Award (since Maddux already gets the nl pitching)

They named a sports award after a sculptor?

:D

Used to go past one of his workshops pretty regularly as a kid, and some of the local towns had small lawn sculptures until they got expensive enough that people stole a couple, after that they all got sent to art auctions.

Steve B

...with the history of baseball, the idea of having an Andruw Jones award is kind of hilarious.

...and I think Willie Mays should be on more awards:

Best Pitcher - NL = Willie Mays
Best Pitcher - AL = Willie Mays
MVP - NL = Willie Mays
MVP - AL = Willie Mays
ROY - AL = Willie Mays
ROY - NL = Willie Mays

(kind of brings to mind... "At first base, Bugs Bunny. At second base Bugs Bunny. At third base, Bugs Bunny...")

IMHO there are already enough awards named after players. The 'age of specialization' lends itself to even more possibilities: Best set-up man; best seventh inning reliever; best OF performing in a platooned roll; etc. etc.

Statues are another thing - I'm not sure if Burger King has one in the works for me yet.

Too much celebrating for just performing whether as a player or an eater.

They have their piles of money and they can make their own statues - as Ivan Rodriguez has in his back yard (S.I. story).

No- Who's on First, What's on second, and I don't know is on third

well, he IS easily the greatest fielding CF'er of all time, it really isn't even close. every fielding statistic of any merit has him wayy ahead of everyone else

I'd feel completely comfortable taking Mays over Jones in a purely defensive role.
People who watched him play speak of his incredible instincts to go with his out of this world physical talents... Obviously Jones was a great defensive player, but better than the guy who had to patrol the vast Polo Grounds and the horrors of Candlestick? I don't think so.

in every single defensive statistic he beats Mays. Mays was a better hitter, and a better overall player, but AJ was easily the best defensive Cf'er f all time. He made catches on the trot that most guys had to dive for. His instincts off the bat were simply astounding as was his ability to track the ball as well as his arm.

Total Zone Runs career : AJ-220 Mays-176

Fangraphs DEF number: AJ- 281 Mays- 170


yeah, it's not really close

Player Awards
 

Right on with Hornsby as best NL hitter. He averaged .401 over 5 consecutive seasons and .399 over 6 years...that's amazing! Have to disagree with NL pitcher...Mathewson, Alexander and Seaver better than Maddux with Seaver & Alexander both posting better WAR & JAWS figures than Maddux. Also, one of the stats that gets lost with post 90's to present day pitchers is the fact that they simply didnt or don't complete games. The toughest outs for a pitcher is the final 3-6 outs and starters don't have to get them anymore. Not their fault of course because that's the way the game is played, but it's hard to say a 7/8 inning pitcher is better than a hurler who completed 50%+ of his games during his prime.

Regards,
Joe T.

Mddux has higher WAR than all but Clemens (cough cough roids) Cy Young and Walter Johnson (and only 1 behind WJ in 906 less innings) I think when you consider he did most of his pitching in the steroid era AND didn't possess a 95+ fastball, a very good argument could be made that Maddux is the greatest pitcher of all time.

I am not a fan of baseball reference as I think most of their proprietary stuff is garbage, I use fangraphs


http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.asp...ter=&players=0

WAR Rankings
 

Not. You better check your data on baseball reference. Maddux is ranked 8th all-time in WAR behind: 1) Young, 2) Johnson, 3) Clemens, 4) Alexander, 5) Nichols, 6) Grove, 7) Seaver. Also, interestingly enough and as I stated in my previous post, Seaver averaged approx. 7.40 innings per start over his 20-year career while Maddux averaged only 6.77 innings per start. That is a significant 2/3 of an inning disparity per start and a loud statement of how Seaver pitched much deeper into games.

Dustin, you're going to have to help out a bit.

How has the game changed " a ton "?

The basics, fundamentals, foundation of the game are still in place. In fact you can go to any neighborhood park and find people playing a ball game that's easily recognizable from current day or 100 years ago.

Sure there are teams throughout the country now, and bats have weight limits, and the mound is just a bit lower. But other than that, not much seems to have changed, imo.

WAR Rankings
 

Here you go...Rank, Pitcher, MLB Years, WAR#. Taken from BaseballReference.com

1. Cy Young+ (22) 170.3
2. Walter Johnson+ (21) 152.3
3. Roger Clemens (24) 139.4
4. Pete Alexander+ (20) 117.0
5. Kid Nichols+ (15) 116.6
6. Lefty Grove+ (17) 109.9
7. Tom Seaver+ (20) 106.3
8. Greg Maddux+ (23) 104.6

I haven't studied it in detail, but one of the things I wonder about WAR is how they account for some of the slightly connected stuff. Those things make it slightly similar to wins as far as pitchers go.

For instance, Wins relies on how good the team is, and who the pitcher pitches against. I believe one reason fewer pitchers reach 20 wins is because the rotations are set up so the better guys get matched up against the other teams better pitchers. (I'd have to really get into it to see if this happens more now with larger rotations and less travel time, or if it happened more back then with smaller rotations and more travel time.)

Like wise for WAR, the players who are the second tier players, very good but not great might have that stat dragged down by being up against someone "special" Realistically a pitchers chances against Johnson, Young, or any of those others when they were in their prime weren't all that good.

Of course, WAR might be set up to account for that, and if it is then I'll have to rethink things.

Al things considered, I'd still think Young did stuff that's far beyond what almost anyone else has. Not to mention the amazing durability in an era when pitchers were used as much as possible.

Steve B

I provided a link in my reply above to Fangraphs (which has Maddux 4th) their proprietary WAR is much better and used more often by the saber community than baseball reference.(which to be honest, is considered a little dated)

1- Clemens- 133.7
2- Young- 131.5
3- W. Johnson- 117.1
4- Maddux- 116.7



http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.asp...ter=&players=0

and, to be fair, using RA9-WAR Maddux is 6th (and he and Clemens are the only live ball era pitchers in the top 6, which means a good bit and WAR per game rank higher than all the rest)

and using RAR he is 3rd behind only Young and Clemens



WAR does not consider pitcher wins at all, it looks at the individual pitcher's on field performance relative to a statistical "replacement player" so who a pitcher faces doesn't matter. If he goes 6 innings, K's 9, walks 0, gives up no home runs, one unearned run and loses 1-0 he will be given as much credit as if he went 6, K'd 9, walked 0 gave up no home runs and won 19-0 as he is only credited with the things he has control of (very loose comparison but you get my drift)

War
 

You are kidding....right? Fangraphs has Perry, Blyleven and Ryan ranked ahead of Seaver, Grove, & Mathewson (not to mention Pedro Martinez)....INNEDIATELY placing its rankings as a complete Joke! And this is the ranking system you swear by? Those 3 pitchers aren't in the same league as the latter 4...LOL...

War
 

You should also check out JAWS which weights WAR for both career & a pitchers 7 best seasons (for peak value purposes) at 50% each. Very interesting...

sigh...... WAR is cumulative, it is not a score. so a borderline HOF'er who threw for 24 years like Perry will have a higher score than Mathewson , seriously go lookat the innings counts and it will show both who A- had the better peak and B- who had the slowest decline. it depends on the rater on which of those two they value.


and why the argument against Nolan Ryan? 9.55 K rate when avg was under 6, a career ERA of 3.19 and an FIP of 2.98 nearly 5400 innings pitched. that's pretty damn elite stuff.

look at this table showing most innings pitched and see how it impacts total WAR score

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.asp...ers=0&sort=8,d

and yes fangraphs is simply better. It uses park and league adjusted stats instead of treating a sub 2 ERA in the deadball era as equal to one in the steroid era.

War
 

Steroid era? You forgot one major fact that most people neglect....pitchers weren't immune to taking steroids as well (let's start with Clemens who rescued his career with PEDs) and good pitching ALWAYS stops good hitting. I can prove that notion by a .300 average or 70% failure rate making a hitter a hall of fame candidate. Bottom line is when a statistical methodology places pitchers like Perry & Blyleven (I'll give you Ryan although he could NEVER measure up to Grove and Seaver...NEVER!) are rated ahead of the likes of Seaver, Grove, Pedro, Matty, etc., it's philosophy has more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese!

War
 

The other issue you continue to dodge is the logging of late innings which 80s and later pitchers seldom had to do. To average only 6.77 innings per start (Maddux) tells a HUGE story that consistenly runs ramped among post 80s starters. They DIDN'T have to pace themselves! There's a big difference going out there in the first inning knowing you can lay it on the line for 7 innings as opposed to saving something for the 8th and the 9th innings. It shortened the game for great pitchers like Maddux (just one example of course) who could utilize their 100% stuff until they were gassed at 90-100 pitches. No WAR or JAWS charts could ever measure that concept. Bottom line is there are so many caviats and intangibles statistics can never measure. I've been watching baseball since 1970 and Seaver is the best pitcher, COMBINED peak value and long career, I've ever seen (discounting Clemens since he obviously cheated after leaving Boston). Interestingly enough, the best peak value pitcher was Pedro Martinez until Clayton Kershaw came along and Clayton just may wind up as the greatest pitcher ever before he is done. His statistics are absurd; off the chart supernatural numbers for Ks/walks ratio, WHIP & ERA. Peace!

actually there aren't many people in the HOF with a 70% failure rate, because walks are important.

and you still don't understand WAR . WAR tells us their total wins above replacement accrued. It does NOT tell us who the best pitcher was when it comes to a career. (tho it may do this in a smaller sample such as 1 season)

if you don't get why Maddux is easily higher than Pedro and the others as far as total WAR. He pitched at high level for 20+ years, so did Perry ,so did Ryan.

examples:

Perry pitched 5350 innings and has 100.1 WAR

Mathewson has 4780 innings and has 90. WAR

that means Perry accumulated 10 more WAR over 570 MORE innings. It doesn't say Perry was the "better" pitcher.


HOWEVER, if you take WAR and analyze how many innings it took, you can get a pretty good idea of their value per inning pitched.

Maddux- 5008.1 innings 116.7 WAR = 0.0233 WAR per inning for their career ( or 23.302 WAR per 1000 innings)


Mathewson - 4780 inn, 90 WAR = 0.018 per inning or 18.82 (per 1000 innings)


Cy Young- 7354 inn, 131.5 WAR = 0.01788 per inn or 17.88 WAR per 1000 inn


Walter Johnson- 5914.2 inn, 117.1 WAR = 0.01979 per inn or 19.79 per 1000 inn


Seaver- 4782 inn, 92.4 WAR = 0.0193 per inn or 19.30 WAR per 1000 inn


Pedro- 2827 inn, 84.5 WAR = 0.02988 per inn, or 29.99 WAR per 1000 inn


NOW, it's well known Pedro had just about the greatest peak of all time, so it comes down to how do you judge pitchers? If it's by peak, then Pedro would be your man, if it's by length of career it's Cy Young, if it's by combination of the two? It's pretty obviously Maddux (unless you ignore Clemens and his double peak roid red flags)



confirmation bias and eye witness accounts don't carry much weight in sports, you need hard data, hand waving it away because it doesn't match your opinions does not improve the level of discourse. evidence does and I presented above that of the above ,oft discussed, top pitchers of all time, Maddux has the best combination of career length and performance.

yeah but dead ball era pitchers had huge parks, a ball that was spit on, brown, misshapen at times, faced a lower quality hitter , didn't throw at full strength most of the time and didn't have the slider, splitter or cutter to put more pressure on their elbow and shoulder. and all sorts of other things too.

The thing is, you can't blame pitchers for their era. The deadball guys got the era they got, as did the guys in the 80's, as did everybody else. The modern era is one of specialization, such is the way of things, but punishing people and ignoring evidence because of some sort of "yeah but " thing is intellectually dishonest. Remember, the numbers are park and league adjusted.

I feel each player needs to be judged in context of the environment and the norms for the day. The "steroid" players should have a mark next to their name. It's one thing for the Babe to eat a hot dog during a game but it's another thing to inject artificial hormones. (at least to me) There will probably never be another pitcher to have even 100 less wins than Cy, let alone as many or more.

That is great! I almost fell out of my chair.

What if the pigs etc that Babe was eating for his hotdogs were injected with hormones, would he be a cheater then!? [emoji33]

War
 

Point well taken Nick with reference to the large ballparks and "mushed" dark baseballs. I totally agree it is virtually impossible to judge a statistic like ERA "post-WW2" VS. the dead-ball era. I also agree that NO sabermetric including WAR can adjust accordingly, that is with 100% certainty. It's almost as if pre-1920 pitchers need to be placed in a separate bucket and only measured against their peers from that same era. On another note, the other HUGE advantage post 80s/90s pitchers have versus their pre-80's peers are the incredible conditioning programs (+ PEDs) that were established which is why pitchers no longer show a rapid decline in performance as they approach their mid-30s. Imagine pitchers like Gibson, Palmer, etc staying physically fit to 40 or longer??? Pre-1980, lifting weights was considered extremely harmful for pitchers, yet in reality, the mindset changed to realize it was essential for continued and enhanced performance. That concept has created a significant durability for post-90's pitchers with many star hurlers maintaining their skill sets to 40 and over.

I think keeping the name Cy Young Award is a given at this point, as your question seems to recognize. A "Cy Young" pitcher is a thing unto itself. The award inflates his legacy a bit, but he obviously was truly great so no real harm done in my view.
Naming the batting titles after players is just unnecessary and dumb, I think. However, I guess it doesn't really matter since no one will ever, ever, ever refer to them that way except for the occasional references that will always be tongue in cheek ... because pretty much everyone thinks that naming the batting titles after players is patently dumb.

I agree, you kinda have to look at the player vs other's of their era. and I don't know about an "asterisk" but I have no problem with the way the voters have decided to keep many of the obvious offenders out of the HOF.


Pitcher wins aren't really worth much as far as judging pitcher ability due to the variables out of their control (mainly offense) , so it really doesn't matter much if anyone gets close to Cy Young or not. Heck, he played in the 3 man rotation days back when relievers were only there for when things got ugly Now, most teams runa starter out for 6 and then bring in the specialists.

WAR isn't perfect, it's just the best we have to compare across generations.

There is something to be said for conditioning of course, there is also something interesting to be said for the tendency towards max effort pitching over less innings seemingly leading to MORE injury then back when guys threw 90% and tossed 300 innings a year. It's beginning to appear that it's effort over innings rather than just innings alone as far as the cause of so many elbow blowouts (which is hampered more by so many high school and college coaches overpitching their best arms)


actually, OVERALL, peak performance periods have gotten younger since the roid era ended. it appears that the best thing steroids did was slow decline (and in some bring a 2nd peak) we used to think player peaks were 28-31 now it's 26-28

+1 or even the Ted award

War
 

Nick, I am a professional pitching coach and I can promise you that the increase in Tommy John surgery's is due to young arms throwing too hard too fast, that is at too young of an age. Dr James Andrews (the best at what he does), insists that someone throwing 85+ at the age of 16/17 or younger has a 75% risk of eventually blowing their elbow. So many young kids throw 90+ in high school now because of super conditioning programs and...yes...PEDs! Why? Because there is simply too much money at stake in this era via college scholarships or the draft. That is EXACTLY what is gong on right now and it's only going to get worse. Many young elbows were not built to throw that hard that quickly, and if not at the high school level, it eventually catches up to pitchers in their early to mid 20s.

well, that's kinda what I said (just in less detail) or are you not arguing? (it kinda read like you were arguing).

The evidence isn't clear on EXACTLY the cause, there are many variables, but max effort pitching and year round pitching for young players seems to be the leading candidate right now. (I suspect it will turn out to be a bit of both) Have you read that new book Fastball yet? It's supposed to have a ton of stuff about the rise of TJ surgery.

The IOC and WADA would say yes.

Of course they didn't have that stuff when he played so we can be pretty sure he wasn't using that.

Steve B

is whisky a PED????? :eek:


:p

War
 

Haven't read "Fastball" yet, but you are one of several people that have told me to check it out. I have to pick it up soon...thx for the info!

For me and my elbow problems (put Ben Gay on after every inning) it was throwing 80% curves before I was out of my teens. Younger pitchers shouldn't throw that many curves, imo.