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

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Vintageclout

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 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

[bravos4evr]

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

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.

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)

[Vintageclout]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

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)

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...

[Vintageclout]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

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

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...

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Vintageclout

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...

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.

[Vintageclout]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

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.

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!

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Vintageclout

Steroid era? You forgot one major fact that most people neglect....pitchers weren't immune to taking steroids as well (let's start with Clemrvs 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 than a block of Swiss cheese!

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.

[Vintageclout]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

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.

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!

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Vintageclout

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!

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.

[Leon]

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.

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

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.

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by Leon

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.

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

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Leon

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.

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.

[Vintageclout]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

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.

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.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Vintageclout

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.

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