Why King Felix Will Win the Cy Young, But Shouldn’t

Corey Kluber deserves the AL Cy Young.  Corey Kluber will not win the AL Cy Young.  Felix Hernandez got off to a hot start, establishing himself early as the best pitcher in the AL, earning himself the starting job in the All-Star game (Kluber was not even an All-Star), and even inserting himself into the MVP discussion as late as mid-August, which will be enough to carry him to this year’s award.  The first half comparison:

Name W L GS IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 BABIP LOB% GB% HR/FB ERA FIP xFIP WAR
Felix Hernandez 11 2 20 144.1 9.6 1.56 0.31 0.271 73.00% 54.30% 5.20% 2.12 2.03 2.4 4.9
Corey Kluber 9 6 20 131.2 9.71 2.19 0.68 0.326 75.70% 48.50% 8.90% 3.01 2.78 2.85 3.3

Felix was the best in the AL.  Since then, Kluber has been the best in the AL:

Name W L GS IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 BABIP LOB% GB% HR/FB ERA FIP xFIP WAR
Corey Kluber 9 3 14 104 10.99 1.64 0.35 0.302 83.00% 47.30% 5.20% 1.73 1.8 2.21 4.1
Felix Hernandez 4 4 14 91.2 9.23 2.06 1.08 0.237 84.00% 59.10% 17.50% 2.16 3.39 2.68 1.4

And the season totals:

Name W L GS IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 BABIP LOB% GB% HR/FB ERA FIP xFIP WAR
Corey Kluber 18 9 34 235.2 10.27 1.95 0.53 0.316 78.60% 48.00% 7.40% 2.44 2.35 2.57 7.3
Felix Hernandez 15 6 34 236 9.46 1.75 0.61 0.258 77.00% 56.20% 10.10% 2.14 2.56 2.51 6.2

Both the Indians and Mariners were teams in the playoff hunt that ultimately fell short.  If you’re into narratives (and/or small sample sizes), here’s September, just for kicks:

Name W L GS IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 BABIP LOB% GB% HR/FB ERA FIP xFIP WAR
Corey Kluber 5 1 6 43 11.72 1.47 0.63 0.34 83.70% 44.90% 10.30% 2.09 1.92 1.85 1.6
Felix Hernandez 2 1 6 38 10.18 2.61 0.71 0.239 78.60% 55.90% 13.00% 1.66 2.76 2.49 0.8

Felix certainly didn’t do the Mariners any favors down the stretch; the Mariners shuffled their rotation around based on opponents and off days specifically to ensure they’d have Felix going on 9/8, 9/13, 9/18, 9/23, and 9/28 (the final game of the year) in anticipation of needing him that final game, and he did not deliver.  Felix’s ERA was held down thanks to a scoring change in the 9/23 game (based on an error he himself made, no less) that turned 4 earned runs into unearned runs – hence the far higher FIP – but overall Felix underperformed in September.

Looking at the overall body of work in 2014, we see very similar lines.  Their IP, GS, and xFIP are almost identical.  We see a slightly better FIP for Kluber, and a better ERA for Felix, primarily explainable by Safeco Field and his lower BABIP (which in turn is primarily explainable by the Mariners’ superior defense and the subpar Indians’ defense).  We see a significantly better strikeout rate for Kluber which more than makes up for his slightly higher walk rate, and a markedly higher HR rate for Felix despite playing in HR-suppressing Safeco Field.

Add it all up, and Kluber’s performance ends up markedly better than Felix’s.  Even if you don’t care about the narrative and Felix’s choking down the stretch, Kluber was the best pitcher in the AL this year.

King Felix will win the Cy Young because of his hot start, the media exposure he got throughout the season, his All-Star performance, and his ERA title (for which he should thank Safeco Field, his defense, the league scorers, and to a lesser extent his bullpen) – but he won’t deserve it.





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Rick82
9 years ago

You say Felix should thank (among other things) Safeco Field for his ERA title. But his ERA away from Safeco Field was 2.21, which is still quite a bit better than Kluber’s. I am biased in favor of Felix, and would not object if the voters give it to Kluber, but I think Felix blowing past past HOFers like Tom Seaver in the consecutive number of ultra quality starts is a strong point in his favor. I understand his ERA is the best the AL has seen since Pedro Martinez. In other words, Felix’s season is compared in some significant ways to a number of the greatest pitchers to play the game.

Umpires Love Felix + Zunino
9 years ago
Reply to  Rick82

That is a horrible way of looking at things. You can’t just say “he played well on the road so ignore the advantage of pitching half his games at home in Safeco”. If Felix pitched his home starts in Cleveland, his home ERA would be higher than his road ERA.

Or maybe put more simply, just cause Felix had good results on the road, that does NOTHING to negate the advantage he received for half his starts at home!

Also, here’s what I posted in the past debate thread:
Baseball Prospectus gives data by batteries.

Kluber’s catchers saved him 0.4 runs total.
Hernandez’s catchers saved him 8.3 runs total.

Quite the difference, huh?

(Felix + Zunino was the 2nd best framing duo in the entire major leagues!)

Jonah Pemstein
9 years ago

Yeah, I think that the Safeco-lowering-Felix’s-ERA narrative doesn’t really hold, because Hernandez’s ERA- (which is park-adjusted) is still 8 points lower than Kluber’s. Yes, Kluber had a better FIP-, but Hernandez had a better ERA- (if you want to judge based off of actual production) and a slightly better xFIP- (if you want to judge based off of true skill – and xFIP is a better judge of that than FIP is). Plus neither has an advantage in the narrative department, since both, like you said, narrowly missed the playoffs. I would personally go with Felix.

Jonathan Keith
9 years ago

It’s a very interesting and compelling article, but I have to disagree with the last point that’s trying to be made about Felix choking in September and vastly underperforming. His ERA was still 1.66 in September and in the other 5 games he started he was 2-0 with a 0.81 ERA in 33 1/3 innings pitched. I don’t know how you could even make that argument that he choked because he had one bad outing all year. The splits from the first 20 starts and the last 14 starts also show how consistently dominant Felix was all season, not taking anything away from Kluber’s amazing finish, but Felix was the same amazing pitcher for 33/34 starts this season, which could not be said about Kluber. More than anything, to shape a narrative at the end with such a biased, inaccurate statement and to call Felix a choke artist is irresponsible and inaccurate. Either would be a worthy Cy Young winner, but your take on the entire issue as a media-biased farce is ridiculous.

John
9 years ago

Can’t really understand your negative take on Felix Hernandez….”thanking Safeco Field for his ERA…’doesn’t deserve the award’…'(Hernandez) choking down the stretch…’Kluber was the best pitcher in the AL this year’.
Yikes.
Don’t really have a problem with King Felix winning the award and not just based upon his ERA (lowest in 14 years) the same with WHIP, and a on base percentage the third lowest in 41 years, 13 no-decisions with an ERA of 1.88, and then the major league record of 16 straight starts of 2 or fewer runs for at least 7 innings.
Heck, I’ll even throw in another stat…against the top five teams with winning records and top five teams offensive teams based on OPS…
Hernanadez 18 starts/9-4 WL/2.50 era against winning teams and 4-2 WL/2.54 ERA against the top offensive teams.
Kluber 17 starts/7-7 WL/2.67 ERA and 5-5 WL/3.20 with the same.

Umpires Love Felix + Zunino
9 years ago
Reply to  John

Your splits don’t seem particularly relevant for determining the best overall pitcher. I guess higher leverage games against divisional/wild card rivals maybe should count for a bit more, but who cares what pitchers put up against teams with high OPS vs low OPS? Is it less important to shut down teams with low OPS, and why?

Also, most sabermetricians would say you destroyed the sample size too much with your partitions to gain anything meaningful out of slight ERA differences.

John
9 years ago

No, perhaps you didn’t get my point. Felix Hernandez pitched better than Corey Kluber against both teams with winning records and the five best offensive teams based upon on base percentage.
That alongside with the best ERA and best WHIP in the AL in the last fourteen years, and the third best on base percentage in the AL in the last 41 years alongside his 16 straight games ML streak should give the Cy Young Award to Mr. Hernanadez.

Umpires Love Felix + Zunino
9 years ago
Reply to  John

I don’t get your point of your goofy splits because as far as I’m concerned they have no point. Sample size issue aside, by your logic that would mean Kluber “pitched better” against the teams with lower OPS and losing records. I just don’t see why one split should be given precedence over the other when the goal during the regular season is getting as many wins as possible.

If you want to say Felix deserves Cy Young due to ERA and WHIP and that streak, then go for it! I don’t really get the point of citing goofy, irrelevant sample-killing splits as some justification for handing out the award when you think he should get the award for other reasons. Reasons which may have nothing to do with being the best pitcher (WHIP, really?), but reasons nonetheless which will be used by sportswriters.

J
9 years ago

If you want to make a convincing argument for Kluber as the deserving Cy Young winner I think you need to dig deeper into the numbers. Yes, Hernandez had a better defense behind him and played in a better pitcher’s park. However, you need to attempt to quantify these effects in order to provide a convincing argument for why Kluber is more deserving.

Given that Felix had such high K-rates and generated elite ground ball percentages it’s likely that the park effect is much less substantial than you think. Additionally, we can assume that FIP is overrating Kluber a bit because he has allowed high BABIPs in every one of his professional seasons. When guys make contact against him it is generally quality contact. And because he has one of the highest (if not the highest) K rates in the game his defense has less effect on him than it would for most other pitchers.

If you can quantify how much Felix was helped by his defense and home park and how much Kluber was hurt by the Indians atrocious defense – it would go a long way towards making your argument more sound. But there is not enough information here to make a definitive statement about Kluber having had the better year.

Captain Tenneal
9 years ago
Reply to  J

To your last paragraph, Baseball-Reference attempts to do that very thing and has Kluber ahead, 7.4 to 6.8 WAR. Not a big enough difference to say anything definitively, but it’s there.

J
9 years ago

From what I remember, they incorporate defense by taking the portion of balls in play over the course of the season that the pitcher allowed and multiply it by the DRS of the defense for the entire season. They’re basically assuming average defensive performance by the team while any specific pitcher is on the mound. Although useful, that’s a lazy approach for determining who the Cy Young winner should be.

Over 200+ innings where the vast majority of at bats end in strikeouts or routine plays, there is a lot of variation in defensive performance. Assuming that both players’ defenses performed average is a pretty big assumption. Also I’m not sure, but I don’t believe their park factors take into account batted ball data (correct me if I’m wrong). If it doesn’t, then their calculation likely undervalues Felix given his elite ground ball rate.

This is the best analysis I have read on the topic so far:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-al-cy-young-award-battle/

It’s very close but I’d vote Felix

Umpires Love Felix + Zunino
9 years ago

Whether it is Zunino’s framing job or Felix having the respect of umpires, or a combination of the two (my guess), I think that the fact that Felix was saved 8 runs more than Kluber by favorable ball/strike calls should be accounted for in every discussion. I would add 0.4 ER to Kluber and 8.3 ER to Felix and then recalculate ERA and poof you get:

Kluber – 2.46 (0.02 increase)
Felix – 2.45 (0.32 increase)

So now that we’ve established that umpires/pitch framing can be considered responsible for the entire ERA gap, we can start to look at other stats. And don’t forget that Felix’s peripherals also would look less nice. You can probably expect Kluber to gain an extra 0.30 advantage over Felix in FIP/xFIP/whatever as well once ball/strike calling is considered.

John
9 years ago

Dude, you’re waaaaaaaaay out in the weeds here for both fans and sportswriters/voting members alike.

Most people really don’t care about .decimal diffenences when calculating secondhand stats like how many ground balls outs by each pitcher in each park.

Umpires Love Felix + Zunino
9 years ago
Reply to  John

The whole premise of this article is that Kluber was the better pitcher but won’t win the Cy Young award.

I agree with this, and that is why I posted my little calculation.

What exactly are you trying to say? Kluber wasn’t the better pitcher because… fans and sportswriters?