Q. If it were up to SSI, would Felix win the Cy Young?
A. Probably not. It's a pretty close race this year, and under those circumstances it's hard to give it to a .500 pitcher for a 100-loss team. That kind of pitcher should be a lot better than his comp to win it.
I might plump for Sabathia or Liriano.
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Bill James once called Cy Young voting "a tradition in the worst sense of the word, a tradition in the sense that we know we're doing it wrong, but we're going to keep doing it that way because that's how we've done it for a long time."
He was referring to the fact that Cy winners -- at the time -- were chosen mostly because of won-loss records.
I think that won-loss records should be considered much less than they are, but they certainly are not irrelevant. There is a whale of a lot of difference between winning a game that matters, and losing a game that doesn't matter. Buchholz and Price and Sabathia are performing in different, much harder, contexts.
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That's not to say that Felix couldn't do the same. But we're not talking about what might be or could be or should be: we're talking about what is. In 2010, the guys who are winning for Boston, New York, and Tampa, ARE IN FACT winning tougher games.
If Pedro Martinez led the league in ERA by 2 runs, but had a 10-14 record, sure, I'd give him a Cy for it. But if you're not pitching in games that matter, you've got to be a good bit better than the other guys.
Pedro never had a 10-14 record. Guys like that don't, not very often. The best pitcher in the league tends to have a very good W-L record.
We read somewhere that the worst W-L percentage in the history of the Cy was .600 -- like, 24-16 by Gaylord Perry or something. I approve of this as one, flexible, consideration.
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There will always be those who think that HOF awards and All-Star placing and Cy Young and MVP awards should be determined by computer. Any deviation from WAR is a deviation from "correct" thinking, right?
One time, online, a user challenged James about his top 100. "What gives you the right to arbitrarily change the records?" Bill's acid reply: "We do not have near-perfect measurements of baseball players. It is foolish to assume that we do." That'll do for me too.
You cannot measure a player's skill or contribution to the tenths of points. The formulas are very useful until they become dogma. Then they are harmful. Dogma is always harmful.
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Right now, the James predictor has the lead firmly to CC Sabathia, partly because he's just about as good as anybody else, partly because he's thrown so many innings. We might note that he is the one who is handling the 9,000 PSI in New York. Few can.
Fangraphs value has Liriano ahead of Felix in $ value, and Liriano is leading his team to the playoffs. Anyway, the bottom line is, it's a pretty close race this year, and under those circumstances it's hard to give it to a .500 pitcher for a 100-loss team.
But it would be perfectly fine to give it to Felix. His ERA is almost a run better than Sabathia's and if he gets it, he won't have to back up to accept it.
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I'll tell you this. We have the best pitcher in baseball. That's a lot more important than having the pitcher who won the Cy Young.
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Cheers,
Dr D