AL's Top Hurler

Last week I posted a piece on the National League’s Best Pitcher of 2009. Naturally, I thought it would make sense to run the same formulas on the American League’s leaders and see what the results are.

Going in, the best Cy Young candidate in the AL seems much easier to pick than in the NL, where Tim Lincecum, Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter all look like legitimate candidates.  In my mind, Zack Greinke looks like the clear choice as best pitcher in the AL.  Let’s see what the numbers say.

As you will recall, for the NL, I looked at the top five pitchers in each of six categories: Wins, Innings Pitched, Strikeouts, Winning Percentage, ERA and Opponents’ OPS, and used two scoring systems: (1) 6-4-3-2-1; and (2) 10-7-5-3-1.  Here are the numbers for the AL:

Wins: (1) CC Sabathia, Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander 19; (4) Roy Halladay, Josh Beckett, Scott Feldman 17

IP: (1) Justin Verlander 240 (2) Roy Halladay 239; (3) Felix Hernandez 238.2; (4) CC Sabathia 230; (5) Zack Greinke 229.1

Ks: (1) Justin Verlander 269; (2) Zack Greinke 242; (3) Jon Lester 225; (4) Felix Hernandez 217; (5) Roy Halladay 208

Win %: (1) Felix Hernandez .792; (2) Josh Beckett .739; (3) CC Sabathia .704; (4) Joe Saunders .696; (5) Jeff Neimann .684

ERA: (1) Zack Greinke 2.16; (2) Felix Hernandez 2.49; (3) Roy Halladay 2.79; (4) CC Sabathia 3.37; (5) Jon Lester 3.41

Opp. OPS: (1) Felix Hernandez .605; (2) Zack Greinke .611; (3) CC Sabathia .653; (4) Justin Verlander .664; (5) Jon Lester, Roy Halladay* .667

* Roy Halladay’s OPS is actually only 6th best in the AL, as Lester’s .667 opponents’ OPS was actually slightly lower than Halladay’s .667.  However, Halladay’s opponents’ OBP was .285, compared to Lester’s .301.  It’s a simple rule (in my mind at least), if two hitters have the same OPS, the hitter with the significantly better OBP is the better offensive player, because OBP correlates more closely to winning than slugging percentage.  The opposite should then hold for pitchers, so I’m giving Roy Halladay a point for having the sixth best opponents’ OPS in the AL.

Here’s the scoring:

On the 6-4-3-2-1 scoring system:  (1) Felix Hernandez 27; (2) Justin Verlander 20; (3) CC Sabathia 16; (4) Zack Greinke 15; (5) Roy Halladay 11; (6) Josh Beckett 6; (7) Jon Lester 5; (8) Joe Saunders, Scott Feldman 2.

On the 10-7-5-3-1 scoring system: (1) Felix Hernandez 45; (2) Justin Verlander 33; (3) CC Sabathia 26; (4) Zack Greinke 25; (5) Roy Halladay 17; (6) Josh Beckett 10; (7) Jon Lester 7; (8) Joe Saunders, Scott Feldman 3.

Exactly the same results under each scoring system.  Of course, my evaluation fails to take into consideration several important factors.  First, Greinke’s ERA was much better than anyone else’s: a third of a run better than Hernandez, two-thirds of a run better than Halladay, and more than a run better than Sabathia or Lester.

Second, the two categories where Greinke got shut out were wins (Greinke’s 16 wins were good for 7th in the AL) and winning percentage (Greinke’s .667 winning percentage was only good enough for a tie for 8th).  Both of these numbers are heavily dependent on the team the pitcher pitches for, and the Royals stunk once again this year.

While winning percentage is a great stat for evaluating a pitcher over the course of his career, it’s awfully team-dependent in any one year.  Perhaps a fairer way to evaluate the AL’s aces would be to look at each pitcher’s winning percentage above his team’s.

I looked at the winning percentage above team for the AL’s top twenty pitchers in terms of winning percentage (note that I did not bother subtracting a pitcher’s record from his team’s overall performance; instead, I simply took the pitcher’s winning percentage and subtracted his team’s final winning percentage for the season).  Here are the top five:

Win % over Team: (1) Felix Hernandez .267; (2) Zack Greinke .266; (3) Roy Halladay .167; (4) Jeff Niemann .165; (5) Justin Verlander .155

Replacing Winning Percentage with Winning Percentage Over Team, I get the following final scores:

6-4-3-2-1 scoring system: (1) Felix Hernandez 27; (2) Justin Verlander 21; (3) Zack Greinke 19; (4) Roy Halladay 14; (5) CC Sabathia 13; (6) Jon Lester 5.

10-7-5-3-1 scoring system: (1) Felix Hernandez 45; (2) Justin Verlander 34; (3) Zack Greinke 32; (4) Roy Halladay 22: (5) CC Sabathia 21; (6) Jon Lester 7.

So even replacing winnning percentage with winning percentage over team, Felix Hernandez looks like the best pitcher in the AL, according this method of evaluation.  More surprising is that Justin Verlander still scores higher than Zack Greinke even after the change.  It’s worth noting that in the original categories in which Verlander did not score well (winning percentage and ERA) he finished 7th (.679 Win %) and 6th (3.45 ERA), respectively.

Obviously, Greinke’s claim to the Cy Young award rests on his great ERA.  Let’s take a look at some more numbers and see if his ERA is really as impressive as it looks on its face.  Here are Hernandez’s, Verlander’s and Greinke’s home/road splits:

Hernandez:  Home: 9-3, 3.05 ERA; Road: 10-2, 1.99 ERA

Greinke:  Home: 10-3, 1.70 ERA; Road: 6-5, 2.68 ERA

Verlander: Home 10-2, 2.81 ERA; Road: 9-7, 4.04 ERA

Of the three, Hernandez’s numbers here impress me the most.  He was absolutely dominating when pitching on the road, something that’s pretty rare.

Here’s the information about the parks these three pitched in.  The Royals’ Kaufman Stadium lived up to its reputation as a hitters’ park in 2009: the Royals and their opponents scored 805 runs there and only 723 runs away.  Detroit’s Comerica Park was a very slight hitters’ park in 2009: the Tigers and their opponents scored 749 runs there and 739 runs away.  Finally, Seattle’s Safeco Field was a pitcher’s park in 2009: the Mariners and their opponents scored 648 runs there and 684 runs away.  (For what it’s worth, after all the hype about all the homeruns flying out of the new Yankee Stadium in April, the numbers suggest it isn’t much of a hitters’ park after all: the Yankees and their opponents scored 819 runs there, but scored 849 runs away.)

The fact that Greinke’s ERA was .33 runs per nine innings better than Hernandez’s ERA, while Greinke played his home games in a much more difficult ballpark for pitchers obviously favors Greinke.  The fact that Greinke lost three games at home while posting a 1.70 ERA in one of MLB’s best hitters’ parks says a lot about just how bad the Royals were this year.

If I had a vote, I’d still be disposed to vote for Greinke at No. 1.  He really had a great year for a very bad team.  However, all the data above strongly suggests that any first place votes for King Felix are justified.