Justin Verlander: Advanced Metrics or Basic Statistics, He Wins the Cy Young

Jeff Passan of Yahoo sports has written an excellent analysis of the three top American League Cy Young award candidates.

The result is that, at this time, Justin Verlander should edge out Jered Weaver and C.C. Sabathia for the award.

Mr. Passan, in addition to traditional measures, has employed some advanced metrics that are tenuous at best. All statistics are through August 10.

ERA
Sabathia     2.81
Verlander    2.30
Weaver       1.78

ERA is an excellent measure of a pitcher’s effectiveness despite the fact that it is affected (no one knows by how much) by a team’s defense.

When one compares how many unearned runs each has allowed, Sabathia has allowed seven, Verlander has allowed six and Weaver has yielded but one.

WHIP
Sabathia     1.139
Verlander    0.872
Weaver       0.940

WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) may be more revealing that ERA. For some reason, Mr. Passan ignored it. Batters who don't reach base don't score.

FIP/SIERA
Sabathia     2.58/3.08
Verlander    2.73/2.77
Weaver       2.58/3.37

According to Mr. Passan, FIP stands for fielding independent pitching, which is based on the premise that recording outs on balls put in play is more a function of luck than skill.

The only things pitchers can control are strikeouts, walks and home runs.

Verlander has allowed 16 home runs compared to Sabathia and Weaver’s eight each.

This metric makes one think of Robin Roberts, who gave up an average of 32 home runs a season during his best seven seasons. He averaged 22 wins, a 3.13 ERA and a 1.113 WHIP.

SIERA, or skill-interactive ERA, gives added weight to strikeouts and ground balls while taking into account ballparks.

Win-Loss Record
Sabathia      16-6
Verlander     16-5
Weaver        14-5

Sabathia and Verlander lead with 16 wins, but Verlander just won his 17th on a team that has fewer wins than the New York Yankees.

Ground Ball Percentage
Sabathia      46.7 percent
Verlander     41.4 percent
Weaver        34.1 percent

Ground ball percentage is used primarily because fewer ground balls than fly balls go for extra bases, but more errors are made on ground balls. Unless a fly ball is really belted, they usually result in easier defensive plays.

Left-On-Base Percentage
Sabathia      73.8 percent
Verlander     77.4 percent
Weaver        84.1 percent

This is a meaningful, basic statistic. Runners get on, but many of them don’t ever score. As Mel Allen used to say, the great pitchers can reach back for “that little extra.”

Now let’s return to when things were simple.

Verlander pitched the second no-hitter of his career this season. He leads the league in wins (17-5), won-lost percentage (.773), innings pitched (195), strikeouts (196), WHIP (0.872) and fewest hits allowed per nine innings (6.0)

Verlander leads slightly with more strikeouts per nine innings (8.90) compared to Sabathia’s 8.28 and Weaver’s 7.64.

If voting were to occur today, Verlander wins the Cy Young Award with ease.