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November 18, 2009

On the Beat

Midweek Update

by John Perrotto

Zack Greinke knew he was the best pitcher in the major leagues. The Royals’ right-hander’s belief in his performance, though, went beyond having the confidence one needs to be an elite player at the highest level of baseball. He knew the advanced metrics said so, too.

Greinke won the American League Cy Young Award on Tuesday by a landslide, as he received 25 of the 28 first-place votes. During his conference call with members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, Greinke revealed that he is an aficionado of sabermetrics.

While Greinke speaks the language of VORP and SNLVAR, he wasn’t so sure those members of the BBWAA who were on the panel to vote for the Cy Young were as up on their acronyms. Thus, Greinke wondered if he might lose out to Mariners right-hander Felix Hernandez.

"Felix had a great season, and his win total and loss total was that much better than mine," Greinke said. "I’m also a follower of sabermetrics, and I’m interested into going into details of what you can control as a pitcher, what you can’t control and everything like that. Felix had some luck with his ERA and stuff because he had such great defense behind him. I didn’t know if the writers would just look at the wins and losses and strikeouts and ERA or if they would look deeper into the stats. They did look deeper, and I appreciate that."

Cy Young voters have long used wins as their primary measuring stick, yet Greinke won despite tying for seventh in the AL with 16 victories. Hernandez, Yankees left-hander CC Sabathia, and the Tigers’ Justin Verlander had 19 each to share the league lead, and the Red Sox’s Josh Beckett, the Rangers’ Scott Feldman, and the Blue Jays’ Roy Halladay were all 18-game winners.