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The past few weeks have seen Justin Verlander solidify his standing as the AL Cy Young favorite as the Tigers have pulled away from the AL Central pack. Not that the 28-year-old righty has been particularly dominant lately. His home-run rate over his last nine turns (1.40 per nine) has been more than double what it was for his previous 22 (0.65), but because he's otherwise done a fine job of keeping opponents off the bases while receiving more than six runs per game of offensive support, he has collected wins in each of his last 10 turns. His 22 victories have matched the majors' highest total since 2003, and even for a voting body that's shown its evolution by awarding consecutive Cys to Zack Greinke (16 wins) and Felix Hernandez (13 wins), that's the kind of thing that will be noticed when ballots are cast.

Should Verlander have such a stranglehold on the award? Look past the won-loss records, and there's considerably less separation between him and two other top AL candidates:

Pitcher

IP

W

L

HR/9

UBB/9

SO/9

ERA

FRA

FIP

PVORP

WARP

Justin Verlander

229.0

22

5

0.9

2.0

9.1

2.44

3.47

2.98

48.9

5.5

CC Sabathia

224.3

19

8

0.6

2.0

8.7

2.93

3.53

2.83

50.2

5.0

Jered Weaver

214.3

16

7

0.7

2.2

7.9

2.44

3.17

3.03

48.4

4.9

Verlander has the slight edge in innings and strikeouts, but he's in a dead heat for ERA, and trailing Sabathia in FIP. Once you control for sequencing and defensive support via our new version of Fair Run Average, he falls behind Weaver. His advantage in innings still gives him the overall edge in WARP, but it's not as clear-cut as you might think given the volume of awards chatter.

One measure not factored into the computations above is the quality of opposing hitters each pitcher has faced. Here at BP, we do track that sort of thing, of course. Sabathia pitches in the rough-and-tumble AL East, a division where three other teams besides the Yankees own positive run differentials (at least through Saturday). Verlander, by contrast, has the luxury of pitching in the AL Central, where none of his opponents have a positive run differential, and two of them, the Twins and White Sox, rank among the league's most inept offenses. Weaver's division, the AL West, features a pair of low-wattage offenses in Oakland and Seattle.

The spread in Quality of Opposing Batter Faced isn't very big; among the 104 pitchers with at least 140 innings—ERA qualifiers, basically, with an allowance for those a single start away from joining the ranks—the spread is 40 points of OPS from the toughest slate (David Price, .267/.335/.433) to the easiest (C.J. Wilson, .260/.323/.406), and the standard deviation from the median is just seven points of OPS. The cumulative line of the hitters Sabathia has faced is .265/.330/.425, while for Weaver it's .264/.328/.414, and for Verlander it's .262/.326/.412. Those two lines are 15 and 17 points of OPS lower than that of Sabathia, respectively, more than double the standard deviation, enough to take notice. However, if we turn to what those pitchers have actually yielded against their respective slates of hitters, the difference comes out in Verlander's favor, and not by a little. The Tiger holds 60-point advantages over the Yankee in both batting average and on-base percentage allowed, and a 41-point edge in slugging percentage, while against the Angel, he's got advantages of 20, 20 and 12 points in the slash stats:

Pitcher

AVG/OBP/SLG Against

Opp AVG/OPB/SLG

OpQual+

Justin Verlander

.191/.240/.315

.262/.326/.412

50

Jered Weaver

.211/.260/.327

.264/.328/.414

63

CC Sabathia

.251/.300/.356

.265/.330/.425

73

That last column I'm calling Opponent Quality Plus. The world probably didn't need another pitching metric, but as the Rolling Stones famously sang, "You can't always not get what you don't want," and here I come bearing gifts. Opponent Quality Plus is an OPS+-type figure in which I've used each pitcher's opposing hitter line as the "league average" in the typical OPS+ formula: 100 * (OBP/lgOBP + SLG/lgSLG – 1). I've divided by the Pitcher Park Factor (also in that report) to make a slight additional adjustment. A 100 would mean that a pitcher performed essentially as expected given the quality of opponent and park, while a 90 would be 10 percent better than average (for a pitcher), and 110 percent would be 10 percent worse. In this case, Verlander is 50 percent better than average, considerably ahead of not only Weaver and Sabathia, but also the rest of all other major-league ERA qualifiers. Here's what the top 20 looks like:

Rk

Pitcher

AVG/OBP/SLG Against

Opp AVG/OPB/SLG

PPF

OpQual+

1

Justin Verlander

.191/.240/.315

.262/.326/.412

101

50

2

Josh Beckett

.203/.265/.314

.266/.333/.426

100

53

3

Clayton Kershaw

.210/.260/.296

.263/.327/.415

95

54

4

Cole Hamels

.207/.252/.318

.261/.327/.411

101

54

5

Johnny Cueto

.219/.288/.305

.266/.332/.422

104

57

6

Roy Halladay

.243/.271/.315

.262/.330/.413

102

57

7

Matt Cain

.218/.274/.316

.264/.332/.419

100

58

8

Cliff Lee

.227/.270/.329

.266/.332/.423

101

59

9

Shaun Marcum

.223/.276/.350

.267/.334/.420

105

63

10

Jered Weaver

.211/.260/.327

.264/.328/.414

92

63

11

James Shields

.216/.270/.347

.267/.332/.424

95

66

12

Michael Pineda

.208/.275/.340

.267/.332/.428

91

68

13

Tim Hudson

.231/.292/.331

.261/.328/.413

101

68

14

Philip Humber

.241/.288/.350

.263/.330/.418

103

69

15

Matt Garza

.251/.313/.356

.267/.334/.424

109

71

16

Ian Kennedy

.231/.286/.370

.264/.330/.412

107

71

17

Tim Lincecum

.216/.298/.336

.265/.330/.414

99

72

18

Dan Haren

.234/.262/.361

.265/.328/.415

92

73

19

David Price

.231/.286/.367

.267/.335/.433

96

73

20

CC Sabathia

.251/.300/.356

.265/.330/.425

102

73

I make no pretense that this is the be-all and end-all of pitching stats, but it does help to capture the level of difficulty each pitcher has faced and how well he has conquered those hitters. Note that this applies no correction for the luck and randomness involved in batting average on balls in play or home runs per fly ball, two areas that can have significant effects on those "against" lines. As this is a rate stat, there's also no correction for differences in the number of innings, either. Like I said, imperfect stat.

Through this lens it seems abundantly clear that Verlander has done enough to separate himself from Weaver and Sabathia to merit the Cy Young; while he has faced an easier slate than either, he has disemboweled them more convincingly. This metric also helps to build Kershaw's case in the NL. As great as Halladay and Lee have been, the 23-year-old southpaw has been even more stifling, thanks in large part to his ability to suppress slugging percentage. For what it's worth, he enjoys a margin of 0.7 WARP over Lee, and 1.1 WARP over Halladay, so it's not as though this bathtub metric is producing results entirely out of left field.

Up and down that leaderboard, there are a few interesting comparisons and contrasts to be had. As noted before, Price has faced the majors' toughest slate of hitter, thanks in large part to his status as the nominal ace of a team stuck in the division with the league's two top offensive powerhouses. Nonetheless, among AL East starters, Beckett been more effective relative to his competition, and among Rays starters, Shields has done the better job of rising to his level of competition. Over in the National League, the nearly 20-point advantage in OBP against that Hamels has compiled versus a slightly easier slate than either Halladay or Lee is enough to push him into the majors' top five in this measure. Cain has outpitched teammate Lincecum, as has the Diamondbacks' Kennedy—a point I made on Twitter last week—particularly once ballparks are considered. Kennedy has also outpitched the man whom he's replaced at the head of Arizona's rotation, Haren.

A quick peek at the other end of the leaderboard:

Rk

Player

AVG/OBP/SLG Against

Opp AVG/OPB/SLG

PPF

OpQual+

1

John Lackey

.304/.373/.484

.263/.330/.420

100

128

2

Brad Penny

.301/.353/.479

.261/.323/.409

100

126

3

Brian Duensing

.305/.355/.497

.267/.330/.423

100

125

4

Nick Blackburn

.305/.363/.467

.266/.329/.416

99

124

5

Chris Volstad

.297/.344/.482

.263/.328/.409

101

122

6

Bronson Arroyo

.293/.334/.533

.266/.332/.423

105

121

7

Jeff Francis

.299/.335/.457

.261/.325/.411

100

114

8

Rick Porcello

.293/.339/.445

.263/.325/.408

100

113

9

Jake Westbrook

.289/.351/.442

.267/.332/.420

99

112

10

Wade Davis

.269/.330/.438

.267/.327/.421

95

110

11

Carl Pavano

.298/.332/.447

.266/.328/.414

99

110

12

A.J. Burnett

.259/.339/.460

.266/.330/.421

102

110

13

Aaron Harang

.272/.335/.422

.265/.332/.419

93

109

14

Fausto Carmona

.273/.335/.434

.267/.330/.418

97

109

15

Tim Stauffer

.261/.321/.418

.263/.328/.417

93

105

16

Livan Hernandez

.291/.337/.434

.264/.331/.415

101

105

17

Ricky Nolasco

.295/.330/.438

.263/.328/.412

102

105

18

Chris Capuano

.268/.321/.444

.264/.330/.417

99

105

19

Kevin Correia

.287/.331/.461

.268/.333/.425

103

105

20

Max Scherzer

.269/.321/.451

.265/.328/.418

101

105

Ladies and gentlemen, we've found a new way to express just how awful Lackey has been. Relative to Boston's other starters, he's faced an easy slate; Beckett and Jon Lester have both faced collections which rank among the majors' 15 most difficult, while Lackey is 52nd among the 104 pitchers who qualify, and yet he's been smoked so badly by that lot that he ranks last in the majors. He's not the only starter on a playoff contender among this sorry lot, either; the Yankees have Burnett, who's not very likely to draw a start, and the Tigers have no less than three in Penny, Porcello and Scherzer—two of whom will help round out their post-season rotation.

Wait, wasn't I just talking the Tigers' rotation up? Indeed I was, noting that their weighted FIP for their prospective playoff rotation was the second-best in the AL behind the Yankees. As noted before, this method makes no allowance for stripping out the effects of high BABIPs; the members of that aforementioned trio are 14 to 26 points above league-average in that department, so they do less well on a purely results-based measure—and here we'll note that, for example, their starters are a mid-pack eighth out of 14 teams in ERA—than a skills-based one.

In any event, Colin Wyers has indicated his eventual intention to factor quality of opposing hitter and pitcher into our new metrics where appropriate, so this little bit of metric moonshine may not make it into our official reports, but I'll leave you with a leaderboard going back to 1950. No surprise who tops the list—we've been talking up the season in question as one of the greatest for awhile now—but whoa:

Pitcher

Team

Year

AVG/OBP/SLG Against

Opp AVG/OPB/SLG

PPF

OpQual+

Pedro Martinez

BOS

2000

.167/.213/.259

.283/.359/.467

97

15

Greg Maddux

ATL

1995

.197/.224/.258

.277/.346/.435

100

24

Greg Maddux

ATL

1994

.207/.243/.259

.281/.347/.444

103

28

Pedro Martinez

BOS

1999

.205/.248/.289

.282/.357/.455

97

34

Pedro Martinez

MON

1997

.184/.250/.277

.276/.348/.432

100

36

Randy Johnson

ARI

2004

.197/.241/.315

.277/.346/.446

102

39

Bob Gibson

SLN

1968

.184/.233/.236

.257/.313/.366

96

41

Kevin Brown

FLO

1996

.220/.262/.289

.277/.346/.444

99

41

Roger Clemens

HOU

2005

.198/.261/.284

.274/.343/.438

98

42

Sandy Koufax

LAN

1965

.179/.227/.280

.266/.326/.408

91

42

Sandy Koufax

LAN

1964

.191/.240/.275

.274/.327/.413

94

43

Sandy Koufax

LAN

1963

.189/.230/.271

.261/.317/.394

97

43

Joe Horlen

CHA

1964

.190/.248/.264

.261/.327/.408

95

43

Dean Chance

LAA

1964

.195/.260/.245

.262/.328/.410

91

43

Roger Clemens

TOR

1997

.213/.273/.291

.280/.350/.454

97

43

Greg Maddux

ATL

1998

.220/.260/.300

.277/.344/.438

100

44

Dwight Gooden

NYN

1985

.201/.254/.270

.269/.334/.402

98

44

Don Sutton

LAN

1972

.189/.240/.271

.262/.327/.392

96

44

Sandy Koufax

LAN

1962

.197/.261/.290

.274/.336/.423

104

44

Pedro Martinez

BOS

2002

.198/.254/.309

.271/.341/.441

99

45

Thank you for reading

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bulldogcakes
9/12
Great stuff, long overdue.
dodgerken222
9/12
Interesting to see JOEL (not Joe) Horlen on the post-1950 leaderboard. While all of the other hurlers on this list were the clear aces of their staffs in the seasons listed, Horlen was only the no. 3 starter on the '64 Chisox. Leading the staff (which had a 2.72 team ERA) were Gary Peters (20-8,2.56) and Juan Pizarro (19-9,2.60). Horlen made 28 starts compared to Peters' 36 and Pizarro's 33. The no. 4 starter, John Buzhardt, had the "highest" ERA of the big 4, at 2.98. The main closer was Hoyt Wilhelm, with assistance from fellow knuckler Eddie Fisher.
The team won 98 games and finished one game back of the Yankees' Last Hurrah of the '60s. They came this close to being one of the most remembered pitching staffs in history.
jlebeck66
9/12
I'm not sure that Horlen cares one way or the other about being Joel or Joe...

http://www.vintagecardtraders.com/virtual/70topps_super/70topps_super-20.jpg
jjaffe
9/12
While I've never trusted those signatures as authentic, a Google image search reveals that he was listed as Joel Horlen through the 1967 Topps edition, and Joe Horlen thereafter.

WARP has him worth just 10.3 wins over the course of his career, with a high of 2.9 WARP in 1964 and a meager 1.5 in 1967 despite his sterling W-L and ERA. He got insane defensive support, .218 and .216 BABIPs in those seasons, and the system is awarding much of that to the defenses instead. B-Ref's WAR is much more charitable, and probably more in line with the way he was viewed at the time, with 22.2 wins for his career and 4.6 for each of those seasons; he got down-ballot MVP consideration in both, and was the only other AL pitcher besides Jim Lonborg to get Cy Young votes (2, possibly both from Chicago voters, but still).
jjaffe
9/12
Oddly, while I've known him (historically, at least, as in when I wrote about the 1967 AL race for It Ain't Over) as Joel Horlen, B-Ref has him listed as Joe Horlen as well. So it's something that's incorrect at whatever master database level that spawned both sites' player registers.
cwyers
9/12
The biographical data in our master player records comes from a variety of sources, but our primary source currently is SABR's registry of players. SABR lists "Joe" as his preferred first name (Joel Edward Horlen is his full birth name). Baseball Reference, which I believe also relies on the SABR register, uses Joe as well.
dodgerken222
9/12
One last thing about Horlen; he followed that '64 season ( in which he had a 1.88 ERA) with ERAs of 2.88, 2.43, 2.06 (led the league), and 2.37. All seasons in which he pitched well over 200 innings. That's a five-year run pretty much happening alongside Koufax' run in the '60s in the pitching-rich environment of the '60s. In a more hitter-friendly ballpark. Is Joel Horlen (and he was always called Joel back then)..is Horlen the best least famous hurler of the modern era?
deholm1
9/12
Thanks, Jay. Very interesting, as always. No surprise that Bob Gibson's 1968 season ranks in the Top 10. How did his fellow pitching MVP from that same season fare: Denny McLain, who went 31-6 in 1968?
jjaffe
9/12
McLain was at 67 that year, which is just a bit outside of the 90th percentile.
moscow25
9/12
It's nice to adjust pitcher performance by batters faced and park effects, but why are we concerned with a pitcher's OPS+ allowed? Isn't that going backwards from FIP and even ERA?
TangoTiger1
9/13
"Once you control for sequencing and defensive support via our new version of Fair Run Average"

Actually, FRA is not controlling for sequencing. It *presumes* the sequencing (unlike say FIP, which ignores the sequencing). In that respect, it is much closer to actual runs allowed. If you think a pitcher has a men on base skill, then you should like FRA's idea.

What FRA controls for is the the balls in play, by specifically removing the hits and outs, and replacing them with batted ball outcomes (GB, Pops, Flies), and estimate hits and outs.

In any case, seeing the FRA numbers diverge that much among the big 3 doesn't leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling that it's calculated properly.