The Final Corey Kluber for 2017 AL CY Young Argument

There have been many points made about Corey Kluber‘s 2017 season. He broke records, was the Indians MVP, and potentially could have started the All-Star game had he not pitched the game before. In the end, however, the AL Cy Young will be the ultimate test for Kluber’s season.

There are multiple ways to look at and compare one player’s season to another, specifically rate stats vs cumulative stats and old school vs new school. If this doesn’t make sense, I made this helpful chart to understand:

Looking on the cumulative old school side, not just Kluber, but the Indians have the advantage. Kluber and Carlos Carrasco tied for the league lead with 18 wins, while Chris Sale sat one below at 17, tied with Trevor Bauer and his own teammate, Drew Pomeranz. Kluber also made three fewer starts than Sale, but pitched less than 11 fewer innings as Sale lead the AL and Kluber finished fourth in innings. In strike outs as well, Kluber (265) finished second to Sale (308), at least slightly due to the difference in innings pitched.

However, the difference in strike outs is obviously more than just 11 innings. Sale’s K/9 was better at 12.93 compared to 11.71, but Kluber’s lower walk rate (1.59 to 1.81 per 9) gave Kluber the slight advantage in BB/9. While the two are near equals here, it is a perfect situation to see that Kluber and Sale are light years ahead the competition. Both Sale and Kluber sit above 7.1 in BB/9 and the next nearest pitcher was Carrasco at 4.9, one of just four pitchers who struck out four for every walk.

While in pure K’s, both rate and total, Sale has the advantage, the two sides of the run avoiding coin favor Kluber. ERA focuses on what actually happened in the games and Kluber lead the world at 2.25. Not only was that the top ERA in baseball in 2017, but it was the best since 2014, when both Sale and Felix Hernandez had marks under 2.20. It’s also important to note that this was another great distinguishing mark to push Sale (2.90 in 2017) and Kluber away from the rest of the field as they were two of three AL pitchers to finish the year with a qualifying ERA below 3.00, the other being Luis Severino at 2.98.

Despite Kluber’s huge advantage in ERA this year, Sale was actually the leader in FIP 2.45 to 2.50. There are a few different reasons for this disparity. First, ERA takes into account defense while FIP does not. If a pitcher has an incredible defense behind him, making outs most other teams don’t make, then his ERA will likely be better than his FIP. While this explains Kluber’s difference of 0.25 runs (the Indians were 18.4 runs better than average defensively in 2017), it doesn’t explain Sale’s as the Red Sox had the best defense in the AL (37.9 runs above average).

The other big contributor is BABIP. While generally considered a catch all for luck, some pitchers actually do have a skill to limit the opponents batting average on balls in play. Both Kluber and Sale have had long enough careers to believe their numbers are significant and Kluber has three straight years with a BABIP under .300 and two straight under .275 while Sale has allowed a BABIP above .300 in two of the last three seasons including 2017. Because it appears fairly obvious that Kluber is at least slightly better at limiting hard contact and inducing weak contact than Sale, both FIP and fWAR, which is based on FIP, are not the best indicators to who the better pitcher was. The chart below shows directly how much weak, medium and hard contact the pair allowed in 2017.

While hard contact is similar enough to be negligible, Kluber has really succeeded in inducing soft contact. It is likely this soft contact that made up that difference between ERA and FIP as it didn’t matter that Sale had the better defense behind him. Kluber made it easier for his defense to field the ball by slowing down the exit velocity. Their numbers since 2014 seem to agree, although they are a little closer.

There is little question that Kluber was the best pitcher in the AL this year at limiting runs, which is the primary purpose of a pitcher, while Sale is better at striking out batters, which is the most efficient way to limit runs. In almost any season, both would be an obvious pick, but with the two having elevated themselves so much in 2017, the selection is far from easy.

As far as discovering who the voters will run with, we can look at the previous selections. In 2016, Justin Verlander lead the field in K’s and WAR and was second in ERA to Aaron Sanchez. He lead in both the rate and cumulative stats, but it ended up being Rick Porcello, who lead in wins, but finished behind Verlander, Sanchez, Kluber, Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Fulmer in ERA and behind Verlander, Kluber and Tanaka in WAR.

In 2015, David Price had a similar argument to Verlander in 2016. He lead the field in ERA and finished behind just Sale, Chris Archer and Kluber in total K’s, yet lost the award to Dallas Keuchel. In this case, Keuchel not only reached the coveted 20 win mark, but also lead the AL in WAR by 1.2 over the second place Price. With a minuscule difference in ERA and significantly more innings for Keuchel, this was the correct choice and bodes well for Kluber.

Finally, there is the opposite argument that happened in 2014. Felix Hernandez and Kluber were in a similar situation where the pair were significantly ahead of the competition, but this time the roles were reversed. Hernandez held the lead in ERA by 0.30 runs, but Kluber had the better K/9 and WAR. What may have been more important than any of that, however, is that Kluber lead the league in total wins and total WAR.

In recent years, when that combination has occurred, it has been an easy decision for voters, but last year, when the old school and new school were split, old school won out. This year, Kluber has the old school advantage and if the proponents of the new school dig deep enough, they may find he has the advantage there as well despite not having the WAR of Sale. Given the discussions during the post-season about Kluber, it seems many have already crowned Kluber Cy Young, but nothing is guaranteed until after the votes are counted and announced. He should win the award and will finish within the top two, but it’s up to those with votes to do the research and make sure the players who should be rewarded are rewarded.