Why Corey Kluber Should Win the Cy Young

Unlike the voting for the AL MVP, Cy Young voting has tended to be based on more legitimate stats over recent seasons than in the past. For example, the pitcher who won in 2010 won just 13 decisions and was on a team that did not make the play-offs. That year, Felix Hernandez, lead the league in ERA, WAR and innings. While early on, total wins were used as the ultimate qualifier in Cy Young voting, the BBWAA writers were able to look past win totals and see what Hernandez did with a complete lack of run support (the Mariners scored just 513 runs, 100 less than the second worst team in the AL) and give him the award. This season, there is a similar situation, although the pitchers have been reversed.

Felix Hernandez is still an amazing pitcher, possibly the best in the American League since 2007, but this year, he was surpassed by the surprising Corey Kluber. This time, instead of Kluber being plagued with poor offense, he was hurt by a terrible defense, as the Indians committed 34 more errors than the league best Mariners and 72 unearned runs. While unearned runs are obviously not counted in ERA, they are still relevant as was proven directly by a couple scoring decision changes late in the season. For the Indians, an error was taken away from Mike Aviles with three runs being added to Kluber’s total earned runs allowed and an error was given to Hernandez on a dribbler in front of the plate, changing four earned runs into unearned runs in second to last start of the season.

This, however, may be getting ahead of ourselves as it is ignoring the amazing seasons by other starting pitchers around the world. While Kluber and Hernandez are one and two in more stats, there were quite a few others who impressed. The top ten American League starters in WAR for the 2014 season are listed to the right. Of these, Chris Sale, Garret Richards and Collin McHugh are likely going to be quickly dismissed due to lack of innings. While they do have impressive numbers nonetheless and all but McHugh still qualified for the ERA title, they were not among the 17 starters who threw at least 200 innings or even the 29 who threw at least 175. They will likely get some low ranking votes, but they are not deserving to be selected as anyone’s number one. Left besides them, is the group of Kluber, Hernandez, Max Scherzer (last season’s winner), Dallas Keuchel and David Price. Below are their pertinent statistics from the 2014 season:

There are a lot of similarities among these top seven American League pitchers with all but one winning 15 games, four with ERAs below 3.00, five with batting averages at or below .240 and all seven with a WHIP under 1.20. There is no question that all pitchers were deserving to a point and each could have easily won an award during the 1990’s, but only one can win this season. From the basic stats above, Keuchel appears to have the least argument, coming in last in strike outs by a long shot, winning the least games and allowing the second highest average of those compared above. The chart below shows the ranks of all those numbers compared to the rest of the AL. ERA, runs, earned runs, home runs, BAA and WHIP are qualified to 162 innings.

While it may not mean much, each players average rank is included at the right of the chart. This helps make more clear things like how, while Scherzer did grab a ton of wins and strike out a lot of batters, his success had more to do with the Tigers ability to score runs and play solid defense than his own ability to keep runners off the bases. David Price is in a similar position, while Phil Hughes had an even better defense behind him, but less offense. Hughes does deserve some extra credit as he walked just 16 batters in 32 starts, but that alone is not worth winning a Cy Young for.

This brings us back to the top two pitchers, Kluber and Hernandez and back to the defense behind them. Included in the standard stats above is FIP or Fielding Independent Pitching, the purpose of which is to place all pitchers on an even playing field. This number uses only plays that are unaffected by fielders, such as home runs and strike outs and shows what the player’s ERA would be behind an average defense. Using this number, Kluber was by far the best pitcher in the league, a fact that should surprise no one. The fact is, despite the worst defense in the league and a very inconsistent offense, Kluber was still able to win a league high 18 games.

Going beyond the simple errors and unearned runs mentioned before according to Fangraphs.com‘s UZR, the Indians defense allowed a league worse 72.4 runs than average while the Mariners saved eight runs more. Averaged over each starter’s 34 starts, this means that defense cost Kluber 15.2 runs and saved Hernandez 1.6. Considering all runs allowed, this would raise Hernandez’s total run average from 2.59 to 2.65 while lowering Kluber’s from 2.76 to 2.17. While FIP may be more accurate in showing what a pitcher would do in front of an average defense, this number shows what Kluber’s defense actually did behind him. As could be expected, the difference is even more marked.

The point of this deeper look is to dispel the myth that ERA tells the whole story. While it may seem on the surface that Hernandez was better at keeping runners off the bases and from crossing the plate than Kluber, that wasn’t the case. With the defense making up for the difference in runs allowed, it is important to also look at Kluber’s historical strike out season. This year, only Price surpassed Kluber in total K’s and only by three with both being at least 17 higher than the next best, Scherzer. In addition, he was one of just three pitchers with a K/9 above 10.25, along with Scherzer and Sale.

This is a very difficult race to pick as the new school of thought would see Kluber as the obvious winner (or even Sale despite missing a month due to injury), while the old school (which voters predominantly are) would give a slight advantage to Hernandez. Since neither team made the post-season, but both were close, there shouldn’t be a team boost, so this race should be completely decided by the talents of the pitchers themselves. With that being the case, there is a very good chance that Corey Kluber will become the Indians third Cy Young award winner in the past seven years.