Unlike the more open MVP race, the CY came down to two pitchers, pretty much all season long. They are listed above in alphabetical order. Please vote, and once you do, you'll be able to see a running tally.
Stats Link (http://www.mutinybaseball.com/statistics/)
You have 72 hours from the time stamp of this post.
I believe I voted Sherzer and the reason would be his 85% quality starts (70% sale) and .74 WHIP (sale a miserable .93 ha). I don't much care about wins or record because that doesn't isolate the pitcher from the teams offense. deGrom or Kluber may have been in the discussion if their team didn't suck.
Understood.
I did consider adding deGrom and Kluber, by the way. LOL on their team "sucking"! :) But their personal numbers were consistently below Sale and Scherzer, who dominated 1-2 consistently all year long in nearly all the major categories.
I personally voted for Sale but I can see reasons to vote for Scherzer including:
* Scherzer's 331 K's is pretty amazing (Sale 262)
* Sale's run support was 4th highest in the league. When I looked at their game logs, Scherzer lost 3 games when he pitched 7+ innings and gave up only 2 runs and 1 when he pitched 8 and gave up 3. On the other hand, Sale was "saved" from getting a loss once or twice thanks to his teams run support. That makes their W-L records seem more similar.
* Scherzer led the league in OBA, OOBP and was second (to Sale) in OSLG. His OOPS was slightly better than Sale (.515/.527)
* Scherzer's WHIP was an amazing .74 compared to Sale's excellent .93.
* I know QS is often scoffed as a counting stat but I like it as a measure of how often my SP kept my team close late into a game. Scherzer had 28 (85%) compared to Sale's 19 (70%).
Like I said, I voted for Sale primarily based on 19-0 but I can see justification to vote for Scherzer.
I voted for Scherzer based on all the reasons Dan gave. He was better at most everything. Sale was undefeated based as much on excellent run support as anything else. Tremendous year for sure, but an undefeated record doesn't mean much without considering the reasons why.
For me the QS and OBA/OOBP/OSLG splits were a huge factor. And while Sale was amazing at 19-0, I have to believe that if Scherzer got 6.2 runs in support per game, Scherzer might have gone 25-0 (turning his 6 losses into wins).
Also, if Kluber and deGrom were included, I think Nola needs to be in the conversation too.
I can't go against Dan's logic with my vote for Max. Amazingly, I never look at win/loss, so I didn't even noticed the 19-0 record for Sale.
I agree that won/loss record is a completely overrated stat for a SP. But for me, Sale started 32 games (I believe) in the regular season and playoffs and lost exactly 0 of them. That’s unprecedented. And yes, he won a couple (or didn’t get a loss) due to some run support. Sure. I counter that he also had the win a couple times that his bullpen lost it for him - I can think of at least 2 examples of that just in the playoffs.
Was Scherzer a completely fine choice? Of course. This has nothing to do with him. He’d have been an excellent choice every other year. But for me personally what Sale did was historic.
But that’s why we have voting :)
Thank you, guys. While I agree with Rod, I'm reminded we all value certain stats differently and totally respect all the votes. I just thought it'd be much closer, if not 10-5 the other way.