Let's get this out of the way: Roger Clemens has not been the best pitcher in the American League this season. He's having a good season, but his place in the AL Cy Young Award discussion is primarily a result of the tremendous run support he's received from his Yankee teammates, boosting him to 15 wins and a league-leading winning percentage.
Clemens is clearly a candidate for the award, though, because that kind of record, whatever it may actually represent, gets the attention of the voters. In addition to Clemens, there are as many as eight other candidates for the AL Cy Young Award:
[RA=runs allowed per nine innings; OOPS=opponents OPS; RS=run support; SNpct.=support-neutral W-L pct.; SNVA=support-neutral value added (the expected number of games the pitcher would be worth to an average team in the standings, over what a league-average pitcher would be worth); SNWAR=support-neutral wins above replacement level]
Pitcher W-L ERA RA IP OOPS RS SNpct. SNVA SNWAR
Buehrle 10-6 2.90 3.14 155.0 600 4.70 .703 3.3 4.5
Clemens 15-1 3.50 3.83 162.0 680 6.94 .580 1.2 2.6
Garcia 13-4 3.31 3.69 166.0 660 5.86 .562 1.1 2.4
Hudson 14-6 2.99 3.20 174.1 617 5.11 .668 3.0 4.6
Johnson 10-7 3.17 4.39 147.2 726 5.06 .525 0.4 1.7
Mays 12-10 3.31 3.48 163.0 692 4.75 .675 2.8 4.2
Mulder 15-6 3.20 3.36 171.2 645 5.45 .668 3.0 4.5
Pettitte 13-6 3.29 4.06 150.2 675 7.17 .579 1.0 2.5
Sele 12-3 3.56 3.79 156.2 716 7.07 .547 0.8 2.1
Joe Mays and Mark Buehrle have no real chance to be voted the award, but as you can see, their performances compare nicely to the favorites. In fact, the Support-Neutral statistics have them as the second- and fifth-best pitchers in the American League this season. It's the lack of run support they've received, and the resulting lack of wins, that will keep them from being a big part of the discussion.
Jason Johnson, despite the third-best ERA in the league, has the worst peripherals of the group and has allowed a whopping 20 unearned runs, so he's not a candidate. Andy Pettitte is short on innings, like Johnson has allowed a bunch of unearned runs, and is unlikely to steal votes from Clemens, anyway, so nix him.
The two Mariner pitchers have gaudy winning percentages, thanks to good and even great run support. Given their home park, though, their performances aren't among the league's best, a point illustrated by their modest SN scores. Either could win the Cy Young Award with a strong finish, but if they did so, it would be because they pitched well for the best team in the league, not because they were the best pitcher in the league.
That leaves Clemens and the two A's. Let's put them into a chart with their ranks in the AL in some major categories. I'll include Buehrle -- the best of the low-profile candidates -- and Garcia -- the better of the two Mariner candidates -- as well.
ERA IP W SO Pct. OOPS RS SNWAR
Buehrle 1 13 t-14 19 12 1 32 t-2
Clemens 9 8 t-1 1 1 8 4 t-11
Garcia 6 6 t-4 17 5 4 10 t-15
Hudson 2 1 3 7 9 2 21 1
Mulder 4 2 t-1 t-9 8 3 15 t-2
Hudson ranks first or second in four categories, leading the league in innings and Support-Neutral Wins Above Replacement. Only Clemens leads in three categories, and two of those can be traced to his fourth-place standing in run support. Hudson ranks below seventh in only one of the pitching categories, the only one of the group who can say that.
This isn't conclusive, not on August 14. If I had to fill out my ballot today, I'd have Hudson on top, but I'm not sure who would fill the other slots on the ballot, or in what order. Hudson, Mulder, and Buehrle are all terribly close in value, and we will probably go deep into September before a clear favorite emerges.
It's really a strange year in the AL. The best pitcher in the league (Pedro Martinez) has pitched well enough to win, but won't pitch enough to get any votes. The league leader in ERA and SNWAR, Mark Buehrle, has a very low profile, and worse, a won-loss record that makes it easy for the voters to ignore him. The guy with the best record in the league, Roger Clemens, really hasn't been one of the league's five best pitchers.
After last week's NL Cy Young article, many readers wrote in to object to the use of Support-Neutral statistics, mostly because it didn't match their notions of how certain pitchers should be ranked. Remember that this isn't something put together to make this pitcher or that pitcher look good or look bad: it's a well-designed metric that isolates a pitcher's performance from the outside influences that can distort our view of it. SN stats compare pitchers apart from their run support (which affects wins), bullpen support (which affects ERA, RA, and wins), and environments in which they pitch (which affects ERA and RA).
These are good things. This is how you want to judge performances: by comparing what the pitchers themselves have done, and not allowing other factors to influence the comparison. Support-Neutral stats don't have to be the final word in pitcher evaluation, but they certainly should be a part of the discussion. That they're not well-known or weren't invented by Henry Chadwick or they rank your favorite pitcher below some guy you hate ... these aren't good reasons to dismiss them.
For more on Support-Neutral stats, click here.
The team of writers from the Baseball Prospectus (tm) writes twice a week for ESPN.com during the baseball season. You can check out more of their work at their web site at baseballprospectus.com. Joe Sheehan can be reached at jsheehan@baseballprospectus.com
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