Why is the NL Cy Young Race so Convoluted?

The National League Cy Young race is an extremely close affair. When examining these types of situations, there is always the juxtaposition of handicapping who you think will win, versus who you think should win. In some years that's not really a difficult thing to figure out. Last year Sandy Alcantara was the unanimous NL Cy Young winner, garnering all 30 first place votes. It was easy to predict him capturing the award as he was overwhelmingly the most deserving.

Through games of September 9th, there is no clear cut choice for the award. As of right now there are six pitchers who deserve to be considered within the top five. With at least three or four more starts for each pitcher remaining, several, but not all of the pitchers listed below could snag the award with a hot three start run beginning this week. One or two pitchers will be snubbed, and we'll very likely end up with a very split ticket.

This is where we run smack dab into the will vs. should discussion. For when we look at some of the more traditional and commonly referenced pitching stats what we see is a situation where every pitcher has a strong claim in one area but a deficit in another. (relative to the other contenders). In such a situation voters are likely to be very dependent on simple pitcher won loss and ERA. When we dive deeper however we see that underlying performance and value are somewhat divergent from the traditional stats. That could lead to a lot of debate and even controversy.

Below are two tables for you to peruse. The first is mostly traditional stats, except that FIP, or fielding independent pitching, is shown along side ERA. FIP is a metric based on just walks, strikeouts, and home runs allowed, and scaled to ERA. The theory is that pitchers have little control over what happens to a ball in play, so it is considered by some a more pure measure of the pitcher's actual ability, with luck and random variation removed. FIP, and with it, Fangraphs WAR will tend to favor strikeout pitchers, but not if they walk too many batters.

The second table is a WAR table that shows both Baseball Reference and Fangraphs WAR. It is sorted by the average of the two WAR metrics. Baseball reference WAR or bWAR starts with actual total runs allowed per nine innings, and then makes adjustments for the quality of the defense, the strength of opponents, and the ballparks actually pitched in. Fangraphs or fWAR is FIP based, and makes adjustments for ballparks, but since it does not include balls in play, defense is not considered, nor is strength of opponent. A more detailed comparison chart of the two WAR metrics can be found here. The thing that pitcher bWAR does best is weight run prevention against innings volume. Ideally the pitcher with the most innings also has the best or close to best ERA. That makes things easier, like last year with Alcantara. But as you'll see, this year the pitchers with the best ERA have the least innings.

The second table also includes a column for run support and the W-L record is repeated so you can see the direct impact of a team's offense on the pitcher's record in some cases.

Table 1

Table 2

Pros and Cons

Zack Wheeler has the highest average WAR due to a large fWAR total. The reason behind that can be seen in Table 1. He has the second lowest HR/9, the second lowest BB/9, and the 3rd highest strikeout per nine. He pitches in a hitter's ballpark and gets a bump for that as well. But his 11-6 record and mid 3's ERA is not going to catch the eyes of the voters. Note the large gap, over half a run between ERA and FIP, indicating some bad luck perhaps. Wheeler should be one of the top candidates, but may struggle just to finish in the top 5.

Zac Gallen leads in games started, is second in innings and second in Avg. WAR. He's also 3rd in ERA, FIP, and BB/9. He has a solid all around case despite trailing the ERA leader by 0.80 runs. Also note the run support compared to Justin Steele and Spencer Strider. With equal run support his W-L record could easily be one or two wins better. Gallen lines up to make four more starts and could end up with over 210 innings pitched. More importantly from a Diamondbacks perspective, he has shown repeatedly he can get on a roll for multiple starts. He just pitched his first nine inning complete game shutout. He has a 28 inning scoreless streak early in the season and a 44.1 inning scoreless streak last year. If that shutout was the start of another such run, he'll probably take control of the award.

Justin Steele leads the league in Wins, Win%, and ERA at the moment, and is a strong 3rd in Avg WAR. The main deficit for Steele is workload. He has the fewest starts and innings pitched of any of the contenders. With probably three more starts to go he is unlikely to get over 180 innings. But if he does and still leads the league in ERA he would probably be the front runner at that point.

Logan Webb has been a stalwart for the Giants, logging the most innings in the league. Due to a minuscule 3.3 runs per game in support, he has a losing record and is not going to be seriously considered by the voters. That's a shame. He has six "tough" losses in games he threw a quality start, (6 IP and 3 ER or less). He has not picked up a cheap win all year. (Wins in non quality starts) His volume and underlying quality, including the lowest walk rate, puts him solidly in fourth place in average WAR, just a hair behind Steele and Gallen. Webb is a major snub waiting to happen and probably does not place in the top five. That will be a shame.

Blake Snell has been coming on strong and is neck and neck with Steele for the ERA title. It should be noted however that Petco Park is one of the most pitcher friendly parks in the league, while Wrigley somewhat favors the hitters, on average. (Wind in or out makes a huge difference, but in total Wrigley still is hitter friendly) So while the ERA is essentially the same as Steele, Snells' ERA+ is 163 and Steele's is 180. 100 = league average and the higher the better, so that is a significant gap. Snell's FIP is almost a run higher than his ERA, and he also has the innings deficit issue that Steele has. He doesn't get much run support however, so his won loss record is not very strong.

Spencer Strider is last but not least. His case is perhaps the most polarizing. His incredible strikeout totals coupled with league average walk rates make him the most exciting pitcher in the league when he's on. Despite having the highest home run rate in this group, he still has the lowest FIP. He also has the highest ERA, indicating some bad luck perhaps. That bad luck with ERA has been offset by the highest run support however, resulting in a great won loss record. Finally, along with Snell and Steele, Strider also has the innings deficit issue.

Strider and Snell provide an interesting juxtaposition, in that Snell has the lower ERA and better bWAR, but Strider has the lower FIP and better fWAR. The average of the two is virtually the same.