Shocking that Houston projects to have the 4th best rotation in the league despite losing their #3-5 starters. Very surprised they project James to be that good.
I think McHugh is a more than serviceable #3 and an excellent #4. Slot James in #5 and then bring on a free-agent stud for the #3 spot and you have one of the best rotations in the league--not to mention some really solid #6 candidates (Peacock, Martes, Whitley, etc). I'm sure Luhnow has something up his sleeve. The Astros should go all in next year on a WS run. Could be the last "sure fire" year to compete for a championship before the pitching staff gets potentially blown up.
Do Matz, Wheeler, and Vargas or Hill, Ryu, and Maeda sound more imposing than McHugh, Peacock, and James? If so, are they imposing enough to make up for not being on same team as Verlander and Cole? Fangraphs projecting McHugh only as a reliever is only reason Astros aren't in the number two spot regardless of losing 3-5. Without McCullers and Morton, Astros likely would have finished 2nd in starter WAR last season due to having 5 WAR more than 3rd place. Cole and Verlander are that good. Adding another starter is more about having the best rotation. If Indians make a trade, adding another starter is more about making rotation the greatest by a greater margin. James being rated that highly doesn't surprise me. There is a very good chance he's either an okay starter or a great reliever. There is still a chance he's a bust, but there are also odds that he's mowing down guys better than Keuchel next year.
Not going to comment on Snell's worthiness since I don't know enough about him. He's clearly one heck of a pitcher. He and Justin trade blows on impressive stats for this season from what I'm seeing. I know wins is not what it used to be as a pitching measure (which is good), but is 21 vs 16 wins enough to sway 13 votes? Yeah, maybe. And that reminds me of all the times this season our bats hung Verlander completely out to dry. I'm not going to go back and count exact games like I did with Cole (who probably got it even worse), but from watching the whole season, I'd say our bats denied Verlander at least half a dozen Ws. So many games where he gave up 0-1 runs through the 7th and got nothing out of it. Always wanted to be a fly on the inside of JV's skull whenever that happened.
Just noticed that Verlander tied for the league in shut outs with ONE. Oh, how times have changed. Only 11 complete game shut outs in the AL. That’s the least this decade and I imagine the least ever.
Given the NL Cy-Young results, I don't think voters looked at W-L at all. De Grom got 29 out of 30 1st place votes with a 10-9 record. I suspect this came down to Snell being more dominant when he pitched vs Verlander pitching more innings.
I've always been on the Harper train. From a business standpoint, the jersey sales and attendance would be top shelf. We also have the salary to make it happen. Imagine the electricity in the air with a guy like Harper on this team. He has that kind of flare and would be a fan favorite in Houston. You could keep the core intact till 2020/2021... That's 2-3 years of being the best team in baseball and 2-3 years to build that farm system up (which is decent already). They were infatuated with him then and I believe so now. I will say though that if we got Harper... I highly doubt Springer stays.
Yep...Verlander had better strikeout and innings numbers, Snell did everything else better. If a reliever can win the award, a dominant starter who pitches 180 innings certainly can win it.
Verlander was more dominant in most stats that separate pitching from defense. Snell depended on defenders playing great, and they did for him.
So, strikeouts? Didn't we already know that? After reading this, I was surprised that Snell still struck out over 200, and had 11 K's/9 inning. By your post, it would have seemed more smoke/mirrorish with countless at-em balls, which it was not. Also, it would be hard to expect voters to look further into the numbers than they already did... and as it is, Snell's numbers were still very good. In the end, Snell was more dominant in games/innings he pitched by all metrics... but I for one feel that Verlander should get credit for being almost as dominant but for a much longer stretch of innings. The vote was probably as close as it should have been.
Verlander gave up less walks. Verlander gave up weaker contact overall despite giving up more homers.
I don't know about that - maybe true in a theoretical "what should be on average" world, but the simplest thing to look at is that Verlander gave up a lot more HR/inning than Snell, and that has nothing to do with defense. I don't know the actual numbers, but during his midseason lull, it seemed like virtually every run he (and Cole even more so) gave up was coming off HRs, meaning that while the defense might have allowed people on base to turn those into 2 or 3 run HRs, he was the one ultimately unable to keep them from scoring. And while voters are moving towards more advanced analytics, ERA is still a popular and easy measure. It's going to be hard to convince most people that TB's defense was worth nearly a 25% drop in ERA.
Yes. Verlander had a lower xFIP. Verlander had a better FIP. Verlander stroke out more per inning. Verlander walked less per inning. Gave up less hard contact per inning. Batters hit 0.320 on ground balls against Verlander while batters got a BA of 0.179 on grounders against Snell.
Does that take into account the velocity of the ground balls? We also know that Verlander is not a ground ball pitcher. In the end, I get your stance that Verlander was winning these metrics... but most elite strikeout pitchers are going to win those metrics over guys with less K's. By that merit, guys who give up weak ground ball contact (i.e. - groundball pitchers) would have a harder time winning the Cy Young by your criteria... and that being said, Snell still posted very good/elite K numbers and wasn't too far behind in FIP or xFIP. I would have voted for Verlander... but I'm biased. If you want to give it to the xFIP leader every year, then that's a different scenario... although this year, the Cy Young winner would have then been Carlos Carrasco.
Just to document on the QO implications this offseason: If Keuchel signs with another team, Houston will receive a draft pick after the 2nd round. If Houston signs one of the other 5 players who rejected a QO (Grandal, Pollock, Harper, Corbin, Kimbrel), they will lose their 2nd highest draft pick and have their international signing pool reduced by $500k (for each QO player they sign). So, for example, if Keuchel signs with the Padres, and Houston signs Grandal and Harper, they’d add a pick after the 2nd round, then immediately lose that pick and their current 2nd rd pick, and their international signing pool would be reduced by $1M. I wonder what the net outcome would be if Houston signed all 5 guys to front loaded deals all with opt outs after year 1, so all 5 guys (along with Verlander, Cole, and possibly McHugh) departed next offseason with QOs attached, leaving Houston with 9-10 of the top 75 picks in the 2020 draft (not to mention both a badass roster and a bloated payroll in 2019)?
Groundball velocities were slightly more for Verlander, but BA should have been slightly in Snell's favor instead of close to double. Astros defense for the most part was actually good on grounders when Verlander wasn't pitching. I have no problem with groundball pitchers winning Cy Young if warranted. I like xFIP. My preference is fWAR as it balances efficiency and innings as well as removing park effects. Cy Young if done by fWAR would have been Verlander, Sale, and Cole without inning limitations. When it is close, I like xwOBA to determine quality of contact. If a guy has a a significant ERA advantage and a significant xwOBA advantage, I will give more credit to the pitcher for his ERA.
But in the end, do you think Snell's numbers were really that inflated by his defense as you suggest? I think they both had very good years, and are different sort of pitchers. I just don't think Snell pitched that much worse than his numbers suggest, and we already know that most voting members are not going to look at all these advanced stats and interpret their performances based on all the variables. In the end, Verlander could have won it, it was a very close final vote, but Snell winning it is far from a steal.
