20
2012
Mets By The Numbers: Dickey Top Choice In Cy Young Predictor
An article by Craig Lerner
If you’re a stat junkie like me, you may find the following two charts pretty cool.
Click image to embiggen.
In this first chart, ESPN uses many variables to conclude what the most dominant pitching performances of the year have been so far. It’s interesting to note that not one, but both of R.A. Dickey’s one-hitters ranked ahead of Johan Santana’s no-hitter.
Some of you may recall that in 2011, the Mets’ Chris Capuano was credited as having the most dominating pitching performance of the year when he hurled his one-hit gem against the Braves on August 26. Cappy has been a top-tier pitcher ever since and is having himself an incredible season for the Dodgers who inked him to a two-year, $10 million dollar deal.
Click image to embiggen.
In this second chart, ESPN uses a point-system based on several key variables to determine who could be this year’s Cy Young award winner. Matt Cain, Chris Capuano and Stephen Strasburg have each spent time in the top spot so far. But there’s a new leader this week and it’s our own R.A. Dickey.
They say a win is a win is a win. But clearly some wins are bigger than others and as you can see here, Dickey not only leads the majors with 11 wins, but at least two of those wins were some of the best pitched games in MLB this season and we’re only in the first half.
Charts provided by ESPN.
About the Author: Craig Lerner
I'm a data analyst and researcher for a leading news agency who loves life and is hooked on the Mets. I love following the Amateur Draft and have a particular fondness for the Mets Minor Leagues who I follow each day. Give me a cold beer, a summer day, and a Mets game, and I'm good to go.
51 Comments + Add Comment
Recent Comments
- Rick Pitino: on Gee Roughed Up As Braves Shutout The Mets 6-0: Mike Piazza is not walking through that...
- Matt Mosher: on Gee Roughed Up As Braves Shutout The Mets 6-0: Everyone knew this team would stink. We'll...
- Kyle: on Gee Roughed Up As Braves Shutout The Mets 6-0: The players get the biggest paycheck and...
- Seth Cohen: on Gee Roughed Up As Braves Shutout The Mets 6-0: So he has a sense of humor....
- BadBadLeroyBrown: on Summer Clearance: Possible Trade Strategies For The Mets: Van Slyke is a SCRUB...hell no....Puig or...
Need Tickets To The Mets Game?
Check Out These Great MLB Links!
Photographs From Gordon Donovan
5397 Fans Follow Us On Twitter!
1269 Fans Like Us On Facebook!
2341 Fans Read Our Feed!
1702 Fans Subscribe via Daily Email!
I find it interesting that Dickey’s one-hitters both have higher scores than Johan’s no-hitter. It makes sense considering the walks, I guess.
what those charts don’t tell you is how much GUTSIER Santana’s performance was. Do those charts also tell you the pressure Santana was under as the game wore on? Does that chart tell you that considering Santana’s shoulder surgery and the effort he gave under those conditions?
No. But statistically yes I guess RA had a better pitching performance. But both of those performances don’t match the stress and pressure Santana had to battle through so that’s why I say Santana’s no hitter was still the best Mets pitching performance of the year.
So, there was no pressure to stop a losing streak after your team got swept at home and didn’t produce a lot of runs?
You have no insight to either situation at all. Stop acting like you can crawl inside a professional baseball player’s head. Go by what we actually have.
thats good old fashioned baseball knowledge donal
lol, it is so funny
I can see how someone can think Johan’s game was better. You make some fair points.
It makes sense statistically. But the stat is flawed, in that the pressure can’t be accounted for.
I want to throw something out for debate- Kerry Wood has the highest game score in a nine-inning game (105) for his 20 strikeout, one-hit performance a few years back. Is that more impressive than Cain’s perfect game, or any perfecto really?
Yes, it is, on both counts. The fact that Wood gave up a hit is not indicative of his pitching performance. Wood is only in direct control of BB’s, K’s, and HR’s. In fact, this is the basis for the stat Fielding Independent Pitching. The hypothesis is that depending on the defensive ability of fielders, and defensive alignment, a batted ball which is a hit in one scenario may not be a hit in another situation. (Think of fielders playing in when a batter bunts, or Endy’s catch). Here is a question…what would you find more impressive- a CG where the pitcher allowed one well hit double, or one where he allowed two nubbers up the first base line that travelled a combined 15 feet?
With regards to the Wood 20k’s vs. Cain Perfecto, it is clear that Wood was far more dominant, as only 8 batters faced were able to put the ball in play, while 13 were able to do so versus Cain. Sure you can say something about pressure or whatever, but that doesn’t explain the fact that in MLB history, there have been 22 official perfect games, but only 3 20 strikeout games (with Clemens authoring the others in 1986). Also, note that over 1/3 of the perfect games (8) have been thrown since Wood’s 20k game back in 1998.
Cain’s PG was a performance for the ages no doubt..but if you want to talk about dominance, Wood has him beat.
“Wood is only in direct control of BB’s, K’s, and HR’s”
Another moronic statement that shows lack of intelligence about the game of baseball. The pitcher can attempt to control where the ball is hit by shaking off the catcher, or by understanding the catcher is giving the sign for a changeup to a certain hitter to try and induce a groundball for a DP, or a groundball with the infield in, etc. There are so many game situations that dictate how the pitcher can approach hitter and how he can change his approach depending on if a hitter is hot or not.
You’re comment is just correlated with statistics and not actually how the game is played.
Well a) no need for name calling.
Secondly, you are right that the pitcher can attempt to control where the ball is hit. However, this doesn’t take into account outcome. You as a pitcher will try to induce, at best, weak contact. However, whatever happens after that is out of your control. What if your infield is playing at double play depth, but the hitter hits a weak groundball that the second baseman would have had a play on had the fielder been at normal depth? Is that the pitchers fault? The answer to that is no, and this is part of the basis of FIP, which has been a very good indicator of future performance, I might add.
The point is that outcomes sometimes belie performance, especially when there are several factors (i.e. fielders, batters). Consider this..Pitcher A makes a nasty pitch, at the knees and on the black, but the batter is somehow able to get wood on it and get on base. Meanwhile, Pitcher B throws a hanger that the batter just misses. Which pitch is better?
Its pretty much the same flaw as the Win statistic…A pitcher can give up 1 run a game, but if his team can’t score, he’ll never win, but at the same time another pitcher can give up 3 runs a game, but his team scores 4 a game. Who is better?
so you’re penalizing the pitcher for how the game of baseball is played. That’s all your doing.
FIP is such a horrendous stat, such a terrible indicator of performance i don’t know where to begin. If you like FIP fine but it is so far from actual peformance that it’s just a waste of time and only good for debate among stat heads for the sole purpose of statistics in and of themselves and not the game.
But aren’t you penalizing a pitcher if you don’t account for the bad defense behind him?
When trying to determine a pitcher’s true abilities, should you take into account more than what is on your scorecard?
Isn’t baseball a team game that requires contributions from everyone?
Sound reasoning
And a final point – don’t forget about the saying that every no-hitter / perfect game features one outstanding defensive play. There really is no debate that this pretty much a fact, and certainly not with regard to Cain’s perfect game. One could argue that the reason Wood gave up a hit was because his fielders weren’t able to make that outstanding play.
Given that Wood gave up just one hit, if you are to say that Cain’s performance was more impressive, then you are essentially crediting him for Melky Cabrera’s terrific catch, which shouldn’t be the case.
So because a pitcher has fielder’s behind him you penalize him for that? That’s just the game of baseball and you’re penalizing him for how the game is played.
Everything is black and white with you knuckleheads and like Keith Hernandez said on the broadcast the other day “too many brainiacs running around”
Probably another kid who read a book and loves playing with statistics
Actually, taking into account the defense behind a pitcher adds shades of grey. You are the one looking at the stat book and making it black or white.
C’mon Bayonne ya gotta open your mind
Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_independent_pitching_statistics
I don’t consider myself a “sabergoon” or anything (i prefer a more balanced approach) but these stats are nice to have on your back pocket to back you up sometimes.
oh, this should be good
no response
Pitchers do have control over the hits they give up. Say if a pitcher throws a pitch down the middle and the batter hits it for a single, your gonna tell me the pitcher didn’t have control over that? Or say if the pitcher throws a nasty pitch down and in to a lefty and he rolls it over to the 2ndbaseman, your going to tell me, he didn’t control the outcome? Come on.
Sure sometimes weakly hit balls fall in, and you get hard hit balls hit right at somebody, but that kind of stuff usually evens out in the long run. And ERA does not TOTALLY ignore defense, if a fielder makes an error behind you it does not effect the pitchers ERA.
You can control the amount of hits you give up – if you make good pitches, the less likely you are to give up a hit, and if you make bad pitches the more likely you are to give up a hit – Regardless of the defense behind you.
Not everybody has to agree I guess. Some people like the traditional thinking while some like the newer, stat-based thinking. Both have their pros and cons. That’s the beauty of it.
But you didn’t answer him. He laid out pure baseball circumstances and you had no answer.
But you prefer to look at it from a statistical standpoint instead of actual baseball. Big difference and you also learn less about what makes the game of baseball exciting.
There is so much to learn about the nuances of baseball but stat geeks seem to want to ignore that more and more and all that leads to is a less informed fan (about how the game works and what makes it so beautiful). Actually preferring to look at it from a statistical standpoint makes you LESS knowledgeable about the game and not more. To me that’s being lazy, kind of like relying on pitch counts instead of communication and intuition. Just plain lazy.
You never answered what Vinny said.
You ignore plenty of direct questions. Who are you to call anyone out?
Donal he has only 2 or 3 people here who MIGHT like him, dont waste your time trying to understand him . You can´t understand a person like him , i mean beeing a “normal” person
See ya Donal
Exactly Donal.
and Bayonne
First of all I’m not a saver geek or anything like that. I am just a fan who embraces BOTH ways of thinking. Of course you need the traditional thinking but you also need stats to balance it out. Neither is perfect and you cant be too far on either side IMO. You seem to be on the extreme side of the traditional way of thinking. At least try to understand modern thinking. Read Moneyball or read Fangraphs for a little while, just to see what it is all about. If you don’t agree with it then, so what? At least you gave it a chance. If you don’t like it you will at least see where we’re coming from.
To answer Vinny’s point, he idea is a general one. The concept is that defenders can be positioned ANYWHERE on the field. Think about shifts and positioning and stuff like that. In theory it’s not the pitcher’s fault that the fielders weren’t in position to catch that liner up the middle.
Of course, the better you are the more influence you have on whether someone begs a hit but its mostly out of their control.
Donald or anyone else- I probably didn’t word that too well but let me know.
Hi Connor,
Is statistical analysis more accurate than observed knowledge when it comes to fielder positioning? Well, in the Daily News 40th anniversary book documenting the miracle season there was a paragraph in a news article where somebody commented the Mets were lucky because the fielder who had just made an outstanding diving catch happened to be standing in an area close enough to where the ball was hit. The reporter said it had nothing to do with luck for before the pitch he observed Gil Hodges directing that fielder to move a few steps toward a certain direction. No stats – it was the stored knowledge and analysis of an astute baseball brain who knew the repositioning of his fielder by those few steps was necessary based on the pitch that was about to be thrown.
And as far as pitching performance, I guess the best judges are the players themselves who talk about the type of stuff one is throwing – and how he still controls that stuff as the pressure of the game mounts going into the late innings. They will always say it’s the results one cannot find in a box score. In any event, give me a Santana, Dickey or Cain on the night they have their good stuff going and I don’t care which player one selects for one being a few decimal points better than another in some sort of mathematical equation is meaningless. It’s simply a matter of picking one’s poison and having good fielders behind him and good minds both on the field and in the dugout.
That’s why a pitcher has a certain control of what the batter will do in the sense that he is trying to get him to hit it to one of his fielders. All hitters know how the fielders are playing them. After that, it’s either waiting for the pitcher to make a “mistake” by throwing him a pitch he can hit with authority or just doing a great piece of hitting on a good pitch thrown from the mound.
“Say if a pitcher throws a pitch down the middle and the batter hits it for a single, your gonna tell me the pitcher didn’t have control over that? Or say if the pitcher throws a nasty pitch down and in to a lefty and he rolls it over to the 2ndbaseman, your going to tell me, he didn’t control the outcome? Come on.”
Are you saying the pitcher has control over whether they are caught?
“Sure sometimes weakly hit balls fall in, and you get hard hit balls hit right at somebody, but that kind of stuff usually evens out in the long run. ”
Does it? How long a run? You don’t think that some players are better at defense than others?
“You can control the amount of hits you give up – if you make good pitches, the less likely you are to give up a hit, and if you make bad pitches the more likely you are to give up a hit – Regardless of the defense behind you.”
No, you can influence the amount of hits you give up. Better pitchers exert more influence.
However, once a pitcher releases the ball, it is out of his control, unless it is hit back at him.
If the hitter weakly grounds out to the 2ndbaseman, and he doesn’t make the play, that’s going to be an error. And if you throw a pitch down the middle and the batter makes solid contact on it, MOST of the time that’s going to fall in for a hit regardless of the defense behind you.
Sure you can luck out once and awhile, but like I said, luck always evens out in the long run. Unless your going to say a pitcher is going to go through a whole season giving up line drives hit right at poeple – That’s unrealistic. Or a picther is going to give up weakly hit balls that fall in the whole year, which is also unrealistic.
Sure defense plays a part, but in ERA it isn’t TOTALLY ignored. If the fielder doesn’t make a play he should make, it’s not going to be counted as a hit.
But the main factor is the the quality of the pitches the pitcher throws – If you throw good pitches, the less likely you are to give up a hit, if you throw bad pitches, the more likely you to give up a hit – The quality of the pitch you throw is what’s most likely going to control the outcome of the AB.
You bet I read books and like statistics…both have done me well in life. Also, at least I can back up my points with facts, without resulting to name calling.
I’m not penalizing Cain for having great fielding behind him, I’m just not giving him undue credit. The question asked was whether Cain’s perfecto was better than Wood’s 20k 1-hitter. There are 2 key differences between the two, in that Wood generated 20 K’s, while Cain didn’t allow a hit. I think we are in agreement that the pitchers have control over strikeouts. On the other hand, Cain benefitted from a spectacular defensive play behind him, while Wood was not. By saying Wood had a better game, I am not punishing Wood for the lack of defense behind him.
As an aside, take the case of a pitcher who induces groundballs. He could have the same GB rate each year, but would he perform better with the Met defense behind him, or the Yankees who have the highest fielding % in the majors?
Let me put it another way. Do you consider ERA or Wins a better indicator of pitching performance? Ivan Nova has 9 wins but a 4.3 ERA. Jered Weaver has 6 wins but a 2.61 ERA. Who is better? Nova, because his team scores more runs for him? Or Weaver, who gives up less runs a game?
By the way, if you are so anti-statistics, why are you on a blog called “Mets by the Numbers?”
Well, Woods did have one HBP. He plunked Biggio
Biggio was a baseball magnet. Thats one of those intangible, how-you-play-the-game things…
Its like mets by uniform number’s not stats
Ha – I meant post, not blog
And that’s a terrible example because Weaver has spent a lot of time on the DL.
How about another example:
Who’s better- Brandon Beachy, who is 5-5 with a 2.00 ERA or Lucas Harrell, who is 6-5 with a 5.07 ERA?
That’s a much better example.lol.
But what that proves is that you always have to use more than one stat to judge a player.
Weaver is good for those numbers whether he went on the DL or not. He’s a top notch starter.
That Kerry Wood game happened to be on WGN that day and I was lucky enought to have watched it and that was by far the single most dominating pitching performance I have ever seen in 40 years of watching baseball.
Let’s see……RA bested his 6/18 outing by one GSC by one point over his 6/13 outing.
I lobby he beats that 6/18 outing this Sunday against the Yankees and CC.
Go RA!
Yes!
Dickey for CY Young? Sounds good to me. While were at it why not also see if Dickey for NL MVP fits as well much like a Mr. Verlander did a year ago.
Off Topic: Tonight’s Lets Get the sweep lineup.
Mets Wed. lineup vs. Orioles: Torres-CF, Valdespin-2B, Wright-3B, Hairston-RF, Rottino-LF, Davis-1B, Turner-SS, Nickeas-C, Gee-RHP
I don’t care what saber stats say about dickey’s performance… Santana’s the one who will be remember… Sabergeeks and Sabergooners can keep their Stats and ***** them up their ***** ..
“I don’t care what saber stats say about dickey’s performance…”
And yet you had to comment in here.
” Santana’s the one who will be remember… ”
Which means what? The masses are idiots. The popular opinion means nothing.
“Sabergeeks and Sabergooners can keep their Stats and ***** them up their ***** ..”
this really isn’t the site for you to make those types of requests. Place a Craig’s List ad or something.
Of course Santana will be remembered – I don’t think there is any question about it. It was the Mets first no-no after all. Heck even if it was the 5th, it would be more likely to be remembered.
I think the point is just that Dickey’s game was more dominant of a performance.
Regardless, I think that the exciting thing is that it is very possible that we will always remember RA’s entire season, and not just a single game.
So you mean to tell us no one will remember someone who has done something that hasn’t been accomplished in almost SEVEN decades? Whatever floats your boat.
Dickey will start the all star game and he has a great chance to win the cy young
a no hitter takes a lot of things. Good stuff, good defense, ability to pitch under (self induced) pressure. But it also takes luck.
the aforementioned good defense (and occasional great play), but also the ball finding a glove.
sometimes guys crush a pitch, and hit a screamer right at a fielder. other times, they are horribly overmatched or fooled, and hit a dink/dumk/bleeder/dribbler that someone goes for a hit.
and that is the part that really is out of the pitchers control. If they dominate a guy and get weak contact but it finds a hole, there goes the no hitter, but he still did his job. Conversely, if he throws meatballs that get rocketed right at someone, or deep drives tracked down at the wall, he is getting away with bad pitches.
and sometimes you get enough of the luck to get through 9 innings without a hit, but without truly dominating, and sometimes you own a game but still end up with a hit on the board. Just ask Tom Seaver about that!
Remember how John Maine lost his no hitter in game 161 in 2007 against Florida. he pitched the game of his life, 13 K’s a a little roller along the 3B line busted up his no no.
It isn’t Santana OR Dickey that people will remember. Mets fans will remember both Santana’s no-no and Dickey’s amazing starts for years to come. Saying otherwise implies that no one remembers what Doc did in ’85, etc. Just silly, our memories aren’t so shallow.
Damned straight. I agree.
Yup and I believe that given what RA does to affect a game he should start AS game followed by either Cain or Strasburg since the difference in pitching style if RA pitches more than one inning will be reflected in the subsequent at bats by the AL hitter, IF winning the AS is important and not about showcasing Strassburg or Cain who will pitch if eligible.
BTW I am the same person as ConnorUAF