Trophies Shine Forever

As I’ve said before, Flags Fly Forever. Going all out for a chance at a championship is worth whatever risk it may take. Last year, Curt Schilling put his career in serious jeopardy to pitch the Red Sox past the Yankees to the World Championship. Now, Curt Schilling will never again buy a drink in Boston, has a sock (think about that: a sock) in the Hall of Fame and, more importantly, wears the World Championship ring that Jason Giambi wishes belonged to him. Indeed, Flags Fly Forever. And for solace in this time of mere adequacy for Minnesota fans, I am now asserting the trophy corollary to Flags Fly Forever, that Trophies Shine Forever. In particular, Trophies Shine Forever for players who overcame a poor season to dominate their position. If you don’t see where I’m going with this yet, I’ll be more explicit: Johan Santana’s pursuit of the Cy Young is the last vestige of hope for Twins fans in 2005.

First, I will define what I see as the Cy Young field. Santana and Bartolo Colon are the only two pitchers who have received much press explicitly mentioning their Cy Young credentials. Mariano Rivera has been on the outside of some discussions, and Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland will probably join him near the end of several ballots.

Speaking strictly in terms of perception, Colon seems to be the early favorite, with his team winning their division and a 20-win season under his belt. However, Colon has received Jeff Brantley’s ardent support, which should be a kiss of death for anyone who has heard Brantley “analyze” baseball. Rivera is a good dark horse candidate with an ERA around 1.40 and 41 saves for a team that has not had much bullpen stability. On the other hand, Rivera does not lead the league in saves (for what it’s worth statistically), and closers have to look especially dominant to be considered for the Cy Young, just think back to how good Gagne was in 2003, and how some people still argued against his candidacy. Buehrle and Garland are packing it in, playing for a team in the midst of a tremendous slide, and they are largely responsible for it.

As for the traditional pitching stats, which will dictate how most voters fill out their ballots, Santana sits in very good company in two out of three categories, but wins may cost him the award. After Santana’s strong start on Tuesday, he caught up to Kevin Millwood’s 2.92 league-leading ERA, with a chance to overtake Millwood over the last week of the season. Millwood’s 9-11 record will keep him squarely out of the discussion, but an ERA crown would be helpful. Santana also has a comfortable lead in strikeouts, currently sitting at 229, which is 26 more than second place Randy Johnson. (two notes here: Johnson and Santana led the league in Ks, just as we all expected, but I’ve heard people saying that both have had off years. Harsh. Also, anybody know when was the last time two lefties led the league in strikeouts?). With one start remaining, Santana will almost certainly finish with more than 230 IP, placing him behind only Buehrle. So Santana has been one of the most effective pitchers in the league, and has done it more than anyone else. That should probably qualify him to win, but voters like wins, for some reason, and we will revisit the debate as to whether wins or performance are more important. Last year, Randy Johnson outpitched Roger Clemens, but didn’t have the wins and lost out on the award. Clemens approached the other side of the problem this season before stumbling in September.

That brings me to Bill James’ Cy Predictor, a metric used to predict the Cy Young winner based not on performance, but on what stats voters have historically gone for. The metric has been unduly kind to closers in past seasons, and Mariano Rivera continues the trend, leading by a wide margin. Colon comes in second, Joe Nathan third (see- too much credit to closers) and Santana fourth. Colon’s difference comes largely from the win deficit, so Santana picking up one more this weekend is tremendously important.

Looking to more advanced statistics, Santana leads the AL in Value Over Replacement Player by 27 runs (70 to 53). He’s third in all of baseball- behind Carpenter and Clemens- and leads fourth-place Bartolo Colon by more than 30 runs. Roy Halladay comes in second, which points to how good he was when healthy this year. In fact, Halladay leads nearly every meaningful rate stat, and was on pace to demolish everyone’s counting stats if not for his freak injury on a comebacker. Halladay’s 141 IP is also good enough for 3rd in the AL in Support Neutral Value Added Over Replacement player, which measures how many expected wins a pitcher added over a replacement player, adjusted for lineup. Santana leads that category, as well, by a margin of almost a full win over Colon (7.3 to 6.4). While the margin may not seem that large, consider that we’re talking about fractions of full wins, making Santana 14.3% more effective this season.

While the pundits have the right pitchers in the discussion, Santana has ultimately been better than everyone else, and it isn’t close. So even if the win police are out to get Johan, and knock him right on the head, here’s hoping that his multiple Cy Young trophies all shine on… like the moon, and the stars and the sun.