The 5.5 Hole

I'm not sure Ian Kennedy hates advanced metrics, but if he cares about personal accomplishments and off-season award, he probably wishes it were three years ago. Over the course of the last couple years, baseball writers have put more stock in advanced metrics when voting during awards season (see Felix Hernandez Cy Young with 13-12 record). Unfortunately for Kennedy, these advanced, more accurate, stats will probably preclude him from real Cy Young candidacy.

When have you heard anyone in the media talk about Kennedy for Cy Young? Never? All the talk is about Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Clayton Kershaw in the National League. But the truth is, three years ago a 20-4 season with a sub 3.00 ERA would have all but guaranteed a pitcher the Cy Young. Now, I'm on board for Halladay, Lee, or Kershaw taking home the award, but I'll admit, I still marvel at 20+ wins. I agree wins are less meaningful than we all previously thought, so I resist the urge to crown a Cy Young based on a 20 win season. So just how good is Ian Kennedy then?

Kennedy ranks 7th in the NL in pitching WAR, 13th in FIP, 15th in BB/9, and 15th in K/9. These results do not scream Cy Young Candidate. So, let's look at some of the traditional metrics.

Kennedy ranks 1st in wins, 5th in innings pitched, 9th in ERA, and 6th in strikeouts. These numbers and rankings would be more indicative of a Cy Young season. However, combined with some of the advanced metrics, Kennedy's season pales in comparison to that of Halladay or Lee or Kershaw.

20 wins will always be a milestone in baseball, but no longer will it be a jumping off point to Cy Young conversations. Three years ago I may have told you Ian Kennedy was the best pitcher in the league. But three years ago I was not paying as much attention to alternative and additional evaluation methods. Ian Kennedy is having a really good year, but I don't think there's any question that Halladay, Lee, or Kershaw are having a great year.

The name speaks of confidence, power, fame, and fortune. It reminds us of royalty and glitz. While Ian Kennedy doesn't come from a long line of political powers, he has established himself as a power among National League pitchers.

"Whenever I hear 18 wins, I think of a good bullpen and a good offensive team, timely hitting, really," Kennedy said in an Associated Press article.

That sums up the belief many of the more progressive baseball statisticians have in wins. Less is controlled by the pitcher than the stat suggests. But 18 wins in Arizona is impressive. Not since Brandon Webb have the Diamondbacks been able to boast that kind of success. But let's take a closer look.

Saturday night, Kennedy and the Diamindbacks evened up their series with the Giants and extended their lead in the West back to 6 games. Ian Kennedy now has the most wins in the National League, and with only 4 losses, he has the best winning percentage. After showing so much promise in the Yankees farm system, Kennedy is proving he can be one of the best young pitchers in the league.  And he's doing it with simple development. 

Kennedy's walk per 9 innings ratio is the lowest it has been in his career at 2.36.  Leaving out his 2007 season with the Yankees when he pitched 19 innings and his 2009 season when he pitched 1 inning, Kennedy's home run per 9 innings ratio is the lowest of his career at 0.88.  He's not overpowering with strikeouts, but he is getting the job done with 167.  His FIP shows good defense behind him, and his ERA- is at 73 (meaning his ERA is 27% better than league average).


His stats speak for themselves, but what has changed?  Has he simply developed into an Ace pitcher?  Has he put everything together to make himself Cy Young caliber? 

One fairly noticeable change is the addition of a cutter.  Prior to this season, Kennedy did not throw the cutter.  This year, he is throwing it 8% of the time.  With the cutter, he now has five solid pitches.  The second most noticeable difference is the amount of pitches batters are swinging at out of the strikezone.  This season, Kennedy has his second highest percentage of pitches swung at outside of the zone at 28.6%.  (His highest was 28.9% in 2007 when he pitched only 19 innings) Finally, Kennedy is getting ahead of batters.  His first pitch strike percentage is 63.1, and batters are swinging and missing at 8.7% of his total pitches.


The chart below, courtesy of Fangraphs, shows Kennedy's velocity over the last few years.  He is clearly mixing his pitches better.  His highest velocity is higher than it has been in the past, and his lowest velocity is lower.

Ian Kennedy has done a lot to get the Diamondbacks where they are, and it is looking more and more like he will get a shot to be a number one starter in the postseason.  With a possible match-up of Kennedy vs. Halladay in the division series, fans should be treated to a pitcher's duel at its finest.  I'm sure the Yankees aren't complaining about receiving Curtis Granderson in the three-team trade that sent Kennedy to the Dbacks, but with their pitching trouble, how much could he have helped that team?

With an option year next season and an arbitration eligible year in 2013, it would be smart for the Diamondbacks to lock Ian Kennedy into a long-term deal now.  If he pitches like this next season, you can be sure an arbitrator will grant him 3-4 times the $423,000 he is making now.  But if you're living in the moment, as Diamondbacks fans should be doing, Kennedy is showing flashes of the dominance this team showed in 2001.  10 years after they won the World Series, Arizona has a clear-cut ace and a chance to go all the way again. 

We are still a couple months away from handing out the hardware, but everyone and their mother is talking about the Cy Young and the MVP. Rather than just pick my favorites, I'm doing something a little different. I am creating an entirely new award. I've touched on the subject briefly when discussing a pitcher as an MVP. Here's the gist; I believe a pitcher should be able to win the MVP and the Cy Young as long as there is an overall best position player award.

So, in that vein, I created The Ripken Award. Cal Ripken Jr. spent much of his career playing for bad teams. But he was always great. The Ripken Award will go to the best overall position player in each league without concern about that player's team's record. This is truly an individual award for the best position player. We will still discuss the MVP and Cy Young awards as well. So, here we go:

A.L. MVP:
Justin Verlander - Let's face it, the Tigers would not be anywhere near the top of the division without Justin Verlander. They would probably be under .500, looking up at the Indians and White Sox. His 21 wins so far blows away the competition and his WAR leads all pitchers. If you are truly picking a player who has performed amazingly well and been the key to his team's success, Verlander is that player.

A.L. Cy Young:
Justin Verlander - Wins still mean something among baseball enthusiasts. I understand the argument that a pitcher only controls 50% of the outcome of a game (clearly that percentage fluctuates based on different situations, but 50% is pretty easy to use for this example). Runs are produced by the offense and runs are saved by the defense. The pitcher makes up a big part of the defense, but a small part of the offense. Therefore, the value of the wins stat is often minimized. But 130 years of baseball keeps wins as an important gauge to a pitcher's season.

We already know Verlander leads the league in wins, so let's focus on what else he has done. At 7.7 WAR, he leads Halladay by a full 1.3 WAR. Verlander also leads the league in hits per 9 by a wide margin at 6.215. Finally, his 224 strikeouts leads all of baseball by 12. And it gives him a decent shot at 250 on the year. All said, Verlander is the clear A.L. Cy Young winner.

A.L. Ripken Award:
Jose Bautista - Among position players, Bautista is dominating the WAR category at 8.1. The next closest in the American League is Dustin Pedroia with 6.7. His .449 OBP ranks number one and 19 points better than the next American Leaguer. His 39 home runs and 109 walks also put him tops in the A.L.

N.L. MVP:
Ryan Braun - His team has a death grip on first place, and he has been a major reason. He'd working on a 30/30 season. He just needs 5 more home runs to reach 30. He's already got 31 stolen bases. Braun's .987 OPS ranks him number one in the National League. So do his 93 runs scored. Finally, his 6.7 WAR puts him right behind Matt Kemp (we'll get to him in a minute).

N.L. Cy Young:
Cliff Lee - This was a close race with Clayton Kershaw. Lee's June and his August give him the edge though. Two undefeated months in any year will put you on the fast track to a CY Young. Lee is an outlier in an awards season picked by straightforward statistics. Lee only leads one category, shutouts with 5. But he ranks near the top in almost every other pitcher ranking. He's second in pitcher WAR with 5.7, sixth in ERA at 2.59, fourth in WHIP at 1.053, and fifth in K/9 at 9.15.  Cliff Lee is as complete an all-around pitcher as we have seen in a long time.  My apologies to Clayton Kershaw, but Cliff Lee gets my pick.

N.L. Ripken Award:
Matt Kemp - Kemp leads all of baseball with 8.4 WAR.  The next closest in the National League is Ryan Braun, a whopping 1.9 WAR behind.  Matt Kemp's triple slash is admirable by itself: .321/.399/.568.  He is third in the N.L. in hits with 163, and has a legitimate shot at 200.  He is tied for second in home runs with 31 and third in RBI's with 103.  If not for Ryan Braun and Jose Reyes, we'd be talking about Kemp pushing towards a triple crown.  Kemp is by far the best position player in the league, but he plays for the Dodgers.  They are only better than the Padres in the West and can barely draw any fans.  That's why he won't win the MVP, but he's a lock for the first annual Ripken Award.

There you have it.  The awards have been handed out.  I highly doubt we will see much change over the last month of the season.  I left out Rookie of the Year because the award has little meaning.  To be the best rookie simply means you play better than everyone else on a reduced scale.  An award that is presented to someone for less contribution would make no sense if not awarded to rookies.  So we'll leave that one to the voters.  

A Cy Young award winner died on Wednesday. More importantly, a father, husband, son, friend, and teammate took his own life in a moment of sadness and weakness. The 1979 Cy Young award that likely brought Mike Flanagan so much pride and joy, only did so on a limited basis.

According to police, Flanagan was upset about financial issues and took his life with a self-inflicted shotgun wound. His friends knew something was wrong. "Flanny," as they called him had his ups and his downs. But there is little chance any of them knew things were so dire. Tim Kurjikan of ESPN wrote a nice piece about Flanagan and mentioned the ups and downs he had been feeling. But things seemed to be on an up swing. Flanagan was broadcasting Orioles games, the team he loved and led to a World Series while playing. But clearly things were down more than they were up for Flanagan.

That's the problem with suicides. The answers will almost surely never come. At least not fully. What will be forever known is who Mike Flanagan was as a person. He brought joy to so many people's lives, but in the end couldn't maintain that joy in his own life.

So in his death, we can celebrate the man, we can celebrate his career, we can talk about the '79 Cy Young or the '83 World Series, we can tout the 167 wins, and we can delight in his final career pitch, a strikeout. But the most important thing we can do is honor his memory. We can honor him by paying attention to our friends and family, by supporting them, and by looking for the warning signs. The subtleties of depression can go unnoticed and lead to unforeseen suicides like Mike Flanagan's, but let's remember him and pay extra close attention to those we love. Help ease the pain of friends and family so another family doesn't have to go through what Flanagan's family is going through now.

Mike Flanagan 1951-2011

As the pages fall off the calendar and teams ready themselves for the postseason, conversations about the MVP races will quickly heat up. Already, discussions are being launched and debates are taking shape. One of the key debates that will likely get a lot of coverage is that of a pitcher receiving the MVP award.

There's really no question that Justin Verlander and Roy Halladay are the best pitchers in the game, maybe even the best players. But they won't receive serious MVP consideration. A starting pitcher has not received an MVP award since 1986.

And this is for good reason.

Proponents of pitchers receiving the MVP will point to the overall dominance and stats of pitchers like Verlander and Halladay. Advanced metrics will show Halladay leading all of the National League in WAR and they will show Verlander fourth in the American League. I'm a big fan of advanced metrics, but like any other statistic, they have flaws.

For example, WAR is best viewed in comparison with players of the same position. Fangraphs even points out the need for positional adjustments when reviewing WAR. Pitchers have different responsibilities than fielders. Whether you feel that makes them more valuable or less is up to you, just remember that WAR is difficult to apply across all positions accurately. Pitchers play every fifth day where position players play everyday. There is more of an everyday value added for position players.

This argument is not to say pitchers don't play an integral role in success. The argument is simply that MVP awards are better designed for position players.

I'm going to bring up an old argument, but hopefully I'll shed new light on it. The best pitcher is awarded the Cy Young each year based on voter opinions. What award do batters have that only applies to them? The Silver Slugger (the batting average title). But the problem with this award is in it's value. It awards based on batting average only. A player may finish with the highest on-base percentage and lose out on the Silver Slugger to someone with a higher batting average. The point is, the Silver Slugger does not reward the best position player. It rewards the player who gets the most hits as a ratio of at-bats.

So if pitchers have the Cy Young and, for the sake of this argument, we've determined position players do not have a best all around player award, there are really only two solutions. Give the MVP to a position player as the trend has been, or create a new award just for position players and open the MVP voting up to everyone. Theoretically, the MVP voting is already open to everyone, but the fact that pitchers have the Cy Young award is always in the back of voters minds. By creating a separate award for the best all-around position player, voters would be freed and able to objectively determine an MVP, even if that player is a pitcher.

Unless that happens though, the MVP should go to the best position player and the Cy Young to the best pitcher.

While thinking about Stephen Strasburg's injury, I began thinking of other pitchers who sustained injury or other medical conditions that cut their careers short. The top five I came up with were:

1) Mark Prior
2) Kerry Wood
3) Jim Maloney
4) Smoky Joe Wood
5) Sandy Koufax

1) Prior's injuries began in 2005, and by the end of the year, his career was all but over. A look at his numbers through the 2005 season reveals a dominant pitcher. He was 40-21 with an ERA of 3.09. In his most dominant campaign, he went 18-6 with a 2.43 ERA and 245 strikeouts. For his career, he compiled a surprising 13.1 WAR in just a few short seasons. There is no accurate way to predict how good Prior could have been if injuries hadn't wrecked his career. However, at only 25 when his career essentially ended, it's probably a safe bet that he would have made many more All-Star appearances and competed for multiple Cy Young awards.

2) Kerry Wood was one of the most dominant young pitchers in history, much like Strasburg has shown to be so far. With 233 strikeouts in only 166.2 innings pitched, Wood made himself known in 1998. Then there was the 20 strikeout performance. Yet, Wood's career was significantly derailed in 1999 when he underwent elbow surgery. He was never the same. While Wood has still had a long, relatively successful career, he could have been legendary. With a ridiculous 12.58 K/9 ratio, a K% of 33.3, and A FIP of 3.16 in 1998, Wood could have been one of the best strikeout pitchers of all-time. Instead, he struggled through six more seasons of starting before finding a home in the bullpen.

3) Jim Maloney never had a chance to throw for The Big Red Machine during the 1970's. His time with the Reds was concentrated to the 1960's and he was dominant. From 1960-1970, Maloney had 74 complete games and 30 shut-outs. He threw two no-hitters and struck out 200 or more batters four times. Unfortunately, Maloney severed his Achilles tendon early in 1970 and was never able to fully recover. He only pitched one more season before hanging them up at 31 years old. Had Maloney stayed healthy it is easy to picture the Reds winning more titles than they already did. Maloney would have only been 32 and at the height of his career during the 1972 season. His blazing fastball, stamina, and guts surely would have helped the Reds and probably would have landed Maloney in the Hall of Fame.

4) Smoky Joe Wood's career was cut short by foot and ankle injuries. He continued to pitch as long as his lower legs would hold up, but peaked in 1912. Ty Cobb called him one of the best pitchers he ever faced. And he could have been better. Wood won 34 games in 1912, finished his career with 121 career complete games, and a 2.03 career ERA. Yet, he wasn't able to start more than 18 games after the 1912 season. His ERA+ was 146 and he absolutely baffled hitters. Injuries probably kept him from being a 250-300 game winner and kept him out of the Hall of Fame.

5) Sandy Koufax, unlike Jim Maloney and Smoky Joe, overcame his injury shortened career and is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Had it not been for arthritis and injuries, though, Koufax could have been the greatest of all-time. He threw four no-hitters, including one perfect game. He has a career ERA of 2.67 and an ERA+ of 136. He won three Cy Young awards, and he struck out 2,396 batters. All this was accomplished by the age of 30. Had it not been for injury, and accounting for a likely reduction in production as he aged, Koufax could have struck out 4,000 batters, could have won 300 games, and could have piled up even more no-hitters and Cy Young awards.

There are countless stories of pitchers whose careers were cut short by injury. We will never know what could have been, but with these five players, their early career results speak for themselves.