Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Jacob deGrom needs more decisions to get more wins. You know, like the Cy Young award winners.

Jacob deGrom is having his finest season, possibly a Cy Young award winning season. Current conventional wisdom is that wins, as in won/lost record, do not matter. You've heard of the phrase "kill the win". But that current conventional wisdom does not address deGrom's real problem in 2018: not enough DECISIONS.

Last night at Yankee Stadium deGrom got credit for a win when his Mets beat the Yankees 8-5. Yankee ace Luis Severino continued his second half slump and was charged with the loss.

Here are the won/lost records of the pitching aces of the two New York teams, neither of whom has relieved in 2018:
D: Decisions
GS: Games Started

WLDGSD/GS
Luis Severino156212584.0%
Jacob deGrom77142458.3%

Severino has more wins than deGrom has decisions. In fact Severino was 14-2 on July 7 when he went five innings in Toronto for an 8-5 win. So Severino had as many wins five weeks ago as deGrom has decisions now. Since July 7 Severino is 1-4 in 6 starts.

OK, let's digress with some very conventional current conventional wisdom.

Does Jacob deGrom Need Victories to Win the Cy Young Award?
By Tyler Kepner Aug. 13, 2018 nytimes.com

Al Sothoron ... One hundred years ago (1918) ... 1.94 earned run average ...
pitching for the fifth-place St. Louis Browns, he finished with a 12-12 ... last qualifying pitcher to have an E.R.A. below 2.00 without a winning record. ..

“I kind of like wins,” Larry Rothschild, the Yankees’ pitching coach, said recently. “I know it’s not the soup of the day, but I like them.” ...

Eight years ago, Seattle’s Felix Hernandez led the American League in E.R.A. and innings and won the Cy Young Award despite a 13-12 record. It was a watershed moment in the voting process...


Scherzer should still be considered the leader now, not because of his record (15-5), but because he leads the N.L. in strikeouts, innings, walks-plus-hits per inning pitched and strikeout-to-walk ratio — all the categories that connote dominance and durability...

Al Sothoron. In 1919, the season after his hard-luck .500 record, he earned 20 wins.
_______________________________

First off, Al Sothoron:

WLDGSD/GSG
Jacob deGrom77142458.3%24
BrownsBrownsBrowns
Al SothoronWLDGSD/GSGWLG
191812122424100.0%295864122
191920123230106.7%406772139

The Times writer forgot about that World War thing, which reduced the number of games played: 122, 139.

Also, Sothoron pitched some games in relief: 5, 10. At least in 1919 Sothoron must have won some games as a relief pitcher.

12-12 seems more substantive than 7-7, which seems puny, as if deGrom didn't always show up for work or didn't complete his shift.

Which brings us to Felix Hernandez, the Cy Young award winner current voters point to as evidence that they are modern and intelligent. So, let's compare deGrom with Hernandez in his 2010 Cy Young award winning season.

WLDGSD/GSG
Jacob deGrom77142458.3%24
Felix Hernandez1312253473.5%34

Finally, let's check Max Scherzer in his Cy Young award winning seasons ... and so far in 2018.

WLDGSD/GSG
Jacob deGrom77142458.3%24
Max ScherzerWLDGSD/GSG
2013213243275.0%32Detroit
2016207273479.4%34Washington
2017166223171.0%31Washington
2018155202580.0%25Washington

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