The Cy Young Race

It’s August 9th, and teams are beginning to drop out of playoff contention. A larger percentage of each day’s MLB schedule is becoming meaningless. Don’t worry, though, because the Cy Young race is not beholden to the standings, and it is heating up like an old laptop. Here is a brief list I compiled by looking at the Fangraphs leaderboards. Keep in mind that one really good start can have a big impact both in terms of WAR and public opinion.

The National League

Reigning Winner: Jake Arrieta

Top 8

Clayton Kershaw: The LeBron of pitching

Jose Fernandez: Needs a great outing in an important game

Noah Syndergaard: Used to be fat

Johnny Cueto: So fun

Madison Bumgarner: Idk

Jake Arrieta: Is it just me, or does this guy really lose his feel at times?

Stephen Strasburg: Finally looks elite

Kyle Hendricks: Performs surgery with changeups

 

American League

Reigning Winner: Dallas Keuchel

Top 8

Corey Kluber: Any Society members present?

Aaron Sanchez: FIP doesn’t love him, but ERA does

Jose Quintana: Even if he wins it, you still won’t be able to buy an officially licensed player tee

Chris Sale: Cutting up hitters and throwback jerseys

Justin Verlander: Resurgence

Stephen Wright: Ugh

Masahiro Tanaka: So much for that UCL thing I guess

Cole Hamels: Not a FIPster at all, but the ERA is sparkling

 

It’s Time to Appreciate Jose Quintana

Earlier this month, I watched the White Sox play at U.S. Cellular Park. I wandered into a team shop where player tees were displayed for sale. Conspicuously absent from the display was anything bearing the name Quintana or the number 62.

Moments ago, in the interest of righting this wrong and purchasing a Jose Quintana player tee, I went to the White Sox online team shop. At that website, one will find player tees for Alex Avila, Avisail Garcia, and Carlos Rodon. But if one wishes to purchase a Jose Quintana player tee, one must customize it themselves. In practice, it is as difficult to obtain a Quintana 62 player tee as it is to obtain one that reads “Poop 69.”

My heart knew that this was an outrage. I had just seen Quintana hold the Houston Astros to 1 run on 2 hits on the road. Curiosity drove me to want to find out just how terrible an outrage Quintana’s lack of fanfare is. I went to Fangraphs and looked at Quintana’s numbers. They were very good. His ERA stands at 3.18 through his fist 104.2 innings this season. Then, I went to the pitching statistics leaderboard to discover that he is 6th in WAR this season, one spot ahead of his substantially acclaimed teammate, Chris Sale. Then, I expanded my leaderboard search to include data from the last three calendar years. Quintana ranked 8th in WAR.

If we expand our definition of value to mean on-field value per dollar, it would be very difficult to find a pitcher more valuable than Quintana. This season he will make $5.4m. He is under contract through the year 2020, when his contract will top out at the bargain rate of $10.5m.

Over the last three calendar years, Jose Quintana has been the 8th most valuable pitcher in Major League Baseball, and his team isn’t even selling his jersey.

#AppreciateQuintana

Matt Albers Transcends Mortality

Matt Albers woke up this morning a man. This afternoon he became a god.

His White Sox have been playing very badly of late. They have fallen out of first place in the AL Central. This week’s series at Shea Stadium against the Mets seemed a certain defeat. That is until Matt Albers altered the course of history.

The Sox lost the first game of the series despite a marvelous outing from the chronically underrated Jose Quintana. They won the second game in comeback fashion. 12 innings into the third game Robin Ventura called upon Matt Albers out of the bullpen.

Albers pitched a scoreless 12th, then hit leadoff in the 13th. He belted a double into deep left-center, then advanced to third base on a wild pitch. Soon thereafter, he scored by tagging up on a shallow (ok it was deep) fly ball off the bat of Jose Abreu. He caught his breath in the dugout, then pitched a scoreless 13th, truly earning the win in a crucial game for the White Sox.

How to Automate the Strike Zone While Maintaining Baseball Aesthetics

Bias in MLB strike zones is well documented. Veteran pitchers get better strike zones. White pitchers get better strike zones. Pitchers who are behind in the count 3-0 or 3-1 get better strike zones. Making umpires aware of their unconscious biases is a great idea, but I am not optimistic that we will ever reach a place where the strike zone is truly uniform. Unless we let robots call balls and strikes.

The idea has gained a lot of traction especially among younger, more information driven baseball fans. The hashtag #RobotUmpsNow generates tweets almost daily. It’s true that many of those tweets come from beleaguered fans who think they have been scorned by bad calls, but still, there is something a movement.

But how would it be done? How would a ball or strike be called? Will baseball’s aesthetic be fucked with?  Well. That’s where Vlad4MVP comes in with a proposal that addresses those reasonable concerns.

A computer could generate a ball or strike call almost instantly. That call could be communicated to the home plate umpire via earpiece. The umpire makes the final call. Umpires also would be given the capability to override the machine. They should be instructed to do so only in cases of egregious computer errors or if the earpiece fails to report for whatever reason. The game would look and feel exactly the same, but young non-white pitchers who happen to be ahead in the count will no longer be pitching to a smaller strike zone.

#GutInstinctPowerRankings

With the advent of the internet, much about baseball can be known. What was once a matter of opinion has become a matter of fact. What was once a matter of theory has become a manner of a simple fangraphs search. What was once a matter of art has become a manner of science.

This is all well and good, and should indeed be celebrated and embraced. But here, within the realm of the stomach– the gut– is where we are asking you to find these power rankings. Pull up a list of MLB teams, which does not reveal the current standings–we happen to have a poster above the tv–and make your best #GutInstinctPowerRankings. Here are ours. Our criteria was that we were trying to determine the team most likely to win the world series. Feel free to use whatever criteria you feel like.

Jake

1. Chicago Cubs
2. Washington Nationals
3. San Francisco Giants
4. New York Mets
5. Boston Red Sox
6. Cleveland Indians
7. Pittsburgh Pirates
8. Baltimore Orioles
9. St. Louis Cardinals
10. Kansas City Royals

 

Ty

1. Chicago Cubs
2. San Francisco Giants
3. Washington Nationals
4. New York Mets
5. Boston Red Sox
6. Baltimore Orioles
7. Pittsburgh Pirates
8. Cleveland Indians
9. Chicago White Sox
10. Los Angeles Dodgers

 

Ryan

1. Chicago Cubs
2. Washington Nationals
3. San Francisco Giants
4. New York Mets
5. Boston Red Sox
6. Chicago White Sox

Note: Ryan left to took a shower.

#RobotPitchersNow

We here at Vlad4MVP have been open and vocal proponents of #robotumpsnow.

I recently came across a picture of Max Scherzer’s UCL on the internet.

Yuck.

It’s time to go back to machine-pitch. The health risks of human pitchers is not worth it.

#RobotPitchersNow

Series of the Week: Los Angeles Dodgers @ Toronto Blue Jays

The biggest series taking place this weekend is being played between the Washington Nationals and Chicago Cubs, but that series started on a Thursday, and I didn’t have time to write an article until just now. The second biggest series, and our series of the week, is between the Dodgers and Blue Jays, two teams who last October’s forecasters gave a good chance of reaching the World Series. It was not to be for either team, though. The Dodgers were bounced by the Mets in the NLDS, and the Blue Jays were beaten by Kansas City.

Neither of these two teams are off to the start their fans would have hoped for. Both are .500 on the season. However, both teams have reason for optimism in their run differentials. The Jays are +14, and the Dodgers are +11. Here are the weekend’s pitching matchups.

Friday

LAD: Kenta Maeda (3-1, 1.41)

TOR: Marcus Stroman (4-0, 3.77)

Fun Grade: A+

Prediction: TOR 3 LAD 2

Saturday

LAD: Clayton Kershaw (3-1, 1.96)

TOR: RA Dickey (1-4, 5.73)

Fun Grade: B

Prediction: LAD 6 TOR 1

Sunday

LAD: Ross Stripling (0-2, 4.33)

TOR: Marco Estrada (1-2, 2.64)

Fun Grade: B

Prediction: TOR 5 LAD 3

 

Overall Prediction: Toronto wins 2, Los Angeles wins 1.

No One Reads This, But The Series of the Week is Dodgers @ Cubs

from mlb.com

Baseball is played in series, and we have decided to start choosing a series of the week and a series of the weekend. This week’s Most Interesting Series pits the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Chicago Child Bears for four games.

The visiting Dodgers will be coming off a 2-1 home series loss to the rival Giants. The loss was probably a bummer for Dodgers fans, but they should take solace in the fact that neither Clayton Kershaw or Zack Greinke pitched against the Giants. They will pitch games one and two at the Friendship Confines.

The hosting Cubs are coming off of a 2-1 series victory at Target Field against the Twins. The Dodgers will be fortunate enough to avoid the Cubs’ second best pitcher, Jake Arrieta.

Tune in here (or don’t) for recaps of every game (maybe).

Bumgarner v. Hernandez Scored Like A Boxing Match

Sometimes big pitching matchups are compared to heavyweight fights. Boxing, honestly, is barbaric, and people shouldn’t do it. If you have a friend who wants to box you, don’t. But maybe it would be a good idea for an article if we scored big pitching matchups like boxing matches. Thus, we give you the following.

High School Class of 2010! Where are they now? Find out here!

Did you graduate from high school in 2010? Do you wonder who the best dudes from our high school class ended up being? Were you born in August of 1991, and knew that Mike Trout was also born in August of 1991, and you’ve always been like hey he was in my graduation class, and then did you google it and find out he was actually a super young 2009, and then did you wonder if that’s why he wasn’t drafted higher, because he should have been a junior when he was a senior, and then you were like hey maybe I’ll consider that later, and then you remember that you’re writing an article about a totally different thing, and then you go back to talking about that.