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Does Clayton Kershaw realistically deserve a second consecutive Cy Young?
I'm going to get my biased opinion out of the way as soon as possible: Clayton Kershaw is my absolute favourite player on the Dodgers, in the NL West, in the National League, in the MLB, in all of friggin' baseball. Save for a few (possible) exceptions, I think he's the best pitcher in baseball today.
Now that I've let that out: Can I put that bias aside and say that Kershaw should be in consideration for his second Cy Young in as many years?
Honestly: Yes. Yes I can say that. I don't think for a second that he's going to win, but I think he should get a lot more consideration than he seems to be getting. I may be an isolated case, but whenever I talk to (informed) baseball fans about the NL Cy Young this year, three names come up. Mets starter R.A. Dickey, Nationals starter Gio Gonzalez, and Braves closer Craig Kimbrel. Personally, if Kershaw were to end up as the runner up to Kimbrel, I don't think I could argue. Kimbrel was lights out this year, closing out 42 games (tied with the Cardinals Motte, who blew 5 more saves) with a mind-blowing 1.01 ERA and 0.65 WHIP over 62.2 innings. Kimbrel IS the Cy Young winner in my eyes, and should be the first NL closer to win it since the Dodgers Éric Gagné (who I feel tempted to refer to as Judas for some reason).
However, the thorn in my craw here isn't that Kershaw may lose to Kimbrel, this thorn is more from the one or two other pitchers who Kershaw out performed, but may still fall behind. The fact of the matter is that people actually put weight into a pitchers W/L record, which is ultimately absurd.
If an NHL goalie has a save percentage of .929 and a goals against average of 1.95 but only 35 wins, does that make him worse than the goalie with a .913 save percentage and 2.36 goals against average who has 42 wins?
If you said yes, you're agreeing that Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Quick isn't as good as Marc-Andre Fleury.
Is that not lunacy? Is it not absolutely insane to view Fleury as the better goalie because his team was more offensive? Well, the same goes for baseball. Why do we think Gonzalez or Dickey are automatically better than Kershaw this year based on W/L alone?
In terms of ERA, WHIP and Ks, Kershaw ranks 1st, 1st, and 2nd respectively in the NL and 1st, Tied for 1st (Weaver, LAA) and 4th in the MLB overall. His ERA lead in the NL is 0.20 over the second place Dickey (and is 0.46 over Gonzalez, who sits at sixth). He only trails Dickey by one strikeout, and leads Gonzalez by 22. Outside of W/L, these three statistics are stated the most whenever I discuss pitching with other baseball fans. And it's pretty much the only reason why Gonzalez is in the discussion.
Gonzalez leads the NL in wins with 21. Dickey a close second with 20. After a pretty glaring drop off, Kershaw checks in just cutting inside the top 20 with a 14-9 record. Don't get me wrong here, I get that strong starts are important for a pitcher, and by extent, a ball team. A 21 win season is damn impressive, but ultimately, W/L is not a good measuring stick.
Clayton Kershaw went 14-9 with an ERA of 2.53 and 229 strikeouts.
Lance Lynn finished with four more wins than Kershaw. His ERA was 3.78, and he struck out 49 less batters.
Wade Miley finished with two more wins than Kershaw. His ERA was 3.33, and he struck out 85 less batters. Barry Zito finished with one win more than Kershaw. His ERA was 4.15, and he had over 100 less Ks.
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Now I have to swear in this next sentence because of the absurd nature of the claim so if you can't handle a little cursing, skip ahead: If we use wins as a way to judge a pitcher, we're living in a world where Barry fucking Zito is better than Clayton Kershaw. Let that sink in. If you want an accurate judgement, you need to look beyond the W/L and into the statistics like Quality Starts.
Because I'm sure there are some people who view quality starts as just about any good start (not a knock to anyone, I swear. Baseball has a load of statistics, and even I don't understand each and every one), let me give the specifics of what a quality start is. Any time a pitcher pitches six innings of a game and gives up three or less runs, it's considered a "quality" start. There are several holes in this stat, but for the most part, quality starts are pretty crucial to a pitchers stat-line. Going hand in hand with a quality start are the statistics (from ESPN) 'tough loss' and 'cheap win'. A cheap win is whenever a pitcher doesn't have a quality start, but still gets credited with a win, and a tough loss is the exact opposite. That takes place when a pitcher throws a quality start, but still gets a loss.
I think you see where I'm going with this.
In 2012, R.A. Dickey and Clayton Kershaw both started 33 games. Gio Gonzalez started 32.
Of his 33, Dickey tossed 27 quality starts, while Kershaw threw 25 of his (good for a Quality Start Percentage of .82 and .76 respectively). Gonzalez threw 22 quality starts, good for .69.
Cheap wins aren't very telling between the three, as Kershaw and Dickey weren't benefited, and Gonzalez only received one, but the difference between the three when it comes to tough losses is pretty damn significant.
Of R.A. Dickey's six losses, three were considered tough losses (so, .50).
Of Gio Gonzalez's eight losses, four were considered tough losses (again, .50).
Of Clayton Kershaw's nine losses, SIX of them tough losses, good for a Tough Loss percentage of .66.
So that means that Clayton Kershaw, on six separate occasions, pitched at least six solid innings, holding the opposition to less than three runs and STILL got a loss for his efforts. A pitchers W/L is co-dependant on the amount of offence a team gives him. Dickey averaged 4.61 in run support each of his starts, Gonzalez received an astounding 5.38 (the second most of any NL pitcher). Kershaw? 3.94. Not terrible, but not great. If that creeps up to even the level that Dickey received, maybe those six tough losses vanish, and all of a sudden we have a 18-5, 19-4 or (dare I dream) maybe even a 20-3 pitcher.
I'll give credit where credit is due. Gio Gonzalez is a hell of a pitcher, and as much as I bashed the notion of W/L being taken too serious, a 21 win season is nothing to scoff at (and I mean, he DID lead the NL in K/9, leading Kershaw by a crazy .30). He's going to bring Washington a LOT of success. And to be honest, I'm not even writing this as a "Kershaw should win the Cy Young" piece. He deserves credit for what he did, and the way we regard a pitchers skill maybe needs certain arguments dropped, but if he loses to a guy like Kimbrel...it will be well deserved. Hell, if he loses to Dickey, I might be able to stomach it. But overlooking an elite pitcher for a great pitcher based on their W/L record?
Insanity.