Bogus Awards?

Dave Paisley

The post-season individual awards are shaping up in interesting fashion this year. Of the MVP and Cy Young races, all but the NL CY have some interesting wrinkles to them. And even that one has a mild wrinkle in determining which of the two Diamondback pitchers deserve the award more.

The AL MVP race is far from cut and dried, but my analysis from a couple of weeks ago left out one important factor - Ichiro. The fact is there is no way he should be a candidate for the award, but even the national media are now touting him as being in the running. If the award was for most publicity generated, largest media entourage, least conventional batting swing or most infield choppers beat out for hits, then he would be a runaway winner.

But the MVP award usually features someone doing well in the traditional triple crown categories (Average, RBI, HR.) Like it or not, that's the usual standard, and my handicapping of the race didn't feature Ichiro at all. And that would be because by that system he's about47th in the league - even allowing for a modest positional credit. The non-MVP candidates surrounding him are Greg Vaughn, Cal Ripken Jr., Shane Halter and Damian Easley.

Even if you throw in an additional category of runs scored, he only gets up to about 22nd, surrounded by Bernie Williams, Corey Koskie and Jermaine Dye. That's a more realistic assessment of his value - something around the twentieth best player in the league. If you add a little for charisma, mystique and marketability maybe he pushes the fringes of the top ten. Still, there's no way his on the field contributions are close to those of Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Bret Boone, Jim Thome and Juan Gonzalez. Especially Rodriguez and Boone, who play much more demanding defensive positions.

Often, the controversy about MVP voting is about players with great triple crown stats who undeservedly beat out a better player measured by sabermetric stats. The latter player may be surrounded by lesser talent, isn't on a playoff bound team, or lack a media-friendly image (for examples, see Alex Rodriguez/Juan Gonzalez in 1996 or Sosa/Bonds this year.) But Ichiro doesn't have the sabermetric stats, either. By the rough and ready measure of OPS, he's a mere 42nd in the league. Even allowing for park factor and position, he's probably not in the top 20.

Only time will tell on that one. Ichiro will undoubtedly, and deservedly, romp the rookie of the year award, but the MVP? I don't think so.

Setting aside the Bonds/Sosa battle for a while, the other big award controversy promises to be the AL Cy Young, where it's hard for anyone to see past Roger Clemens' gaudy W-L record. There are pitchers more deserving than Clemens (Mulder, Hudson and Garcia) but it's easier to get a perspective on how fortunate Clemens has been this season by comparing him to teammate Mike Mussina. For one thing, they share a common offense (although it's tough to tell, given the run support disparity) and for another they generally have pitched in comparable parks. Mussina has a slightly better ERA (3.39 to 3.48) but has a vastly inferior W-L record (14-11 against 18-1)

So what's the deal? Obviously the run support is the big factor (more than 7 a game for Clemens, around 4.5 for Mussina.) I got to wondering if the disparity in run support came form a radical skewing of their pitching opponents. Overall, I'd say Mussina has definitely had the tougher opponents, but it's far from clear cut. He faced Pedro Martinez twice (1-1 in the two meetings) and has lost to Frank Castillo twice (when he was pitching really well early in the year), Mark Mulder, Jamie Moyer, Greg Maddux, Tanyan Sturtze and Darren Oliver. OK, those last two are no great shakes but you get the idea.

Meanwhile, the Yankees have lost only three of Clemens' starts, to Aaron Sele (the only loss tagged to Clemens), Freddy Garcia and Mark Guthrie. The only other name pitchers Clemens has decisions against are Bartolo Colon, Joe Mays and Barry Zito. Decent, but not quite as numerous and fearsome as Mussina's opponents.

To delve deeper into the run support issue, I put together the following table. It breaks down W-L record for each pitcher by the number of runs the Yankees scored in games they started. Runs Scored is the number of runs the Yankees scored, while # Times is the number of times they did it for that pitcher. Personal Record is that pitcher's W-L record for that number of runs scored, and Team Record is by this point pretty much self explanatory.

	Mussina			Clemens
Runs Scored	# Times	Personal Record	Team Record	# Times	Personal Record	Team Record
0	2	0-1	0-2	0	-	-
1	5	2-3	2-3	0	-	-
2	6	3-2	3-3	4	2-1	2-2
3	5	0-5	0-5	3	2-0	3-0
4	4	3-0	4-0	3	2-0	3-0
5	0	-	-	3	0-0	2-1
6	1	1-0	1-0	2	0-0	2-0
7	2	2-0	2-0	4	4-0	4-0
8	0	-	-	1	1-0	1-0
9	2	1-0	2-0	3	2-0	3-0
10+	2	2-0	2-0	5	5-0	5-0
Totals		14-11	16-13		18-1	25-3

For Mussina, there are seven games where the Yanks scored only one or zero runs, a feat they have never managed for Clemens so far this year. Amazingly enough, Mussina is only 2-4 in those games. Mussina also has six games where the Yanks scored two runs and five when they scored three. That's eleven games with only two or three runs, and a miserable 3-7 record. So totaling up the three runs or less category, Mussina is 5-11 in 18 games and the team lost the other two when he didn't get the decision.

Clemens, on the other hand, has never seen the Yanks shut out or even score only one run for him. In only seven games with two or three runs of support, he's managed a 4-1 record. Then in the eight and up category of run support, Mussina has only four games (3-0 record), while Clemens has nine games (8-0 record.)

Perhaps even more telling is this chart that shows that run support graphically. Note how the blue bars are heavily biased to the left, while the red bars are biased to the right.

Unless you believe Roger Clemens has magical voodoo powers to turn the Yankee hitters into monsters when he's on the mound, you'd have to put it down to luck (and or inferior pitching opponents.) Unless you'd rather believe that the Yankee hitters all hate Mussina and are tanking deliberately in games when he starts. Yeah, that's it...

So while Clemens will no doubt pick up another Cy Young award, it will be a dubious one. Even his supporters admit that if he gets it, it won't be deserved, but it will make up for the other times when he was robbed. Like two wrongs make a right?

about the author

If you're one of the 8,321,234,001 Ichiro fans, don't blame Dave Paisley because your guy doesn't know ball four from a hole in the wall. But you could inform him of your displeasure at drdjp@strikethree.com