Kuzul

For the second year in a row, the writers got it right. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America is known to be comprised of a lot of grizzled old veterans who shun sabermetrics. Just look no further than Derek Jeter winning a Gold Glove for proof. But they got it right with Felix Hernandez.

The Mariners ace made history by becoming the pitcher with the fewest wins (in a full season) to capture the Cy Young award. King Felix, who signed a big, long-term contract extension last offseason, won the award despite a record of 13-12.

Furthermore, it wasn’t even close. Hernandez got 21 of the 28 first-place votes and 167 points in all, winning by more than 50 points over second-place finisher David Price of the Rays.

In many previous seasons, the pitcher with the most wins got the award almost by default. Perhaps the problem is that the award is not “pitcher of the year” or “most valuable pitcher,” but is instead named after the guy with the most wins ever. He is also the one with the most losses ever, too, by the way.

The pitcher with the most wins in the AL in 2010 was the Yankees’ CC Sabathia, who went 21-7. He finished third in the voting.

By winning, Hernandez received an automatic $1 million raise in salary next year to $11 million. He also earned annual $500,000 raises after that to $19 million in 2012, $20 million in 2013 and $20.5 million in 2014.

So let’s take a look at why King Felix won this award, most likely angering the Joe Morgans of the world and making Yankees fans irate.  

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Although some of the more committed fans won’t acknowledge it, the 2010 American League Cy Young Award is a two-horse race between CC Sabathia and Felix Hernandez.

The New York Yankees’ and Seattle Mariners’ aces opened up a considerable window between themselves and the rest of the field as the season wore through its 162-game slate. Though the ratios and most of the stats tell a muddled story—with chapters of decent length devoted to Cliff Lee, Jered Weaver, Francisco Liriano, David Price, Justin Verlander, Clay Buchholz, Trevor Cahill and Jon Lester— there is one key number that separates Carsten Charles and King Felix.

That would be the number in the innings-pitched category.

The Stallions Were Also Work Horses

Hernandez led the American League with 249.2 innings pitched while Sabathia came in second with 237.2. Those two were head-and-shoulders above the other elite starters in the Junior Circuit, who wallowed between 224 and 200 (give or take a few outs).

That’s not a huge lead, but considering how similar the totality of the other circumstances are, the difference becomes hugely significant.

Compare the two front-runners’ numbers, complete with ranking in the AL, along with a couple of the second tier of contenders:

Hernandez: 249.2 IP (1st), 2.27 ERA (1st), 1.06 WHIP (2nd), .212 BAA (1st), .585 OPSA (1st), 3.31 K/BB (7th), 3.04 FIP (4th), 3.26 xFIP (3rd), 6.2 WAR (3rd)

Sabathia: 237.2 IP (2nd), 3.18 ERA (T-6th), 1.19 WHIP (T-2nd), .239 BAA (12th), .656 OPSA (11th), 2.66 K/BB (14th), 3.54 FIP (10th), 3.78 xFIP (10th), 5.1 WAR (8th)

Weaver: 224.1 IP (T-3rd), 3.01 ERA (5th), 1.07 WHIP (3rd), .228 BAA (7th),  .622 OPSA (T-5th), 4.31 K/BB (2nd), 3.06 FIP (5th), 3.51 xFIP (5th), 5.9 WAR (5th)

Lee: 212.1 (10th), 3.18 ERA (T-6th), 1.00 WHIP (1st), .246 BAA (T-16th), .618 OPSA (3rd), 10.28 K/BB (1st), 2.58 FIP (1st), 3.23 xFIP (2nd), 7.1 WAR (1st)

Clearly both men were amongst the best in hurlers in baseball, regardless of which assortment of metrics you choose. Neither case is unassailable, but take one of the other studs and you can poke holes in their arguments as well.

Weaver was excellent across the board, but he was also behind Felix across the board (except for strikeout-to-walk ratio).

Lee, on the other hand, was statistically phenomenal, but he was a hired gun who switched allegiances midseason. Additionally, his innings-pitched total, earned run average and batting average against are considerable vulnerabilities.

The same exercise can be repeated for all the top dawgs.

The Rub

Of course, the obvious two elephants in the room are the record and the degree of difficulty.

CC blows King Felix away in both regards…on the surface.

That’s only half true—the keystone of the Bronx Bombers’ rotation obliterated his counterpart in Seattle as far as wins and losses were concerned. The big fella boasted a record of 21-7 while Hernandez went 13-12, but that’s more a function of the two teams involved.

New York finished with its customarily gaudy body of work, 95-67 to be exact.

Meanwhile, the Mariners limped to the second-worst record in Major League Baseball at 61-101. Only the tragically inept Pittsburgh Pirates were worse. Combine that with the current state of baseball—in which even the best and most durable starters average seven innings or less per start—and the win-loss record ceases to have much relevance.

But degree of difficulty isn’t quite what it seems.

Context Is Everything, But It’s Not Enough

Let’s deal with an unpopular truth—performing in New York City, especially in pinstripes, is more difficult for 99 percent of human beings, with nutters like David Wells being the possible exceptions.

ESPN riled everyone up against the axis of sporting on the East Coast, so that many deny that obvious truth. But it is the truth and demonstrably so: Javier Vazquez and Randy Johnson aren’t the only individuals who have wilted to some degree (or completely) under the unreasonable bright lights of the Big Apple.

Consequently, Sabathia’s otherwise rickety numbers get a rather large bump, as they do for tossing his days away in the AL East—unquestionably the hardest division in baseball. Even though he didn’t have to throw against the Yankees’ juggernaut. CC still faced the unpleasant task of staring down barrels aimed by the Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays.

And he had to do a lot of that work in the New Yankee Stadium, not the most flattering place for pitchers.

So the Vallejo native’s season must be viewed through that jagged lens and only then can it be seen as potentially Felix Hernandez’ equal.

The Anti-Rub

Potentially.

But not actually.

Take arguably the top six 2010 AL offenses—the Yanks, Red Sox, Rays, Jays, Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins. Here’s how each Cy Young candidate fared against the biggest boppers:

Hernandez

BOS—7.1 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 9 K

MIN—15 IP, 4 ER, 12 H, 2 BB, 13 K

NYY—26 IP, 1 ER, 16 H, 8 BB, 31 K

TB—DID NOT FACE 

TEX—40 IP, 19 ER, 39 H, 12 BB, 31 K

TOR—8 IP, 1 ER, 2 H, 4 BB, 5 K

TOTAL—96.1 IP, 26 ER, 73 H, 27 BB, 89 K

Sabathia

BOS—25 IP, 11 ER, 20 H, 8 BB, 17 K

MIN—DID NOT FACE 

NYY—DID NOT FACE 

TAM—34.2 IP, 13 ER, 29 H, 14 BB, 29 K

TEX—6 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 0 BB, 9 K

TOR—8.1 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 2 BB, 8 K

TOTAL—74 IP, 26 ER, 55 H, 24 BB, 63 K

When the curtain gets pulled back, you can see it was Felix Hernandez who actually saw more of the premiere offenses in baseball. What’s more, he outperformed CC Sabathia against those offenses.

Conclusion

When you look at the landscape of professional pitching this season, it’s clear that the second “Year of the Pitcher” extended to both leagues.

The Junior Circuit, like the National League, had aces come out of the woodwork and twirl unhittable frame after unhittable frame. There were at least 10 extraordinary seasons, but there is only one AL Cy Young Award, and it’s reserved for the absolute best.

Tim Lincecum and Zack Greinke showed in 2009 that wins and losses are on the brink of obsolescence, but they weren’t up against a rep from the Evil Empire with his black-robed media cabal in tow. So it remains to be seen whether the glint of 21 wins in New York City will be enough to distract the voters.

Hopefully not.

Because, in 2010, the best was Felix Hernandez.

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MLB trade rumors have every team shipping away a good player for prospects or for an even better player.

How many of these rumors are actually true we will never know. But with the general managers’ meetings just three weeks away, there is going to be a lot of discussion. And with free agency just starting to kick into high gear, is going to be no shortage of good players available this winter.

The Hot Stove League is starting to fire up so we’ll take a look at who is (reportedly) available and whether or not they will actually be dealt.

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Three weeks ago, Bleacher Report’s Featured Columnists began to unveil the results of our end-of-season wards poll. We’ve looked at Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers, Comeback Players of the Year, Relief Men of the Year, Rookies of the Year, and Managers of the year.

Now, in our last week, we get to the good part: Cy Youngs and MVPs.

Today, as the BBWAA announces its choices for Rookies of the Year (too bad we already beat them to it!), we turn our attention to the American League Cy Young race.

As always the top five vote-getters are featured here, with commentary from the writers who chose them. The full list of results is at the end.

So read on, see how we did, and be sure to tell us what we got wrong!

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More so than any other sport, baseball is truly an all year event. The World Series ends, and we get treated to about four months of rumors, speculation, blockbuster signings and trades, and unheralded moves that pay major dividends down the road.

While this year’s free agent class is obviously lacking in depth, there are a few marquee talents headlining the group, such as Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford, and Jayson Werth. Additionally, a few future Hall of Famers near the end of the road (Vladimir Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome) may be available at bargain prices.

I enjoy speculation as much as anyone and have taken a stab at predicting where some of the cream of this year’s crop will be suiting up next season.

Most of the contract guesses are a shot in the dark. How much each player gets often depends on how soon they sign, and it’s hard to guess who will sign when.

If you like this piece, please become a fan and give some of my other work a look. Enjoy!

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As a teenager I lived in Yuma, Arizona, then the home of the San Diego Padres training camp.  I had a little brother who liked baseball: 1+1 = a couple of $5 tickets and afternoons watching the Padres play a new team.  My team.  The Seattle Mariners.

Being a Washington native (as was my brother), who else would we root for?

Dave Niehaus didn’t accompany the Mariners to training camp. There were no professional announcers at those preseason games, and I had no clue who Dave Niehaus was.  But he was there, in Seattle, from the very first game.

Since I’ve moved back to Washington, I’ve paid a lot more attention to the Mariners than I used to. I’ve come to realize that, just as Vin Scully is the voice of the Dodgers and Harry Caray is the voice of the Cubs, Dave Niehaus is the voice of the Mariners.  He always will be.

I’m sure Rick Rizzs will step up and will do a great job. He always does.  But he’s not Dave Niehaus and never will be.  I’m sure he agrees.

Here for your viewing pleasure:  Some moments from Mariners history, being immortalized by Dave Niehaus.

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With the World Series in the rearview mirror, the hot stove season is well underway and we now have the time to ponder interesting things like possible free agent acquisitions; trades that may or may not happen this winter; boneheaded contracts that are surely to be handed out because GM’s panic after a down year; and what it would be like to be inside the mind of Brian Wilson for a day.

In some order.

Today, we are looking at some arbitration-eligible players that may turn up on the trade market.

If a player stands to see a significant raise in his salary via arbitration, his club may end up deciding that the best option is to trade him instead of paying an annual salary that it may find a bit, well, exorbitant.

There’s a lot of value in these types of players for smaller market clubs because they usually aren’t making any big free agent splashes or posting eight-figure bids for the right to negotiate with a player. 

(Wait. Didn’t the Oakland A’s just do that? Crap.)

The club can then get a player with a few years of control left without being burdened by a long-term contract.

We are tossing around a few different names for fun, but remember, this list is subjective and is not a prediction of the market. These players may be traded, or they may not be traded. It’s all for discussion.

If you would like to add a name that wasn’t mentioned, or discuss any that were, feel free to post your thoughts in the comment section. 

Now the list …

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Cliff Lee has done alright for himself this season.

The left-handed ace starter of the Texas Rangers hits free agency this winter, with rumors already swirling that the New York Yankees are preparing a mega-offer for him. He will have the attention, if not the courtship, of virtually every big-league team.

Lee’s 2010 stats look impressive enough entirely out of context: 12-9, 3.18 ERA, 212.1 innings and a staggering 10.28 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Consider, though, that Lee did all this despite missing the first month of the season. In fact, though he finished just 10th in the American League in innings pitched, he was easily first in innings per start.

Lee’s command and aggressiveness make him extraordinarily efficient, and his playoff performances so far (3-0, 24 innings, 34 strikeouts and just one walk through Monday) prove he has the entire package. Any of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball would get much better by signing Lee.

This is not utopia, though, and many teams simply have no chance. Who’s out of the running? Who might sneak in as a dark horse? Could the Yankees really land another top free agent? Read on.

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The Seattle Mariners enter the 2010-2011 Major League Baseball offseason in dire need of some runs. The team did not merely take up the rear in American League run scoring: They finished with 100 fewer runs than the Baltimore Orioles, who finished second-to-last. The Mariners pitching staff had a 3.95 ERA, good for the fifth-best in the AL, but because of the dreadful, anemic, monumentally inept offense they put on the field, Seattle won just 61 games.

Given that premise, there is a surprising degree of very genuine optimism within the Mariners front office. Team chairman Howard Lincoln and general manager Jack Zduriencik sent an open letter to Mariners’ fans this week, urging them to be patient and promising great things ahead.

As the team’s decision-makers note in the letter, the Mariners system is stocked with quality hitting prospects. I have seen, with my own eyes, the tremendous potential of Carlos Triunfel, the team’s enigmatic but very young and gifted shortstop. Other top-tier bats on the cusp of big-league readiness include Dustin Ackley, Justin Smoak, and Greg Halman.

If the Mariners are serious about their commitment to long-term rebuilding, then, we ought not to see a hyper-aggressive effort to fill a pathetic lineup with second-rate stop-gaps in 2011. There is clearly a better approach to be had in effecting the sea change this squad of seafarers so badly needs. Here are 10 players the team should target this winter, in order to make a real run at the postseason in 2012 and beyond.

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Though it appears that the Mariners will go into the 2011 season with a static or decreased payroll compared to 2010, there has been a widely-accepted theory that their budgetary constraints are less strict when it comes to signing Japanese players.

Some of this may have changed when Hiroshi Yamauchi sold his shares of the Mariners in 2004, as the team hasn’t gone to extravagant lengths to sign a Japanese player since signing Ichiro in 2001, and hasn’t signed a Japanese player at all since signing Kenji Johjima in 2006.

However, Yu Darvish is a different kind of talent, and ultimately a different kind of opportunity than signing Johjima was.

It’s not often that Major League clubs have a crack at signing top-level talent from Japan in their early-20s. Last year we saw Junichi Tazawa pitch with the Red Sox, but he was eligible for free agency after asking for, and ultimately receiving a pass from all the teams in the NPB in their amateur draft. In late 2008, he signed a three-year, $3 million deal with the Red Sox.

Tazawa had pitched in the Industrial league in Japan, something akin to the independent leagues in America, and at 22 years old he started his American professional baseball career pitching in Double-A.

At 22 years old (almost 23) Kazuhito Tadano signed with the Cleveland Indians in 2003. Tadano entered the American scene under extremely different circumstances than Tazawa. Rather than requesting that no Japanese team drafted him Tadano went undrafted against his will, with his participation in a pornographic video during his college years as the main culprit for his being overlooked.

Tadano signed for $67,000, with a shoulder injury and the aforementioned sex tape as the driving force behind the bargain price. Tadano is playing in Japan now, though he’s posted two ugly seasons for the Nippon Ham Fighters.

Perhaps the best parallel for Darvish, unsurprisingly, is Daisuke Matsuzaka. Matsuzaka  left Japan after his age 25 season, and after an enormous $51.1 million posting fee that the Red Sox paid to the Seibu Lions, they then inked Matsuzaka to a six-year, $52-60 million contract (the latter is with full incentives reached).

Matsuzaka had been utterly dominant in the four seasons that led to his posting, with ERA’s under three and more than a strikeout per inning.

Matsuzaka also impressed in the 2006 World Baseball Classic, pitching against many big leaguers along the way.

However, Matsuzaka’s career in the bigs has been tumultuous to say the least. After not averaging more than three walks per nine innings in the five seasons that led to his transfer stateside, Matsuzaka hasn’t averaged less than three walks per nine innings in a single season in the majors.

Despite no apparent decrease in fastball velocity or command (compared to league average), Matsuzaka has seen his strikeout rate decrease every season since signing with the Red Sox.

One of the problems that Matsuzaka has faced is the apparent variance in strike zone in the majors compared to the Japanese game. The consensus is that the strike zone in Japan is bigger than it is stateside, and that while Matsuzaka made a living pitching on the “corners” in Japan, many of the pitches he’d thrown for called strikes in Japan were called balls in the Major Leagues.

Matsuzaka’s variety of offspeed pitches and corner nibbling style have led to inflated pitch counts, deflated innings counts, and an overall deflated performance in the majors.

Darvish possesses a similar skill set: A low-90s fastball that can reach the mid-90s, several offspeed pitches, and precision command. However, this plot may tell a different story.

It appears that Darvish is willing to challenge hitters with his fastball in the strike zone, and gets groundball outs doing so. However, quite frequently, Darvish threw offspeed pitches for balls in early counts, a main contributor to Matsuzaka’s limited success.

So with this in mind, is there any reason to believe that Darvish will have any more success in the bigs than Matsuzaka?

Age works in Darvish’s favor, as he’ll be entering his age 24 season if he enters MLB next season. Also, Matsuzaka’s enormous price tag may have worked to drive the total asking price for Darvish way down.

While a struggling economy has driven overall free agent dollars down in recent years, many Japan-America transitions have been billed almost completely on past precedent. If teams are worried about a Matsuzaka-like decline after a transition stateside, Darvish may not be as highly sought after Matsuzaka was.

There is speculation that Darvish’s posting fee will be $25 million, and that he’ll seek a five-year deal in America.

More recently than Matsuzaka, Hiroki Kuroda was a top-level Japanese pitcher who brought his services stateside. He was a free agent after spending 10 seasons in Japan (nine seasons in Japan are required before outright free agency is granted). Kuroda signed a three-year, $35.3 million contract.

A $12 million salary over five years would put an expected total price tag of $85 million on Darvish. That would equal the $17 million per season, pre-incentive total for Matsuzaka. However, in some ways using Kuroda’s salary as a model for Darvish’s eventual price tag is a flawed endeavor.

Kuroda was a free agent, which meant that he could hold his own bidding war. While that likely drove his price up, he signed his contract with the Dodgers in 2007, a year before the major signs of economic recession set in.

Kuroda also never dominated NPB like Darvish has. Kuroda was a pitch-to-contact pitcher who had several productive seasons, but only one truly outstanding season (2006). And he was 32 years old when he entered the majors.

By contrast, Darvish is coming off his fourth straight season with an ERA under two, his third season in the last four where he struck out a batter per inning or more, and may be coming off his best season in NPB. He’ll be 24 years old for most of next season, and has been on prospect radar’s since he began his domination of the league in 2007, when he was 20 years old.

However, most heavily contrasting to Kuroda’s situation, Darvish will only be allowed to negotiate a contract with the team that wins the right by bidding highest on his posting.

The Mariners best shot at Darvish is if the bidding war for his posting becomes a battle of attrition. We recently saw Stephen Strasburg, perhaps the greatest pitching prospect of all time, see his contract expectations dip from an insane $50 million, and ultimately end up at a little over $15 million.

There’s no chance that the Mariners, or any other team for that matter, get Darvish for less than the $15 Million that Strasburg received. His posting fee alone, even if it comes in below the expected $25 million figure, will likely surpass Strasburg’s contract.

Also, Darvish made the equivalent to about $4 million in Japan this season, so in order to get Darvish into a Major League uniform, an MLB team would certainly have to give him a pretty hefty increase on that number.

But the increase comes with a sample set of over 1,000 innings of production against high-level competition to justify it.

In financially-cautious time for baseball, teams are even more likely to include the posting fee in total cost analysis of a player. So if we use $25 million as the posting fee, and an $8 million salary as a model, a five-year contract with the posting fee would come in at $65 million over five years.

In this scenario, the signing team would commit essentially $13 million per season to Darvish, and have an additional year of team control after the contract was completed, meaning they’d have a full year to negotiate a second contract or engineer a trade while Darvish played under his final year of arbitration. Darvish could hit free agency at age 30.

If we use Matsuzaka’s success in the majors as a midline, it’s pretty easy to justify $65 million for Darvish over five years. Despite his struggles, according to Fangraphs, Matsuzaka has been worth $42.9 million in four seasons in the big leagues. If we use his strike-throwing counterpart Kuroda as a moderate ceiling, things look even brighter, as Kuroda has been worth $42.4 million in three seasons.

If the price is right, Darvish is a special talent, and the second-best pitcher available this offseason (behind Cliff Lee, and excluding possible trades). However, if the price tag on Darvish reaches “Matsuzaka money,” the Mariners are better off spending their money elsewhere.

If the Mariners are truly a team that values long-term process over immediate results, then pursuing, and potentially signing Darvish is simply a matter of dollars and sense.

Other Fixing the 2011 Seattle Mariners profiles:

Ted Lilly, Ramon Hernandez, Michael Saunders, Colby Rasmus, Adam Dunn, Chone Figgins, Dustin Ackley, Felipe Lopez, Willy Aybar, Jack/Josh Wilson

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