Felix Hernandez Saved Cy Young Voters from Themselves | Baseball Bits

yeah sure I'll do a Mariners video I don't think anyone else has worked on one the siyoung award was introduced to Major League Baseball in 1956 and it has been a massive mistake ever since okay that's a bit far but in our statistically enlightened age it's easy to look back at previous siyoung voting and realize that the best pitching performance didn't always win the award for starters and relievers baseball pun there has historically been an emphasis on the rest of the team's success as well as the pitchers personal win-loss record the problem should be obvious these are things that the pitcher has very little control over we can take a look at the first signing vote to prove this keep in mind the award was MLB wide at the time here's four pitchers who contributed relatively the same value the Don Newcombe takes it easily thanks to winning 27 games was he really that much better than everyone else fast forward to 1959 and Sam Jones of the Giants clearly has early win on the ropes and although early wins one more game than Jones it's not the decider the decider in this case is team success as wins White Sox grab the American League pennant while Jones's Giants finished third in the senior circuit the shenanigans would continue the 1970s 80s and early 90s were characterized by a weird infatuation with relief pitchers in 1992 Dennis Eckersley even won MVP for a season that would be yeah kind of typical for Mariano Rivera I get that obsessing over these awards might seem silly but they become a significant part of a player's legacy the siyoung award needed a savior his name was Felix Hernandez you may also know him as King Felix starting with his debut in 2005 he staked his claim as the best pitcher in baseball for the following decade but if we're going to talk about 2005 there's one more case of scion robbery that needs to be addressed this is a screenshot of the bill james siyoung predictor you can find it on ESPN's website it is one of the most fundamentally misunderstood things on the entire Internet the predictor is frequently posted to places like Twitter or the baseball subreddit in recent years people pointed out that Dakota Hudson was in second place or that Jacob degrom was in sixth and every time without fail people get mad online because they don't understand what the Sion predictor is actually trying to do so here's what it doesn't do it doesn't tell you who the best pitcher is and it doesn't tell you who is the most deserving of the siyoung award what it does tell you however is how silly signed young voters can be the prediction formula includes a huge emphasis on wins losses and saves it also includes a 12-point victory bonus just for your team winning the division it cares about those things because voters cared about them too at least in 2004 when the formula was first presented if you want an accurate measure for today's voter simply utilize Tom tango siyoung predictor instead it's pretty good let's look at the 2005 American League song race the first-place vote getters were the goat Mariano Rivera the Koufax s career of Johan Santana and you know [Music] [Applause] Bartolo cologne ak8 substantial seductive had a phenomenal 2005 but a quick look at the pertinent numbers reveals that Johan Santana was even better as for Rivera he's in a different category with his reliever workload but that er a is really something this was actually the closest he came to winning the Sai Young Award the Bill James predictor actually had Rivera taking home the hardware with Bartolo in second and Santana and fourth that wasn't correct but it did correctly predict that voters would favor Cologne over the statistically superior Santana it's probably because they were too distracted by his 285 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal voters overemphasize the pitchers win-loss records as well as their respective teams performance yet again it seems as if the siyoung award was not the award for the best pitcher but the best pitcher with 20 wins on a playoff team pitcher wins and losses aren't a great indicator of performance because they're too dependent on the rest of the team you can't get the win if the defense behind you screws up or if the bats get shut down or if the bullpen just blows it you can certainly put your team in a position to win but that doesn't always get you into the W column this third place finished for Santana broke up what could have been a siyoung three-peat I made the comparison to Koufax earlier we're talking about two utterly dominant lefties who had their careers cut short is it possible that winning three songs like Koufax would have put Johan into the Hall of Fame if so that would be a big injustice just five years after the Johan Santana robbery Felix Hernandez fixed it [Music] 2010 was king Felix's age 24 season it was also his sixth season in the majors as a 24 year old myself that fact makes me want to shoot myself directly into outer space in 2009 he finished as the siyoung runner-up to Zack Greinke who had an unbelievable season I don't think Zack Greinke really cared though the only award he ever liked was when Mizuno sent him a samurai sword some people might think that's silly but thankfully zack greinke can't hear them over the sound of him swinging his samurai sword part of what made Felix so effective is that he threw five different pitches with regularity fastball sinker curveball slider changeup if you had a couple at-bats against Felix you could very likely see all of these devastating pitches the change-up was probably the most visceral and downright nasty pitch in his arsenal a changeup is supposed to be an off-speed pitch but Felix threw it hard one might normally hope for a large velocity gap between the fastball and changeup but the difference between those two pitches from Felix was only 5 miles per hour his changeup had the velocity of some pitchers fast balls we have seen this hard change employed by other pitchers recently with Jacob degrom being a great example but Felix averaging 90 miles per hour was practically unheard of a decade ago and boy did it work you can see the movement for yourself hitters swung and missed at Felix's changeup over 23% of the time making it the most likely of his pitches to generate whiffs as an expert sinker baller King Felix also emphasized generating ground balls when he couldn't get swings and misses but his slider also had the much helpful effect of home run prevention from 2009 to 2013 a 5 season stretch Felix Hernandez toss hitters 2120 sliders they hit just seven home runs that's a home run every 303 pitches over twice as many as the American League average for sliders in that time frame thanks baseball savant 2010 Felix got off to a solid but not elite start he had a couple clunkers including a start against the Angels where he allowed 7 earned run and got chased in the fourth he was on a roll by the time he reached the all-star break but was the victim of a 2010 all-star snub despite being first an innings pitched third an F war and seventh and ee RRA the fans elected to send 11 American League starting pitchers not named Felix Hernandez in the second half of the season he pitched Jim after Jim after Jim the opponent didn't seem to matter he pitched eight scoreless innings in a dominant fashion and he did this with stunning regularity at the end of the season he led the American League in innings pitched earned run average o-p-s against and baseball-reference war he was without a doubt the best pitcher in the league the obvious siyoung winner 'right actually the odds were against him because the team surrounding him well you should see for yourself [Music] pretend I'm a mechanic just humor me you bring your 2010 Seattle Mariners into the shop what seems to be the problem I have to bet this is how you talk by the way I have the best pitcher in the league but I still lost more than a hundred games hmm that's weird let's take a look under the hood oh there's your problem your lineup is completely defective only Ichiro and Russell Brand Ian's seem to be working as for the rest well you should probably scrap it here are the most common Mariner starters by position as well as their triple slash and o-p-s plus there's a lot of numbers on this screen so I'm just gonna flash the numbers that were below the American League average ready go you okay hopefully you get the point the 2010 Seattle Mariners scored an embarrassing 513 runs if you remove strike-shortened seasons that's the lowest by an American League team in the designated hitter era wow that's a lot of Seattle and aptitude on this list maybe they should be allowed to use multiple designated hitters that lack of run support harmed King Felix in the win-loss Department in June he allowed two runs and nine innings against the Cubs I would like to call that a complete game but it went to extras with the Mariners ultimately losing in the 13th inning a no decision for Felix another no decision came in July when Felix tossed eight scoreless against the White Sox unfortunately the Mariners bats wouldn't wake up until the eleventh inning in his second to last start of the season Felix allowed a first inning home run to Jose Bautista then proceeded to throw a gem the rest of the way unfortunately the Mariners batters did him no favors by again failing to score a single run King Felix was saddled with the loss this all culminated in a record of 13 and 12 not 20 wins not even 15 but a lowly unlucky 13 Rickey delasco had a 451 ARA and still managed to win 14 games with the Marlins that year from 1967 to 2009 the AL Sion award had been given out 43 times four of them were relievers 30 of them won 20 games including a 31 win season from Denny McLain in the year of the pitcher the rest of the stars each managed to win at least 16 games in order to win the award Felix was going to have to break down barriers his incredible performance had put the ball in the BB lwas court how do we solve a problem like King Felix let's throw it back to the bill james sai yeung predictor which was based on the old-fashioned habits exhibited by sai yeung voters of yesteryear and the system where wins losses and team success matters a lot Fields Hernandez would have finished seventh in projected siyoung points the top two pitchers on this list David Price and CC Sabathia where King Felix's main competition now Felix had beat them and basically every non win-loss category imaginable but that didn't crown him immediately one blogger argued given that the award is named after baseball's only 500 game winner that winning was the primary objective of the award itself and that CC Sabathia the Yankees ace and American leagues only 20 game winner deserved to win the award at the conclusion of the regular season writers for all 30 teams submitted their award votes the results came out on the 18th of November and the winner is Felix Hernandez King Felix captured 21 of 30 first-place votes to secure his coronation as the American League Cy Young Award winner despite the best efforts of the Mariners offense and the pitcher win statistic the deserving candidate at one from using it to the blogs to the front office's this was a win for the Sabre nutrition's a deserving starting pitcher with just 13 wins had taken home the hardware it hasn't always been smooth sailing from there in 2016 Justin Verlander lost a very close controversial vote to Rick Porcello despite earning more first-place votes but it also set the table for Jacob degrom to win back-to-back siyoung Awards with 10 and 11 wins respectively mets fans should be thankful that King Felix broke that stigma a decade ago with the baseball season on quarantine and Felix Hernandez presumably contending for a spot on the Braves pitching staff there are a lot of questions about what comes next he just turned 34 making him younger than guys like Verlander and Scherzer but it's a bruised and battered 34 as his arm has a ton of mileage and his velocity has greatly declined from his prime the 2010 season was the most Eddings tossed by a pitcher under 25 since 1990 he also appears on this list twice just an absolute workhorse from a young age although old Hoss probably wouldn't be too impressed regardless of what comes next Mariners fans will always have the man who single-handedly made Seattle baseball worth watching during some really dark years and for the stats NARS well we'll always have 13 wins and 12 losses this video doesn't have a corporate sponsor instead it's brought to you by these fine supporters of the foolish baseball patreon to learn about all the bonus content you can unlock go to patreon.com/crashcourse [Music]

Channel: Foolish Baseball

Views: 400,654

Rating: 4.9620652 out of 5

Keywords: felix hernandez, cy young award, mlb cy young snubs, 2010 felix hernandez, felix hernandez cy young, felix hernandez mariners, 2010 seattle mariners, king felix, mariners offense, bartolo colon cy young, johan santana, johan santana hall of fame, ichiro, david price, cc sabathia, jacob degrom, king felix cy young, mlb, baseball, sabermetrics, analytics, foolish baseball, baseball bits, cy young voting, cy young voters, felix 2010, 2010 mariners, bill james, tom tango

Id: Ivm6qMh-myI

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/LucasDudacris]

All this did was convince me that Johan Santana belongs in the Hall of Fame.

[u/ChaseFatFace]

And and and- Felix was robbed in 2014, or, depending on who you talk to, he was one bad September start away from winning the top spot again.

[u/TrophyGoat]

Can you put a disclaimer on videos where you're gonna show Bartolo Colon? My girlfriend was in the room

[u/Skraxx]

Came here after he mentioned r/baseball lol

[u/Davidellias]

loved the intro bit about the Mariners, hell even MLB was showing the Mariners/Yankees series a couple days ago

[u/reptheevt]

The Greinke Cy Young was a bit of a breakthrough too. Greinke won 16 games for a 65 win KC team while Felix won 19 games for a surprisingly upstart 85 win Mariner team. Greinke definitely deserved it but him getting 25 first place votes was a bit of a shocker I think.

[u/E70M]

Alternative names for Bartolo Colon Big Sexy, by Foolish Baseball:

• Large Attractive
• Substantial Seductive

[u/Thromnomnomok]

The first Mariners' lineup graphic, at about 8:40 in, is actually underselling the problem a bit, because for some reason, it's way over-inflating a few of their batting averages.

Based on the bit about Ichiro having 183 hits, it would probably be from this game, on September 10th, in which that exact lineup was used:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ANA/ANA201009100.shtml

Problem is, based on that game and looking at scores from the previous games, it's inexplicably listing Kotchman, Moore, and Saunders's batting averages as .282, .261, and .245, when they were really hitting .224, .187, and .214, respectively, coming into the game.

(The other 6 batting averages all look right, though Branyan's is for the season as a whole, he hit for a higher average the first couple of months in Cleveland than he did after he was traded in late May- the second graphic has his stats just in Seattle)

[u/[deleted]]

Were the fans really voting for pitchers for the 2010 All-Star game? I thought they were selected by the manager.