The regular season is almost a full week from conclusion and two of the first round playoff matchups have two teams up 2-0 on their opponents. It seems, to me, like the season only started three months ago but baseball will be without games in another month but baseball season never ends thanks to an offseason that is more active than any other sport.
One of the big topics for the offseason is awards. Who will win? Who will get shafted? Which award will cause the most debate? When it comes to the American League Cy Young Award voting there are only two names that I believe should be at the top of voters ballots: Justin Verlander or David Price. The race for the award probably will not be as close as the two are in stats but there is still case to be made for either pitcher. Let’s take a look at their stats side-by-side with American League ranks in parenthesis:
| Stat | Verlander | Price |
| ERA | 2.64 (2) | 2.56 (1) |
| FIP | 2.84 (1) | 3.05 (3) |
| xFIP | 3.31 (7) | 3.12 (1) |
| ERA+ | 160 (1) | 149 (2) |
| K/BB | 3.98 (2) | 3.47 (11) |
| K | 239 (1) | 205 (6) |
| K/9 | 9.03 (3) | 8.74 (8) |
| H/9 | 7.3 (2) | 7.4 (4) |
| WHIP | 1.06 (2) | 1.10 (4) |
| CG | 6 (1) | 2 (10t) |
| SHO | 1 (7t) | 1 (7t) |
| WPA/LI | 4.6 (1) | 3.5 (2) |
| WPA | 4.1 (4) | 3.6 (5) |
| RE24 | 38.78 (2) | 38.82 (1) |
| REW | 4.1 (2) | 4.4 (1) |
| BF | 956 (1) | 836 (11) |
| IP | 238.1 (1) | 211 (8) |
| rWAR | 7.6 (1) | 6.4 (2) |
| fWAR | 6.8 (1) | 5.1 (3) |
As you can see, the two pitchers appear to be neck-and-neck in rate stats with Price leading the American League in ERA, xFIP, RE24, and REW while Verlander leads in FIP, ERA+, and WPA/LI. The two pitchers are very close in most stats but Verlander starts to separate himself from Price in running-total stats.
Verlander led the American League with 238.1 innings pitched and in batters faced with 956. This allowed his running totals to progress beyond Price and most of the league as he also lead in strikeouts, rWAR, fWAR, and complete games. Price, by contrast, pitched 27.1 less innings and faced 120 fewer batters.
Verlander facing almost 13% more batters is a huge advantage when it comes to my vote for the Cy Young Award especially while maintaining and even beating Price in a lot of the rate stats.
Price faced stiffer competition but pitched with a far better defense behind him and in a park that is a bit more friendly to pitchers. The park factor is applied in ERA+ and why Verlander actually had a better ERA+ than Price despite Price leading the league in ERA.
Verlander and Price were nearly identical twins but Verlander did it over a much larger amount of innings so he goes ahead of Price on my ballot.
My AL Cy Young Award Ballot for the BBA:
1. Justin Verlander (DET)
2. David Price (TB)
3. Felix Hernandez (SEA)
4. Chris Sale (CHW)
5. Fernando Rodney (TB)
-Jonathan C. Mitchell can be found writing about the Tampa Bay Rays at DRaysBay and the Florida Marlins at ESPN’s SweetSpot site Marlins Daily. You can follow him on twitter at @FigureFilbert. Be sure to follow MLBdirt at @MLBdirt
Filed under: Digging Deep - Analysis Tagged: | BBA, Chicago White Sox, Chris Sale, Cy Young Award, David Price, Detroit Tigers, Felix Hernandez, Fernando Rodney, Justin Verlander, Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Rays, Walter Johnson Award
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