 |
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
NL
ROY Neither Surprising Nor Justified Everyone saw it coming. Dontrelle Willis pitched on a World Series winning team with a delivery that warmed everyone's heart. People were outraged when he was snubbed for the all-star team, and only when Kevin Brown went down with an injury did he earn his rightful place. America loved the kid, and I must say I'm a big fan as well. I'm happy that he won an award, but I can't help but feel that Brandon Webb was snubbed. There have been bigger tragedies of
voting. From Palmeiro's gold glove to Clemens most recent Cy Young
and Ichiro's MVP, there are always awards that leave you scratching
your head, looking at the results and saying "what happened?"
with a part of your brain wondering if the BBWAA's ballot puts the
Florida election ballot to shame. Although this one is not as bad,
it still makes the astute raise an eyebrow. It looks pretty simple
to most of us that there should be the same three players on all the
ballots. Lidge, Willis, and Podsednik in some order. Then if you take
the time to look at the results, you would see that someone gave up
on spelling "Podsednik" and decided it's just easier to
write "Reyes." The problem is that baseball writers have
always seemed to ignore stats and just accept the hype that they've
built up for the players over the course of the year as evidence.
In all fairness, I myself didn't even realize how well Webb was doing
until somewhere around mid June after he had already notched eight
or nine starts. But eventually I looked into the stats and was blown
away by how well he did. The following are their stats over the full season:
Now, I could have used the overdone technique of labeling them "Player A" and "Player B" so that no bias would be held when you judged for yourself who was the better pitcher. But the numbers are so obvious that bias or not, there's no way you can't come up with Webb. Really, the only stat was completely under Willis' control that he beat Webb in was walks, and when you even out the number of innings, there would have only been 3 walks difference. Looking at this table makes you wonder if this decision really is as bad as some previous ones. Webb was better at, simply put, everything. He did a better job as pitcher to put his team in a position to win. Speaking of being able to win, that seems to be the only real edge that Willis had over Webb. a 14-6 record looks much more impressive than 10-9. And sadly, baseball still considers that a primary judgment of a pitcher's ability. Can this be enough to declare him the rookie of the year? When Webb was pitching, his team scored on average 0.50 runs per inning. The Marlins scored 0.52 runs per inning with Willis on the hill. Not all that significant of a difference. So what can account for the difference in record? Although those who don't subscribe to the notion of sabermetrics refuse to accept this way of thinking, luck always plays a role. In games where the pitcher posted a Quality Start, Willis' record was 10 wins, 1 loss, and 5 no decisions. Webb had a record of 9 wins, 5 losses, and 7 no decisions. We already see the luck of the draw factoring in here. When they pitched effectively enough to notch what should be a win, Willis won 62.5% of the time, whereas Webb won only 43% of the time. It should also not be overlooked that Webb lost five times as many games. Four times he pitched well enough to put the team into a position to win, yet the team neglected to give him enough offensive support. Only once did that happen for Willis. As well as looking at Quality Starts, there's a lot you can tell from looking at the rest of the starts - starts in which the pitcher didn't have a very good outing, and how often his team pulled him out of that hole to save their record. Starting with Willis again, in starts where he did not earn a QS, his record is 4 wins, 5 losses, and 2 no decisions. Webb managed a record of 1 win, 4 losses, 2 no decisions. Again, Willis holds the rabbit's foot as he wins four games in which he did not deserve to compared to Webb's one. So how does luck not factor in this, is my question. Clearly it played a big role, as when you take ballpark factors into consideration, Webb looks even better. His adjusted ERA+ of 165 was 4th in the league behind only Schmidt, Prior, and Brown. Willis' ERA+ of 122 neglected to crack the top 10. VORP? 49.8 to 36.5 in favour of Webb. Is it realistic to expect baseball writers to consider these stats when voting? Lamentably, no. But I'm just showing these to strengthen the point. The fact remains that one should be able to simply glance at the stats and realize within five seconds who the more deserving pitcher is. One might argue that the success of the team is a large reason for the voting. But keep in mind when the award was voted upon, the playoffs had not begun. And even so, although one could make an argument to factor in the team with the MVP award, the definition of the Rookie of the Year award is simple. The best rookie. Not the best rookie on a good team. Even when you look at a stat that will distribute the teams wins among their players, where Willis should have a clear advantage, he comes up short. Webb's 16.76 win shares best Dontrelle Willis' even 14. So despite the difference in record, Webb actually accounted for almost one extra win than Willis did. So when the difference in walks is negligible (and factored into WHIP anyway), and the difference in wins can easily be chalked up to luck (based on the evidence of how the team performs while they're pitching, combined with the fact that Webb accounted for more of his teams wins under the Win Share formula), what is it that Dontrelle Willis holds over him that earned him the right to be called the rookie of the year? A high leg kick, a lot of hype, and a lot of luck. But don't look to statistics if you're trying to justify this one. I've done enough head scratching for all of us.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
©Copyright 2003
Phil Orr
|
