The NL Cy Young race: An eight-way contest

With three weeks remaining in the 2021 season, the NL Cy Young race is nowhere near resolution.

No fewer than eight plausible candidates are still in contention, with the final judgment probably hinging on the candidates’ performance over these final three weeks. Each pitcher will probably get about five additional starts to improve their standing compared with their fellow competitors.

The eight most plausible contenders are: Walker Buehler and Max Scherzer of the Dodgers, Kevin Gausman of the Giants, Zack Wheeler of the Phillies, Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes of the Brewers, Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals and Wade Miley of the Reds. The record of each contains plenty of strengths, but also at least one or two relative shortcomings.

Determining who should win the NL Cy Young award

To objectively rate the candidacies of the eight, I’m assessing each according to their performance in five statistical categories that are widely considered by Cy Young voters. Those five categories, a mixture of ‘old’ and ‘new’ stats and also a mix of ‘counting’ and ‘rate’ categories, are innings pitched, wins, ERA, pitching WAR, and ERA+.

At the end, I’ve attached a number to each candidate. That number corresponds to the average ordinal rank of each of the eight in the five categories. The lower the average ordinal rank, the better the pitcher’s chances probably are of actually winning the award.

Still, other factors can come into play. Four of the eight – Burnes and Woodruff of the Brewers and Buehler and Scherzer of the Dodgers – are teammates, raising the prospect that they could split the vote and hurt each other’s candidacies.

Innings pitched

If one performance category is more important than any other in Cy Young voting, it’s probably this one. After all, a pitcher only has value to the extent that he pitches. With rare exceptions, a pitcher who excels over 150 innings simply cannot be judged as valuable as one who has slightly lower performance ratings but works 20 or 30 more innings.

By this standard, Wheeler and Wainwright are clearly the two front-runners. Wheeler is already approaching 190 innings.

Barring injury, he is likely to make five more starts, and since he is averaging nearly seven innings per start that puts him close to 225 innings.  He could be the first pitcher to work that many since David Price pitched 230 innings in 2016.

Wainwright isn’t far off that pace, a workload made more intriguing by the fact that he is now 40 years old.

The category hurts Burnes and Scherzer, both of whom have been relatively lightly worked. As dominant as Burnes has been, he has made only 24 starts and worked just 144 innings, about 40 fewer than Wheeler.

Scherzer is at 26 starts, but he is averaging less than six innings per start.

                 Pitcher                   IP

1              Wheeler              188.2

2              Wainwright         184.1

3              Buehler                179.0

4              Gausman             164.0

5              Woodruff             163.1

6              Miley                     155.2

7              Scherzer               154.0

8              Burnes                  144.0

ERA

Earned run average is the definitive ‘old-school’ assessment tool for pitchers. Thus it can be a big deal to some Cy Young voters.

Not surprisingly, all eight of the candidates rank well in ERA compared with their National League peers. They all are carrying ERAs below 3.00, and several are among the league leaders.

Scherzer is No. 1 in this category. His 2.28 ERA leads the Majors. Max may not have endured a heavy workload this season, but when called on he has excelled. The issue for a lot of voters may come down to how they weigh that tradeoff: Do they prefer a candidate who excels in light work or one who does a bit less well in more substantial use?

If the latter, Wainwright’s candidacy stands to benefit. At 2.98, he ranks last among the eight contenders in ERA…but he’s done so over the aforementioned 184 innings.

Do you prefer a compromise candidate who balances workload with ERA? Then take a serious look at Buehler. At 2.31, he enters play Friday ranked behind only Scherzer in ERA, and behind only Wheeler and Wainwright in workload.

The Brewers starters also stand out in this category. Burnes has a 2.38 ERA and Woodruff is at 2.48.

Wheeler’s ERA may have paid a price for his durability. At 2.91, he ranks ahead of only Wainwright among the eight contenders.

                 Pitcher                 ERA

1              Scherzer              2.28

2              Buehler                2.31

3              Burnes                 2.38

4              Woodruff            2.48

5              Gausman            2.56

6              Miley                    2.89

7              Wheeler              2.91

8              Wainwright        2.98

Wins

There’s no number more old-school than pitching wins. These days, with the rise of tools such as FIP, WHIP and ERA+,  it has fallen out of value as a Cy Young assessment tool, largely due to its dependency on run support and bullpen backing.

Still, if you think wins play no role in Cy Young assessment, consider the case of the Giants’ Logan Webb. At 2.64 with a 157 ERA+, he ranks high in some determinate categories. But Webb has just nine victories; that figure will be  a tough sell for some voters.

Of course wins alone won’t get the job done, either. The current Major League leader in wins is LA’s Julio Urias, with 16. But his numbers in the other categories are pedestrian enough to rule him out as a contender. Kyle Hendricks, third in wins with 14, has the same problem.

Among the serious contenders, the leader is Wainwright with 14 victories for the Cardinals. If he gets five more starts, he has a chance to approach 20 victories, which especially at his age would be  headline accomplishment.

Gausman, Buehler and Scherzer each have 13 victories.

As in the innings pitched category, Milwaukee’s reliance on its bullpen in mid-inning and late-inning situations hurts the candidacies of both Woodruff and Burnes. Each has only nine wins, the  same number as Webb.

Their showings in the ERA, WAR and ERA+ categories prop up their candidacies. But it is a significant question whether they have individually stood out enough to win this award.

                 Pitcher               Wins

1              Wainwright         15

2              Buehler                13

2              Gausman             13

2              Scherzer               13

5              Wheeler               12

5              Miley                     12

7              Woodruff                9

7              Burnes                    9

Pitching WAR

Pitching WAR is a statistical assessment of each player’s contribution to his team’s victory total relative to the expected performance of a replacement player. A rating of +4.0 indicates that a pitcher was worth about four games in the standings beyond that which the team might have been expected to gain from a generic callup.

To date, the leader in pitcher WAR is Wheeler at 6.4. Miley (6.1) is second.

Since WAR is in essence a ‘counting’ stat – it is likely to increase with use – Wheeler’s rank in this category probably relates to his heavier workload.

In that sense, Miley may have the more intriguing resume here. He has piled up his 6.1 pitching WAR — only fractionally below Wheeler – In 33 fewer innings, a notable accomplishment.

To the extent that Wainwright has not gotten widespread Cy Young consideration, this category is probably the reason. He is last among the contenders in WAR, at just 3.8 games.

The Cy Young case for Burnes, too, is hurt by this category. His 4.8 WAR is probably depressed by the factors we’ve already cited, principally his relatively light workload.

                 Pitcher                WAR

1              Wheeler               6.4

2              Miley                     6.1

3              Buehler                5.5

3              Scherzer              5.5

5              Woodruff            5.3

6              Gausman            4.9

7              Burnes                 4.8

8              Wainwright        3.3

ERA+

This ‘new’ statistic essentially compares a pitcher’s ERA to the league average, and is also adjusted for ballpark. Average ERA+ is always 100, with the best starters each year potentially surpassing 150. (Relievers can go higher.)

ERA+ is not use-dependent, which makes it an excellent counter-balance to WAR in assessing pitcher performance.

As a prototypical ‘new’ stat,’ it is also a closely watched category among Cy Young voters who emphasize SABRmetric tools.

The normalization to a base of 100 also makes it easily expressible in comparative situations…and there is no situation more comparative than awards voting. To state that a pitcher with a 150 ERA + was 50 percent better than the average pitcher is an absolute and irrefutable fact.

The only problem with relying solely on ERA+ is that unlike WAR, it does not factor in usage. Jacob DeGrom has an ERA+ of 366 this season. Too bad he hasn’t pitched a single inning since early July.

This is Burnes’ showpiece category. His ERA+ to date is 178, the best in the Majors so far.

But Burnes has plenty of competition. Scherzer (177) and Buehler (172) are right on his heels, as is his teammate, Woodruff (170).

The category hurts Wheeler, whose 139 ERA+ is good but not in the same ballpark as his competitors for the award. Wainwright, too, has a poor ERA+ by the standards of this group.

Pitcher                 ERA+

1              Burnes                  178

2              Scherzer               177

3              Buehler                172

4              Woodruff             170

5              Miley                     163

6              Gausman             161

7              Wheeler               139

8              Wainwright         131