Could Britton pull out a Cy Young if he finishes with 50+/<.50?

[atomic]

Britton almost certainly wont be at Britton's level in the future. And a starter transitioning to the pen typically sees his ERA improve by about a run. Gausman and Tillman certainly would be relievers with ERAs in the 2.00s, sometimes better, sometimes worse. The median ERA of everyone with 15+ saves in 2016 was 3.06.

Basically most any starter who can put up a 4.00 ERA can be an above-average closer.

There is a difference between being a reliever and a closer. A closer comes into games every time with the game on the line and the cows making a lot of noise. If it were so easy to be a closer why do so many closers self destruct after a year or two?

[atomic]

Stupid auto correct how does crowd become cows?

[Can_of_corn]

Stupid auto correct how does crowd become cows?

Must have been the fact that he comes in from the bullpen.

[Frobby]

I really don't care if he wins the Cy Young or not. I'm just glad I got to witness what he did this year.

[brianod]

I really don't care if he wins the Cy Young or not. I'm just glad I got to witness what he did this year.

And he did it with humility, a hat put on straight and always complimenting his teammates. His signature move is to hug his teammates and give them credit for giving him the opportunity. What we saw this year will probably never be repeated and he did it with style and grace.

[Satyr3206]

FWIW, Ken Rosenthal is voting for Britton. Saw it today on Fox Sports.

[LookitsPuck]

I really don't care if he wins the Cy Young or not. I'm just glad I got to witness what he did this year.

All I care about right now is that he closes out the game against the Blue Jays tonight and gets the save.

[BohKnowsBmore]

Yes, his ERA is remarkable (even while discounting the save stat), but the problem is that he only pitches 67.0 innings throughout a season. Unfortunately, even with such an insanely low ERA, a 2.50 pitcher who gives you 230 innings will be far more valuable to your team. It's actually an area where the voters get it right, and think like sabermetricians.

You have the Rolaids Relief Award to recognize pitchers for their contributions. Its the same thing for why pitchers don't win MVP. They're very valuable as a good, but an individual pitcher can't impact a season the way that one hitter/fielder can. So they're recognized for their valuable contributions through the Cy Young, and not through the MVP.

Unfortunately for this POV, there was nobody in the AL with 200+ IP and a sub 3 era.

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[DrungoHazewood]

There is a difference between being a reliever and a closer. A closer comes into games every time with the game on the line and the cows making a lot of noise. If it were so easy to be a closer why do so many closers self destruct after a year or two?

Just as often he comes in to a game on a Tuesday in May in Tampa in front of dozens of fans, up three runs with nobody on. Most of this doesn't bother a group of athletes who've mostly been the best pitcher on every team they've played on since they were nine.

Closers sometimes self-destruct after a year or two because they're throwing a baseball really hard and they get hurt, and they're failed starters, and MLB is hard, and you blow two saves in a week and the manager gets indigestion and instead of taking some Pepto he sends you to long relief. If Chris Davis slumps for a month he works through it. If a closer has a slump he ends up as Jim Johnson, traitor to the good folk of Baltimore. And mostly after the trade they end up about as good as they were before and many don't even get PTSD.

[Can_of_corn]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/zach-britton-and-the-al-cy-young-award/

Britton’s numbers are a little quirky, but there’s a reason. In 2016, just over 14% of all balls in play didn’t register speed/angle data in 2016. Typically, this is the result of weakly hit balls hit at very high and very low launch angles. For Britton, however, over 36% of the batted balls he allowed didn’t register — the vast majority of them weakly hit ground balls.

[Can_of_corn]

A fair number of those weakly hit balls used to become infield hits. The Orioles finally wised up and usually have Machado playing more shallow than normal when Britton is in the game. I would love to see how many infield hits he gave up this year compared to 2014 and 2015.

Yep, some of us were discussing that very idea toward the end of the 2015 season.

[OFFNY]

o

I think that it would be interesting if Britton got the M.V.P., but not the Cy Young Award.

You could argue that he is the most valuable player, but not necessarily the best pitcher.

I got this idea from a NY Daily News article from August of 1986. It suggested that Don Aase should get the A.L. MVP Award, and that Roger Clemens should get the A.L. Cy Young Award. Aase had 29 saves and a 2.10 ERA at the time, and the Orioles had relied heavily upon him to keep them in the A.L. East Pennant race up until that point.

o

Britton wound up 11th overall for the MVP Award, and 5th overall for the Cy Young Award.

Not bad.

I think that Britton had a similarly dominant season as did Aase in 1986 up until the point that I cited in my previous post (August 11th), but Aase had 2 horrendous outings after that point which inflated his overall numbers, plus the Orioles also did not collapse in the final 2 months of the season in 2016 as they did in 1986. And of course, the role of the starting pitchers and the closers were different back then than they they are today.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think that Britton had a similarly dominant season as did Aase in 1986 up until the point that I cited in my previous post (August 11th), but Aase had 2 horrendous outings after that point which inflated his overall numbers, plus the Orioles also did not collapse in the final 2 months of the season in 2016 as they did in 1986. And of course, the role of the starting pitchers and the closers were different back then than they they are today.

I think that's an unusual comparison. The last day that Aase's ERA was below one was June 15th. From that point on, in more than half the season, his ERA was 4.41 and he allowed 64 baserunners in 49 innings. Even through June 15th he was allowing more than a baserunner an inning and had blown three saves (admittedly two of the three were entering in an 8th inning that Britton likely wouldn't have been exposed to).

I think you'll find an awful lot of relievers who pitch to a sub-1.00 ERA in two month stretches.

[OFFNY]

o

I think that it would be interesting if Britton got the M.V.P., but not the Cy Young Award.

You could argue that he is the most valuable player, but not necessarily the best pitcher.

I got this idea from a NY Daily News article from August of 1986. It suggested that Don Aase should get the A.L. MVP Award, and that Roger Clemens should get the A.L. Cy Young Award. Aase had 29 saves and a 2.10 ERA at the time, and the Orioles had relied heavily upon him to keep them in the A.L. East Pennant race up until that point.

o

Britton wound up 11th overall for the MVP Award, and 5th overall for the Cy Young Award.

Not bad.

I think that Britton had a similarly dominant season as did Aase in 1986 up until the point that I cited in my previous post (August 11th), but Aase had 2 horrendous outings after that point which inflated his overall numbers, plus the Orioles also did not collapse in the final 2 months of the season in 2016 as they did in 1986. And of course, the role of the starting pitchers and the closers were different back then than they they are today.

I think that's an unusual comparison. The last day that Aase's ERA was below one was June 15th. From that point on, in more than half the season, his ERA was 4.41 and he allowed 64 baserunners in 49 innings. Even through June 15th he was allowing more than a baserunner an inning and had blown three saves (admittedly two of the three were entering in an 8th inning that Britton likely wouldn't have been exposed to).

I think you'll find an awful lot of relievers who pitch to a sub-1.00 ERA in two month stretches.

o

It's an unusual comparison from the start, simply because of the reason that I stated in my last post .......... the role of the starting pitchers and the closers were different back then than they they are today, hence Aase's role as the closer in 1986 was considerably different than Britton's role as a closer in 2016. The 2 horrendous outings in which I referenced that inflated Aase's overall stats in the final 2 months of the 1986 season consisted of 6 hits, 6 runs and 2 walks over 2 innings, and 4 hits, 3 runs, and 2 walks over 1 inning. Closers of today are not left out there to take beatings like that.

Taking that into consideration, I believe that up until the point which I referenced (August 11th), I think that the first 4 months of Aase's 1986 season and Britton's 2016 season were similar in the overall function that each played on their respective teams. Although I was not able to see nearly as many Orioles games in 1986 as I saw in 2016, I remember following that 1986 season well, and projecting that team without Aase for the first 4 months of said season is similar to projecting the 2016 Orioles without Britton for the first 4 months of its season. Both were invaluable closers to their teams, and the Orioles (in all probability) would have been lost without them. Britton was more clearly more efficient than Aase was in the 2016 season, and Aase had more of a workload in his individual outings than Britton did in the 1986 season.