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

[OFFNY]

Out of curiosity I looked up Willie Hernandez, 1984:

9-3, 1.92 ERA, 80 G, 68 GF, 32 SV, 140.1 IP, 548 BF, 204 ERA+, 2.58 FIP, 0.941 WHIP, 6.2 H/9, 0.4 HR/9, 2.3 BB/9, 7.2 K/9, 4.8 pWAR

80 games? 140 innings? I see now how he got the MVP award. There will be starting pitchers this year that won't reach 140 IP. Just from the volume of games/innings he had he finished 6th in the AL in WAR for pitchers.

Zach Britton by contrast may not reach half of Hernandez' IP total. He's better in every rate stat but walks/9 and currently sports a 3.2 pWAR, not quite in the top ten in the AL. His WPA however is 5.0, a full point ahead of second place, our old buddy Andrew Miller.

As I previously stated, you could make the argument that Mattingly or Murray should have won the award over Hernandez, but to say that there is/was no justification that Hernandez should have won it implies that he should not have even been in the conversation is a stretch, considering the season that he had, the team that he had it for, and the numbers that he put up.

Granted that it was a different era with considerably different roles for BOTH starting pitchers AND relief pitchers, but I still find it amazing that 10 years prior to Hernandez winning the the Cy Young and the MVP Awards in the same season, Mike Marshall pitched in 106 games and threw 208.33 innings out of the bullpen in 1974.

[Redskins Rick]

Britton is ignoring Cy Young talk.

I really like the way this guy thinks!

Earlier this week, I hosted Britton for a MASN chat with readers on our Facebook page. A fan asked Britton if he had paid attention to the Cy Young talk.

“You know, I really haven’t,” he said. “It’s probably the furthest thing from my mind at this point. There are so many opinions and there are a lot of people that don’t think relievers merit consideration, while a lot think that they do.

“If you don’t think about it, that is the best way to go about it. I’ve had people tell me, ‘I don’t think you should be in the conversation,’ and I’ve had people tell me, ‘You should.’ So I just avoid it at all costs. As long as we are playing good and winning games, that is really all that matters. If you are not on a winning team, you never even get considered for that stuff anyway.

“The main thing is for us to win and get into the postseason. If you are deserving of awards - and not just me, there are a lot of guys on our team that are deserving of awards - those things can come to you if you are part of a winning team.”

http://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2016/08/for-now-zach-britton-is-not-listening-to-the-cy-young-talk-tillman-to-dl.html

[OFFNY]

Britton is ignoring Cy Young talk.

I really like the way this guy thinks!

http://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2016/08/for-now-zach-britton-is-not-listening-to-the-cy-young-talk-tillman-to-dl.html

I like it, too.

As Oriole fans, it's fun for us to ponder things like this ........ but as a player on the team, I'm glad that all that Britton is thinking about is the Orioles' quest to make the postseason.

[brianod]

I like it, too.

As Oriole fans, it's fun for us to ponder things like this ........ but as a player on the team, I'm glad that all that Britton is thinking about is the Orioles' quest to make the postseason.

Zach is intelligent enough to say that but he's also intelligent enough to know garnering the award could earn him a lot more money over his career so I'm very sure he's aware of it while he's focusing on the season.

[OFFNY]

I like it, too.

As Oriole fans, it's fun for us to ponder things like this ........ but as a player on the team, I'm glad that all that Britton is thinking about is the Orioles' quest to make the postseason.

Zach is intelligent enough to say that but he's also intelligent enough to know garnering the award could earn him a lot more money over his career so I'm very sure he's aware of it while he's focusing on the season.

Or, he is intelligent enough to know that focusing on the award at all can be distracting to the task at hand, so he chooses not to.

[25 Nuggets]

Granted that it was a different era with considerably different roles for BOTH starting pitchers AND relief pitchers, but I still find it amazing that 10 years prior to Hernandez winning the the Cy Young and the MVP Awards in the same season, Mike Marshall pitched in 106 games and threw 208.33 innings out of the bullpen in 1974.

Ah yes, the incredible rubber arm of Mike Marshall. He appeared in 106 games that year! He also had years with 92 games (179.0 IP) and 90 games (142.2 IP). They might as well have called him Mike "The Fire Marshall" -- he was pretty much the definitive fireman.

[Frobby]

Britton finally allowed an earned run tonight, for the first time since April. I don't think he had much time to warm up. Truth be told, he threw a lot of 94 mph center cut fastballs. He was lucky Zimmerman's hit was right at Schoop, because it was scalded.

[O's84]

I'd rather have it happen in a game where we had a multiple run lead like this one than one where it costs us the game. Sucks his scoreless streak got cut on a game where didn't expect to be in and probably didn't have enough time to warm up. But we won, and that's the most important point.

[eddie83]

Britton finally allowed an earned run tonight, for the first time since April. I don't think he had much time to warm up. Truth be told, he threw a lot of 94 mph center cut fastballs. He was lucky Zimmerman's hit was right at Schoop, because it was scalded.

I agree he wasn't himself. I think the Orioles not challenging that was about as dumb as Zach's throw. Usually we are good when to challenge. I am still dumbfounded in that spot why we didn't. Glad he let up a run and it didn't cost us.

[OFFNY]

Haven't seen this posted yet: this article from The Ringer uses a rarely cited stat to make a possible case for Britton not just as Cy Young, but MVP.

Last year, with the help of Dan Hirsch, creator of historical stats and analysis site The Baseball Gauge, I introduced/revived a stat called Championship Probability Added, which addresses the aforementioned factors that fall outside the scope of WPA. Built on the bones of similar stats that hadn?t been tweaked to reflect the current, 10-team playoff format, Championship Probability Added answers a simple but compelling question: How much has a given player helped or hurt his team?s chances of winning the World Series?

For the O?s, almost every game has been a fight for their spot in the standings.

...

That brings us back to Britton. Put the player with the highest Win Probability Added on the Team with the highest Championship Leverage Index, and you have a formula for a runaway winner in the Championship Probability Added race.

...

According to cWPA, Britton, all by himself, has increased the Orioles? odds of winning a championship by 4 percentage points. No other player comes close: The difference in cWPA between Britton and second-ranked Daniel Murphy is as great as the difference between Murphy and 33rd-ranked Carlos Correa.

o

Thanks.

It's a very interesting article, regardless of whether or not you agree with it.

[callahan09]

I would vote him MVP, to be honest. Manny would have gotten my vote a couple months ago for Orioles MVP, and I know he won it, but at this point I think Britton has been the real MVP.

[weams]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Zach Britton has thrown 1 pitch up and out of the zone all season (barely)... That's pretty impressive. <a href="https://t.co/jSGtoUo8Gi">pic.twitter.com/jSGtoUo8Gi</a></p>— Daren Willman (@darenw) <a href="

">September 29, 2016</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[tinamodotti]

2 games left and Britton is right on the cusp of the numbers from the thread title.

Barring a BS in the last two games, I think he wins it. Several national writers have announced they are voting for him.

[O's84]

2 games left and Britton is right on the cusp of the numbers from the thread title.

Barring a BS in the last two games, I think he wins it. Several national writers have announced they are voting for him.

I don't know, writers like that win stuff and Porcello is 22-4 with a 3.15 ERA on a division leading team. I think they'll probably give it to him.

[LookitsPuck]

Last 5 American League Cy Young winners

2015: Dallas Keuchel - 2.48 ERA, 20-8

2014: Corey Kluber - 2.44 ERA, 18-9

2013: Max Scherzer - 2.90 ERA, 21-3

2012: David Price - 2.56 ERA, 20-5

2011: Justin Verlander - 2.40 ERA, 24-5

Aside from Scherzer who was teetering on a near 3 ERA...everyone else was right around 2.50 or below.

The last truly dominating year ERA wise/saves was 2012. And that was Fernando Rodney. He had a 0.60 ERA, 48 SV and a heavenly 0.777 WHIP...but blew 2 saves. His teammate (David Price) won it that year. Rodney finished 5th.

Compare and contrast to 2016. Rick Porcello and Corey Kluber have very, very similar numbers (right around 3.15 ERA). Porcello has the sexy wins (22 vs. Kluber's 18).

It's going to be close. Britton is 47-47, 0.55 ERA (which is historic) and a 0.827 WHIP.

In a way, this is very similar to 2012 in which there was a dominating performance by Rodney...but Price had over a half run better ERA than the pitchers vying for the Cy Young this year.

My gut is Rick Porcello will win it because: 22-4 and a WHIP under 1...and he's a starter.

I'd vote for Britton (bias aside) because it's a historic season...whereas Porcello's wasn't.

You have to go back to 2007 for the last time an American League Cy Young award winner won with an ERA above 3.

So...he has a very good chance.