AL Cy Young Fallout
Posted by Craig Brown on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Those of us in Kansas City have taken to wishing each other Happy Greinke Day on the days where Zack Greinke is scheduled to start. Cheesy? You betcha. But this is the Royals we’re talking about. It’s not like there are too many things that make us excited to watch a ballgame with the hometown nine. Unless you get some perverse joy watching Yuniesky Betancourt try to go to his left.
In a post at Royals Authority, I tried to explain what Greinke meant to Royals fans last summer. (Answer: Tons.) Check that out if you like. Now, I’d like to touch on a few collateral issues from yesterday’s Cy Young announcement.
– Most people were looking for a landslide, but there were some (mostly Royals fans who can carry around an enormous inferiority complex) who had convinced themselves that CC Sabathia or Felix Hernandez was going to win the award. Rob Neyer felt that there was a certain buzz around Greinke that had been building all season that would inevitably end in a huge margin of victory.
I think Neyer is on to something. It’s almost a reverse psychology kind of thing where people talk so much about one thing – in this case Greinke’s low win total and how it will hurt his chances – that it actually ended up helping him. As the movement evolved demanding that the voters look deeper, this could only help Greinke. And it has to help to have Joe Posnanski on your side, too.
– Listening to a Zack Greinke press conference is a study of the bizarre. In one corner, you have all these sportswriters who are conditioned to ask the cliched questions – first question out of the chute on Tuesday, “How do you feel about all this?” – yet Greinke refuses to give the cliched answers. Personally, I’m not a fan of listening to Greinke because he’s clearly not comfortable speaking before any kind of a group. However, you have to listen to the guy when he’s speaking, because from out of nowhere he’ll drop just an outstanding quote.
Like this one:
Q: “Have you given much thought since the season ended to winning the Cy Young award?”
A: “Not really. I’ve been playing this World of Warcraft game.”
Beautiful.
– Tyler Kepner from the New York Times inadvertently wrangled this gem from Greinke when he asked about Greinke’s low win total:
“I’m also a follower, since Brian Bannister’s on our team, of the sabermetric stuff and going into details of stats about what you can control and everything… My favorite one that I’ll try to focus on is FIP. So that’s pretty much how I try to pitch. I try to keep my FIP as low as possible. Since I’ve been trying to control that, things have been falling into place a little better.”
Wow.
Greinke led the AL with a 2.42 FIP. This is a stat that can be really important considering the Royals had an infield defense that can only be described as abysmal. Defense, low run support and a criminally negligent bullpen can all be blamed to some extent for Greinke’s low win total. It’s great to hear that he has learned to focus on what directly impacts him as opposed to the things over which he has no control.
He touched on that meme later in his press conference when he said two pitchers (he wouldn’t give their names) told him that once they released a pitch, they forgot about the result and began focusing on the next pitch.
Greinke has always had the talent. It was the mental aspect of his game that was lacking. He was alternately bored and unfocused at times early in his career. Now that he’s putting time and effort into the mental and statistical side of the game, it’s not surprising he was the best pitcher in baseball last summer.
– Of course, once it was announced Greinke had earned 25 out of 28 first place votes, some immediately demanded to know who the “morons” were who didn’t put the Royals starter number one. Sorry, but this kind of reaction rubs me the wrong way. Greinke won. By a lot of points. That should be enough. Sadly, for some, it isn’t. It’s a free country, so the writers can vote for whomever they like. It’s nice when they defend their choices, but it’s not necessary.
Having said that, here’s Tiger beat writer Steve Kornacki’s justification on giving Justin Verlander his first place vote:
Verlander received my first-place vote because nobody was tougher on the mound with the season on the line for his team.
He threw at least 120 pitches in six of his last eight outings and won his last three starts, forcing a one-game playoff against the Minnesota Twins with his final victory.
See… I promised myself I wouldn’t go down this road, but damn… Personally, I think Verlander had a fine season. He was clearly one of the five best starters in the game last summer and deserved consideration for this award. But voting for him because he threw a lot of pitches? Weird. I think I would have mentioned the strikeouts before his “toughness.”
I’m not going to rant and rave against Kornacki. He has earned his vote as a member of the BBWAA. He had his reasons and to his credit he explained them. We simply don’t agree.
Craig writes about the Royals at Royals Authority. He welcomes all questions and comments via e-mail. Or just follow him on Twitter.
Photos courtesy of PicApp…http://www.picapp.com/Search.aspx?term=zack%20greinke
I honestly think we need to quit falling for the attention whores of the BBWAA who cast knowingly controversial votes and then write a column about in a veiled attempt to gain attention.
I’ll bet you that Kornacki’s “Verlander justification” gained him more reads than anything else he wrote all year. Plus, he gains the support of homer Detroit Tiger fans who now see Kornacki as a guy who will do his best to support the local product they value.
It’s a pretty safe vote when you know you don’t have to worry about it swaying the “election” so to speak. In wrestling, they call it a “cheap pop” when the face comes out and yells out the home town city… this is nothing more than the BBWAA award’s process of a “cheap pop” for Kornacki.
On the subject of Greinke and FIP, if it took a statistical look at his performance to get him to realize you want to strike out guys, not walk them and not give up home runs then I’m a little worried about the young man… and he won’t even have any free time over the winter to look at his numbers since he’ll be consumed with World of Warcraft and likely to lose roughly 3.25 hours/day playing the highly addictive MMORPG.
Imagine if Milton Bradley said he was going to spend the off-season playing a video game and that he likes to look at some advanced stats because it gives him good feedback on the performance only under his control. My guess is Bradley wouldn’t be cool, he’d a selfish moron who doesn’t make baseball a priority. Bad Milton Bradley!
Guess it’s true what they say… build a bridge and no one calls you a bridge builder but s… oh nevermind!
I’m sure Kornacki has gotten his name out there because of his vote, but I’ll take his explanation at face value. Things like this will happen annually until the process is changed. And since the voters are the one’s in charge of the process, I’m not exactly holding my breath.
Greinke began his transformation when he pitched out of the bullpen in the minors in 2006 and in the majors for part of 2007. It was in the relief role where he learned to “harness” the power of his fastball. He’s spoken of this a number of times where he was able to let loose because he knew he was only pitching an inning or so no matter what, as opposed to going deep into games as a starter. Before his time in the pen, he was striking out about 6 batters per 9. In the two years since, he’s getting close to 9 K’s per 9.
And I’m not worried about Greinke playing World of Warcraft. He could be playing Guitar Hero.
@Craig Brown – An intervention must be had if Greinke starts playing Guitar Hero. It’s only a short leap before it becomes Heroin Hero!
(Obligatory South Park reference)
On Kornacki’s “stats,” Verlander had a 4.20 ERA in those four starts with 120-plus pitches, so it’s not like he became Bob Gibson.
I can see a first-place argument being made for Felix Hernandez, though it is still weak at its foundation. I cannot see such arguments being made for another AL pitchers, however. There’s a clear gap between Greinke and Hernandez and the rest of the contenders (Verlander, Sabathia, etc.).
Bill – Quality South Park reference.
I’m with you on Felix deserving of consideration of a first place vote. After him and Greinke, the other three can fight it out for places three through five.
I would have ordered them:
Greinke
Hernandez
Verlander
Halladay
Sabathia