I don't care what y'all think...Britton should (and will) win the Cy Young in the AL.

No way. Closers are not worth a Cy Young. If anything you should give it to an ace 7th or 8th guy before you do a closer.

I thought for a while he might win, but that was when there was a very crowded starting pitching pack to split votes. Now Porcello is 22-4 and he's right in the lead pack in ERA. His K rate is not outstanding, but I think there are still enough voters who care enough about record to give him the margin he needs to win.

Had the Orioles won the Division, Britton might have had a shot. Now, maybe top 3. Granted pitching the (8th and) 9th is different than pitching the other innings, but when one guy has pitched more than twice the innings of the other, that's hard to overlook.

Posted by dahsdebater on 10/2/2016 10:26:00 PM (view original):
I thought for a while he might win, but that was when there was a very crowded starting pitching pack to split votes. Now Porcello is 22-4 and he's right in the lead pack in ERA. His K rate is not outstanding, but I think there are still enough voters who care enough about record to give him the margin he needs to win.

Porcello also had 6.6 runs of support per game, highest in the majors. That'll go a long way towards getting you 22 wins. Happ had 6.06 runs/game of support.

Britton pretty much needed to be perfect for the O's to make the playoffs. One blown save, and they may not be going to the WC game. He also had the best relief season ever in terms of ERA - 4 earned runs in 67 innings, and one of those runs was an inherited runner that scored after he got hurt.

He would get my vote.

Posted by Jtpsops on 10/3/2016 9:24:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 10/2/2016 10:26:00 PM (view original):
I thought for a while he might win, but that was when there was a very crowded starting pitching pack to split votes. Now Porcello is 22-4 and he's right in the lead pack in ERA. His K rate is not outstanding, but I think there are still enough voters who care enough about record to give him the margin he needs to win.

Porcello also had 6.6 runs of support per game, highest in the majors. That'll go a long way towards getting you 22 wins. Happ had 6.06 runs/game of support.

Britton pretty much needed to be perfect for the O's to make the playoffs. One blown save, and they may not be going to the WC game. He also had the best relief season ever in terms of ERA - 4 earned runs in 67 innings, and one of those runs was an inherited runner that scored after he got hurt.

He would get my vote.

So you agree that pitcher W/L is stupid?

Posted by bad_luck on 10/3/2016 9:35:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Jtpsops on 10/3/2016 9:24:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 10/2/2016 10:26:00 PM (view original):
I thought for a while he might win, but that was when there was a very crowded starting pitching pack to split votes. Now Porcello is 22-4 and he's right in the lead pack in ERA. His K rate is not outstanding, but I think there are still enough voters who care enough about record to give him the margin he needs to win.

Porcello also had 6.6 runs of support per game, highest in the majors. That'll go a long way towards getting you 22 wins. Happ had 6.06 runs/game of support.

Britton pretty much needed to be perfect for the O's to make the playoffs. One blown save, and they may not be going to the WC game. He also had the best relief season ever in terms of ERA - 4 earned runs in 67 innings, and one of those runs was an inherited runner that scored after he got hurt.

He would get my vote.

So you agree that pitcher W/L is stupid?

When have I ever said otherwise?

W-L record can have some value in determining how often a pitcher keeps his team in games and pitches well enough for them to get a W, but even that has to be looked at in context.

I don't factor W-L record in at all when evaluating how good of a season a pitcher has had statistically. Unfortunately, as dahs said, there are some voters who will still get a boner over the 20+ wins.

223 IP versus 67 IP is hard to ignore.

Some guys get boners over RP who come in, air it out for 20 pitches then sit for two days. No batter sees him twice in a game. Many don't see him twice in a series. 69 appearances, 254 batters faced. 3.68 batters per appearance.

I prefer Verlander slightly ahead of Porcello for the actual award. Britton's season was tremendous, but it feels like a kicker going 47-47 on FG attempts and winning Offensive Player of the Year in the NFL. No doubt some of those kicks helped win games and carried importance relative to team W/L and success, and no doubt the season is deserving of recognition. Same goes for Britton. The volume just isn't there though, when compared against guys who sustained success 3-4 times through a lineup for 200+ innings.

I think it's an interesting discussion in the NL where Kershaw was so clearly the best pitcher, but didn't have the same volume of IP because of his back injury.

Posted by tecwrg on 10/3/2016 10:37:00 AM (view original):
223 IP versus 67 IP is hard to ignore.

I agree, but a historical relief season vs a very good SP season is comparable. People have this debate every year, but if the intent was to only give it to starters, then state that in the rules. Otherwise RPs deserve equal consideration.

IP would be part of the consideration.

Some guys are acting as though a pitcher getting a lot of run support is something to hold against him. Why is his team scoring a lot of runs when he pitches a bad thing? To me it actually makes that pitcher look better than his stats indicate because it means he was often pitching with a big lead when giving-up a run or two was preferable to him (or someone else) throwing a bunch of extra pitches.

Posted by all3 on 10/3/2016 11:39:00 AM (view original):
Some guys are acting as though a pitcher getting a lot of run support is something to hold against him. Why is his team scoring a lot of runs when he pitches a bad thing? To me it actually makes that pitcher look better than his stats indicate because it means he was often pitching with a big lead when giving-up a run or two was preferable to him (or someone else) throwing a bunch of extra pitches.

It has to do with wins. If someone is going to use that as criteria and say "Porcello got 22 wins...that's awesome!!!", then you have to put that in context. He pitched well, but getting the most runs of any SP in the league clearly helped him in getting to 22.

Britton isn't pitching if the Orioles aren't up. One could say he only got 67 IP because the Orioles were a playoff team.