Cy Young vote: More details on average-support wins

As an example, here’s what I did to Johan Santana’s Aug. 2 game at Minute Maid Park. Santana allowed one run in the fourth inning and left with men on first and second and one out in the seventh inning.

Taking the average runs scored in every inning, adjusting them by the 1.034 park factor of Minute Maid and adjusting by 1.05 for the home team and 0.95 for the visiting Mets gives this simulated line score of Santana pitching this game with average run support and average bullpen.

Team 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th Total
NYM .6034 .4235 .52621 .5397 .5131 .5490 .4826 .4888 .4727 4.5990
HOU 0 0 0 1 0 0 .9985* .5336 .5190 3.0556

*Assuming average bullpen support means assuming the average number of runs a team would allow given men on first and second and one out. The average run expectancy this year for a 1st and 2nd, one out situation like the one that Santana departed was .91967 runs, which we then multiply by the park factor and the home field factor to get the .9985 expected runs for the seventh inning.

Since the Mets, with average offense and average bullpen, win this game 4.6-3.1, give Santana a “should have won” for this game. The average pitcher, since the team is on the road, wins this game 45 percent of the time.

Among the seven pitchers I considered as candidates (the top six in ballpark-adjusted ERA and CC Sabathia who did not qualify for the ERA title), here’s how they ranked in terms of average-support wins (ASW1) over the expectation.

Note that Santana’s expected wins is exactly half his start total because he started exactly half of his games at home and half on the road. Ryan Dempster’s expectation is higher than half his start total because he started 20 games at home and 13 on the road.

Pitcher GS ASW1 Expect Diff.
Tim Lincecum 34 28 16.9 +11.1
Johan Santana 34 28 17.0 +11
Ryan Dempster 33 26 16.85 +9.15
Brandon Webb 34 25 16.9 +8.1
Edinson Volquez 32 24 16.0 +8
Cole Hamels 33 24 16.55 +7.45
CC Sabathia 17 14 8.65 +5.35

In English, given average support from his hitters and bullpen, the Giants would have won 11.1 more games with Tim Lincecum pitching than with an average pitcher pitching.

Thus my preliminary ballot, which was certainly subject to change as I further considered this model, was:

1. Tim Lincecum

2. Johan Santana

3. Ryan Dempster

But we have a problem here.

A pitcher who goes nine innings throwing a shutout gets the same one average-support win as a pitcher who leaves after the fifth whose team wins the game by a “tenth of a run.”

So instead of a binary system, where each game is a win or a loss, I assigned to each start a percent chance that the team would win a game that a pitcher left with a certain lead or deficit.

For instance, in that start above, Santana left in the seventh inning. Taking the seventh to its completion, the score was 3.64-2.00. Rounding to a two run lead for the visiting team through seven innings, we can use this win probability generator to find that given average run support (and average bullpen, which will be a minor factor when a pitcher leaves mid-inning and no factor when he leaves after an inning), Santana leaves that game with an 87.0 chance of a Mets win.

Adding up those numbers, as well as 100 percent chances for complete game wins, gives a more accurate picture of the state in which pitchers left their teams when they departed.

The new average-support wins (ASW2) is the expected number of wins a pitcher’s team would have given average hitting and bullpen figured in this manner, rather than just ones and zeroes. The expectation column is the same.

Pitcher GS ASW2 Expect Diff.
Tim Lincecum 34 25.58 16.9 +8.68
Johan Santana 34 25.02 17.0 +8.02
Ryan Dempster 33 23.28 16.85 +6.43
Cole Hamels 33 22.64 16.55 +6.09
Brandon Webb 34 22.28 16.9 +5.38
CC Sabathia 17 13.91 8.65 +5.26
Edinson Volquez 32 20.64 16.0 +4.64

Sabathia does very well in this category because he carried games to completion, leaving little to nothing to chance. But his playing just a half season is too much of an obstacle to get into the conversation.

The top three in this new method are exactly the same.

1. Tim Lincecum

2. Johan Santana

3. Ryan Dempster

Zachary Levine