ERA+ Estimator

Tom Tango's been doing some brilliant stuff lately.  That links to an article at The Hardball Times, at which there is a discussion of (and hyperlink to) an article from THT last week about ERA estimators.  Anyway, as it turns out, the best way to estimate ERA is (K-BB)/BF.  That's it.  Strikeouts, minus walks.  Then divide by batters faced.

This is very, very interesting stuff, indeed.  Because I have an idea for how I may look at Cy Young voting differently in light of this fact.  Essentially, it makes sense to me to take a players (K-BB)/BF, and divide it over the league rate.  That is, it becomes (K-BB)/BF+, for all intents and purposes, or Est+ (as in "estimated+").  Here's last year's AL:

15655 SO
6949 BB
86425 BF
For a quotient of:  .1007

And, in that order, here are some of the leading candidates for last year's AL CY:

Verlander - 250/57/969
Sabathia - 230/61/985
Weaver - 198/56/926
Haren - 192/33/953
Wilson - 206/74/915
Hernandez - 222/67/964

Overall, here are their personal quotient, over the league quotient (of .1007, if you recall), times 100:

Verlander - 198
Sabathia - 170
Weaver - 152
Haren - 165
Wilson - 143
Hernandez - 159

Now, if you wanted to multiply these times IP to get a playing time factor, that would be fine by me.  But just know that this might be a way to look at things in the future.  Or another way to look at it would be to look at the raw total difference between the pitcher at hand and an average pitcher.  In other words, the league rate of (SO-BB)/BF, multiplied by the individual at hand's BF, and then subtracted from the individuals SO-BB.  In mathematical terms, it would look something like this ("pl" for "player," "lg" for "league):

plSO-plBB-(plBF(lgSO-lgBB)/lgBF)

For the aforementioned pitchers, that would yield these results (numbers truncated, rather than rounded; rate*IP in parentheses):

Verlander -95 (496)
Sabathia -69 (404)
Weaver -48 (358)
Haren -62 (394)
Wilson -39 (319)
Hernandez -57 (373)

Clear-cut in favor of Verlander, right?

So why do I bring this up?  I bring it up because of the Cy Young race in the NL right now.  As it stands, here are the numbers for some of the best candidates:

Dickey - 151/52/331
Gonzalez - 134/32/260
Cueto - 112/13/237
Kimbrel - 358/67/215
Chapman - 305/65/211
Kershaw - 151/52/321

No, those numbers for Cueto and Kimbrel are not misprints.  They're seriously that much better than the league... albeit in limited numbers.  However, as you can see, the difference in total numbers is not that great, as they rank ahead of all but one guy, who's out on the periphery...

Cliff Lee - 174/71/346

Seriously.  The guy with the 6-8 record is blowing people away.  He's actually having a great year; his team's just not winning.  The Phillies' offense is terrible, and it's getting taken out on Cliff Lee, even though he's probably been the best starting pitcher in the NL this season.

Now, I don't ever think a number like this would ever go "mainstream," but it's interesting to think that, if it did, Cliff Lee might have a shot at the NL Cy Young.  But as it stands right now, I can't imagine he's on too many people's radar screens.

Anyway, here's the AL as it stands right now, just in case you're curious:

Sabathia - 155/49/285
Hernandez - 153/54/338
Verlander - 162/66/374
Scherzer - 191/81/352
Price - 154/50/315
Weaver - 117/13/211
Darvish - 139/35/256
Sale - 158/50/298
Shields - 145/46/308
Rodney - 180/24/126
Nathan - 232/37/142

Now, obviously, the season isn't over yet, so we could see some movement on both of these leaderboards.  But as it stands right now, I believe my vote for AL Cy Young, strictly on the basis of these stats, would go the way of Justin Verlander.  He's pitched more innings than Scherzer, who's pitched better.  They'd be 1-2, with King Felix in third, since I view the third of these columns as most significant.  In the NL, I desperately want RA Dickey to win the Cy Young.  I've loved the guy since he was with the Twins and I was living in Minnesota.  But I can't shake the nagging suspicion that Cliff Lee is actually the NL's best pitcher.  So I suppose it'll be like last year's NL MVP, in which I voted for Matt Kemp, because he was the best player... but I wanted Ryan Braun to win, because he's my favorite player.  Likewise, I'll be rooting for RA Dickey, but when the time comes for the IBAs (Internet Baseball Awards - you should vote if you never have before!), as things stand right now, I'm voting for Cliff Lee.