Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

My guy Mel Ott is leading the MVP award: https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/st ... rds/461467

But he's 5th in OPS: https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/stats/461467

And 5th in Runs Created on the leaders page: https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/st ... ers/461467

Is defense figured into it? Or like real life, does the team's winning matter? Ott's team is 97-62.

Just wondering. Happy to see Mel maybe take the award, 3 games to play.

Of course, none of us know much about how anything is calculated, but I do believe that the teams record is taken into it.

If you look at the all star voting, Ruth, McGwire, Dimaggio, and Bonds all get more "votes" than Ott but 3 of the 4 play for teams with mediocre records while Ruth's team is good but still 8 behind you.

Who really knows. I'm not sure there's a ton of logic behind it.

But, for Cy Young Award, I can tell you that K's is probably the most important stat from my experience. Assume two pitchers with the exact same number of wins, ERA and WHIP the award will always go to the guy with higher K total and it probably won't be close.

Ha...I think with respect to logic it kind of tracks real baseball, as in, there isn't always much.

Given that it was ported from the Windows game and given that the Windows game was coded in the 1990s, I always figured RBIs were the ultimate MVP-determining stat, much like it was for the actual MVPs of that era. But they don't explain this one, so it's a big shrug from me.

Speaking of real baseball and MVPS nothing against Ohtani but anyone who doesn’t think Judge is the mvp is out of their minds

It'll be Judge and it won't be particularly close. What I can't figure out is why Ohtani doesn't seem to be in the Cy Young conversation.

Ohtani should be considered for the Cy Young, he's No. 3 in AL pitcher WAR: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leag ... ders.shtml

Maybe it's innings, he has 153 IP and the Angels have played 155 games right now. He needs one inning per team games played to qualify for the ERA, and if he does this in the games ahead, his present ERA of 2.46 would rank 4th in the AL. A couple of innings here or there, seems likes a minor technical issue that shouldn't keep him out of the conversation. Any other year than a historical Judge HR season, Ohtani would be the AL MVP.

Exactly, he's one of the top pitchers, plus all the value he provides on offense. Seems like a no-brainer.

egvrich wrote:Who really knows. I'm not sure there's a ton of logic behind it.

But, for Cy Young Award, I can tell you that K's is probably the most important stat from my experience. Assume two pitchers with the exact same number of wins, ERA and WHIP the award will always go to the guy with higher K total and it probably won't be close.

Strikeouts definitely matter a lot in the Cy Young vote. I'm in a 100M league at game 141 that offers an instructive list of Cy Young leaders. Here are the Cy Young leaders followed by their vote count: the slash lines including factors that seem to matter in regard to the vote: W-L / Ks / ERA /SVs. Their aren't any relievers in the group, but I includes SVs anyway, because RPs do often appear in the Cy Young listings.

R.Johnson(BLU) 133: 26-11 / 380 / 3.54 / 0
P.Martinez(BLU) 94: 22-13 / 366 / 4.32 / 0
H.Nomo(SAN) 40: 16-11 / 288 / 4.46 / 0
C.Kershaw(REN) 14: 16-8 / 196 / 3.19 /0
C.Short(NAT) 7: 20-11 / 238 /3.38 /0

Randy Johnson is pretty hard to challenge as the Cy Young leader. Great W/L record and 380 Ks (with five starts to go in the season!) plus a fine ERA. Pedro is interesting as a next choice, with a strong W/L and great Ks, but a so-so ERA. League average is 4.52. This suggests that the award vote leans more heavily on Ks & W/L than on ERA. Nomo is perhaps even more instructive. W/L percentage is good, but his total wins are well down in the rankings, and ERA is barely better than league average. But his Ks are 4th best in the league, and that seems to matter a lot. The importance of Ks is the only way to explain Nomo ranking ahead of Kershaw. I'm a little puzzled by why Kershaw outranks Short. Short has more wins and Ks and an ERA that is just a step behind Kershaw's. I can't really explain why he ranks lower.

A significant outlier is Koufax, who is not among the Cy Young candidates. Let's compare him to Nomo. Here are is slash lines: 14-20 / 308 / 3.57 /0. Sandy's ERA and K's (ranked 3) are significantly better than Nomo's, but the negative W/L clearly matters enough to keep him out of the running. Another interesting case is Mike Caldwell (both Nomo & Caldwell are on my team). Compare Caldwell's numbers to Nomo's: 22-11 / 128 / 4.32. Caldwell's W/L (by a lot) and ERA (by a little) are better than Nomo's. It would seem to be Nomo's big lead in Ks that keeps him near the top and keeps Caldwell out of the running. If I had a vote, I'd rank Caldwell ahead of Nomo, on the grounds that W/L matters more than Ks, but it's not up to me.

It seems to me that from a sabermetrical standpoint, the Ks aren't that big a deal. But real life Cy Young voters, and SOM's HAL version, seem to consider Ks as a mark of dominance, and so, as egvrich says, other thinks being equal, the guy with the most Ks is going to win.

BTW, Randy J's numbers are so dominant in this league that he also leads the MVP voting, which is pretty rare in my experience for a pitcher. And he could end up winning 30.