Red Sox: Chris Sale deserved the 2017 AL Cy Young

Park factors

To put it simply, it’s hard to pitch at Fenway Park if you are a lefty starter. Looking at the park’s dimensions, you may point to the vast right field and the depth to dead center as reasons why it may favor the pitcher.

But one glance at left field where the hulking Green Monster stands, and all of a sudden it’s a right-handed hitter’s paradise. A 350-foot pulled fly ball that results in an out in almost every other stadium clanks off the wall for an easy double. It’s no wonder that Fenway Park ranked fourth in 2017 among MLB stadiums in park factors for doubles (1.156 where 1.000 is neutral), via ESPN.

Overall in 2017, right-handed hitters had an advantageous runs factor of 102 (where 100 is neutral) at Fenway Park, ranking 12^th in MLB. Move over to Progressive Field, where Kluber calls home, and that plummets to 93, ranking 28^th in MLB, according to Baseball Prospectus.

As a left-handed starter, it’s typical for opponents to stack their lineup to be righty-heavy. Thus, Sale was met with 719 plate appearances from right-handed hitters and just 132 from left-handed hitters. That overwhelming split difference is nowhere near the one that Kluber had to face, matching up against same-sided righties 410 times and lefties 367 times.

To summarize, Sale was dealt a disadvantageous hand, facing more competition of the unfavorable sidedness and pitching at a home stadium that favors such a matchup.

Competition factors

While we’re on the topic of being dealt an unfavorable hand, how about the difference between pitching in the AL East versus the AL Central? After all, teams play within their division for 64 games out of the total 162, so this is a sizable portion of the total competition.

In fact, 18 of Sale’s 32 starts came against AL East opponents and 13 of Kluber’s 29 came against the AL Central.

Outside of the first-place Red Sox, the AL East posted a winning percentage of .496. Meanwhile, take away the first-place Indians and the AL Central won at a .457 rate.

Ranked by OPS, the Red Sox had the Yankees (3^rd), Orioles (19^th), Rays (20^th) and Blue Jays (25^th). Meanwhile, the Indians got the Twins (9^th), Tigers (18^th), Royals (23^th) and White Sox (24^th).

It should also be noted that Sale had to face the hard-hitting Yankees five times throughout the season, while Kluber matched up with the Twins just once. 10 of Kluber’s 29 starts, over a third, were against the Tigers and the White Sox. The two worst teams in the American League.

Recency effect

The biggest knock on Sale’s 2017 resume is his fade down the stretch. It’s true – he posted a 4.38 ERA in six starts in August followed by a 3.72 ERA in five starts in September. Kluber, on the other hand, was dominant, pitching to a 1.96 ERA through six starts in August and then a microscopic 0.84 ERA in six starts in September.

However, there are two things to be noted here. First, the Cy Young Award is not a second-half award. Sale’s first half utter domination cannot be overlooked due to a relatively poor second half. If it was, we should probably be handing off the honors to Justin Verlander, who compiled a 1.95 ERA and 0.819 WHIP in the second half.

Second, Sale was subjected to far more pressure in those late-season starts than Kluber. The Red Sox, who won the AL East by a two-game margin, were in the thick of a division race all season. The Yankees were seldom farther than five games apart at any given point in the year, which put the constant spotlight on Sale as the ace of the staff to deliver down the stretch. Playoff implications were legitimately in the balance.

The Indians, meanwhile, won the AL Central by 17 games. After rattling off 22 straight victories, at no point during August or September did it look like the second-place Twins had any chance of contending for the divisional crown. Kluber was able to cruise to the finish with the division all but clinched.

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There is something to be said for the argument that it is more difficult to perform with the pressure on, especially for pitchers. Pitching coaches keep careful track of “high-stress pitches”, which take a greater toll on the arm due to the increased effort in each pitch.

Additionally, the Red Sox adjusted the rotation so that Sale would pitch in as many “big games” as possible. Thus, we see Sale matching up against the Yankees three times and the Indians twice in the final two months with a division on the line, taking the burden of the go-to guy in big situations.

No, this doesn’t entirely excuse his drop-off in performance down the stretch. But an ERA in the upper 3’s against the league’s top offenses is hardly a disaster.

The recency effect was in full effect here. From Dictionary.com, it is defined as:

“The phenomenon that when people are asked to recall in any order the items on a list, those that come at the end of the list are more likely to be recalled than the others.”

Thus, when voters are asked to cast a ballot for the AL Cy Young, they are more likely to recall the end of the season than the beginning or middle, because it’s fresher in their minds. This gives more value to a start in August than a start in June, which in the case of a Cy Young award race, is unfair.

“Big game” pitcher

The Indians finished the 2017 season ranked second in the majors in terms of OPS (.788), while the Red Sox finished just 22^nd (.736).

Why does this matter? Well, it’s a whole lot easier to pitch when you’re staked with a four-run lead.

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Sale faced a total of 930 batters when the game was either tied or within one run and held them to a .539 OPS. Kluber, on the other hand, only faced 704 batters in such a situation and held them to a .581 OPS.

Sale threw to 135 hitters in situations described as high leverage and held them to a .581 OPS; Kluber only threw to 86 and held them to a .666 OPS.

There’s more to what makes up a “big game” pitcher than what they do in the last two months of the season. The notion that a late-season game is more important than an early-season one is flawed; if an early-season loss was turned into a win, that late-season pressure gets alleviated.

A true “big game” pitcher shows up when the individual situation calls for it. A close game in April and a close game in September are both close games and both equally important to the ending win-loss record.

The argument that Kluber was more “clutch” because of his otherworldly final surge is presumptuous, especially given the differing playoff pictures as mentioned earlier.

Raw numbers

Context is essential when looking at numbers. No metric is perfect; there are simply too many variables in a single game let alone an entire season. Now that the context has been made a little clearer, let’s look at the overall numbers – at least the numbers that I consider my go-to when evaluating pitchers.

Slice it up any way you want – these two pitchers are nasty. Like, historically nasty. But relative to each other, based on the numbers alone, I don’t see a totally convincing argument for either pitcher.

One underrated argument is that Sale took the mound three more times during the regular season than Kluber – 32 starts to 29. That’s three more games that Sale competed for his team, three more games that he impacted. It sounds trivial, but that difference is over 10% of Kluber’s impact on games.

So where did the 28 to 2 first-place vote spread come from? This is something I’m still trying to figure out.

Chris Sale and Corey Kluber were both undeniably elite pitchers in 2017 – far and away the top two in the American League field. And on the stat sheet, they essentially went toe-to-toe when looking at 2017 as a whole.

What truly differentiates these two are the different hands each pitcher was dealt. Sale pitched in a tougher park, in a tougher division, in a highly competitive division race, in a schedule designed for him to face the league’s toughest lineups.

Not to mention that he simply pitched in more games and oh, was the first American League pitcher to record 300 strikeouts since some guy named Pedro Martinez in 1999.

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Chris Sale was the best pitcher in the American League in 2017. Kluber may have taken home the official hardware, but I give Sale the title.