Unrewarded Quality Starts

I'm guessing there are a few Cy Young voters out there who know Felix had the best year of an A.L. pitcher this year, who intellectually know that wins measure things other than a pitcher's performance, and yet still want a measure that looks like a real ballgame.

We can thank a bored Philadelphia sports writer on December 26th, 1985 for inventing such a stat: the quality start.  For a refresher, that's 6 or more innings, with three or fewer earned runs.  The kind of game that a pitcher deserves to win, generally, if his teammates hold up their end of the bargain.

Well, let's go one step further, and I'll invent a new statistic here (I passed Research Design III in my doc program, so I'm good to go here).  We'll call it "Unrewarded Quality Starts".  Quality Starts minus Wins. This one is so simple, I'd get laughed out of a Baseball Prospectus chat just for uttering it.  Which may be why it makes sense.

Pitcher	Team	Quality Starts	Wins	Unrewarded QS
Hernandez	SEA	29	13	16
Weaver	LAA	26	13	13
Sabathia	NYY	25	21	4
Price	TAM	24	19	5
Verlander	DET	22	18	4
Lester	BOS	20	19	1
Buchholz	BOS	19	17	2
Lee	TEX	17	12	5

Data Source: ESPN.com

Gosh, there's not a lot more to say here, other than this is yet another metric on which we see that Jared Weaver is underrated.  Oh yeah, and Felix.

So, if you were thinking of voting for Felix, but wanted a way to justify it that bears some resemblance to actual baseball (sorry BABIP, DIPS, xFIP, and WAR, I love you, but you're too complicated)...you can justify your vote with Unrewarded Quality Starts.

And if you want to see what an Unrewarded Quality Start looks like as a real game, go to Felix's game log.

If you're dying to do something a little Sabermetric while you're there, check out his "Game Scores" (GSc).  This is a number between 1 and 100 that represents how well a pitcher pitched in a given game.  It can be thought of as the percent chance he gave his team to win. Felix had 13 starts with a game score above 50% in which he "earned" a loss or no-decision.  For contrast, Sabathia had 3.  Reverse these, and Felix has 23 wins right now, and we're debating whether or not his Cy Young victory will be unanimous.

Cy Young Contenders, Wins / Loss Records, and Run Support - Explained

When you see the win-loss records of the leading 2010 American League Cy Young Award contenders, Felix Hernandez's record says mediocre, while C.C. Sabathia, Jon Lester, and David Price's record says winner.  That bothers some people.  It's understandable.  But it's deceptive.

The only difference is run support, and I'll show you why.  None of these pitchers knows more than the others how to win, how to pitch to the score, or how to elevate their team in the clutch.  Three of them get lots of run support almost every game, while one gets little or none on a regular basis.

Not convinced?  OK, which of these four pitchers is more effective of turning his offensive support into wins?

       2010 AL Cy Young Contenders Winning Percentage by Run Support

Run Support	Pitcher A	Pitcher B	Pitcher C	Pitcher D
0-1	.000	.000	.000	.000
2-5	.750	.667	.714	.692
6+	1.000	1.000	1.000	1.000

“Run Support” Definition: Total runs scored in games started by the pitcher

(as opposed to runs scored only when the starter was the “pitcher of record”)

Pitcher A has a slight edge, but of course there's really no significant difference between these four pitchers.  When they get little or no run support, they can't win.  When they get moderate run support, they win two-thirds to three-quarters of their decisions, and when they get strong run support, they win all of their decisions. These are all excellent pitchers, and they perform similarly with similar run support.

But run support varies by team, of course.  Now let's look at the run support by given to each of four leading Cy Young contenders, and the relationship to their win-loss record.

               2010 AL Cy Young Contenders Record by Run Support

Run Support	Hernandez	Lester	Price	Sabathia
0-1	0-9 (1 ND)	0-4	0-4 (2  ND)	0-3 (1 ND)
2-5	9-3 (7 ND)	8-4 (2 ND)	5-2 (3  ND)	9-4 (1 ND)
6+	3-0	11-0 (2 ND)	13-0 (1 ND)	11-0 (4 ND)

Now we see a very different story.  Hernandez has 10 starts in which the Mariners scored zero or one runs, more than Lester and Sabathia combined.  Amazingly, the Mariners scored six runs or more in Hernandez's starts just three times, while Lester, Price, and Sabathia benefited from such support an average of 14 times between them.

So there you have it.  How could Felix Hernandez look so much better than Lester, Price, and Sabbathia in innings, strikeouts, ERA, WHIP, xFIP, and WAR, yet look so much worse in wins and losses?  It's all about the guys swinging the bats for them.

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Here's the full breakdown at every level of run support:

         2010 AL Cy Young Contenders Record by Run Support (Detail)

Run Support	Hernandez	Lester	Price	Sabathia
0	0-4			0-2 (1 ND)
1	0-5  (1 ND)	0-4	0-4 (2 ND)	0-1
2	2-1  (2 ND)	3-3	1-1 (1 ND)	1-2
3	2-1	2-0		0-1
4	5-1  (2 ND)	0-0 (2 ND)	3-0 (1 ND)	5-1
5	0-0 (3 ND)	3-1	1-1 (1 ND)	3-0 (1 ND)
6	1-0	3-0 (1 ND)	5-0 (1 ND)	3-0 (1 ND)
7	1-0	1-0 (1 ND)	1-0	0-0 (1 ND)
8		2-0		3-0
9		3-0	2-0
10			4-0	3-0
11	1-0			1-0 (1 ND)
12		1-0		1-0
13
14		1-0	1-0	0-0 (1 ND)
15

Through games played on September 25, 2010