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