Tangotiger Blog

Burnes vs Ragans

Both were great, but Ragans a bit better. Not that it matters for Cy as the votes have to be in before postseason starts. Love me some 1-0 pitcher duels though.

And Burnes even started the 9th inning! By today’s standards that’s a Jack Morris display of durability.

Final results, NL:

1. Sale
2. Wheeler
3. Skenes
4. Cease
5. Imanaga
6. Webb
7. King

In order to get Cease ahead of Imanaga, you need the Classic Predictor to be weighted at 65% or less.

To get Cease ahead of King, you need Classic at 30% or lower.

To get Cease ahead of Webb, you need Classic at 25% or higher.

To get Cease ahead of Reynaldo López, you need Classic at 45% or lower.

In order to get Imanaga ahead of King: you need the Classic at 100%.  So, we can see here that the Predictor failed to separate King from Imanaga.  And you can see why: very similar IP, very similar ERA, but King much better FIP and a bit more on the strikeouts.  Where Imanaga was shining was on walks, which is only considered as part of FIP (and King won that anyway).

To get Imanaga ahead of Webb: Classic Predictor at 55% or higher.

If we treat King as an anomaly, then setting Classic Predictor at 50% gives us this:
1 Chris Sale
2 Zack Wheeler
3 Paul Skenes
4 Michael King
5 Dylan Cease
6 Reynaldo López
7 Logan Webb
8 Shota Imanaga

As you can see, it’s really not that logical after the top 3 (which we’d get regardless of weighting).

Final results AL:
1. Skubal
2. Lugo
3. Clase
4. Ragans
5. Burnes
6. Gilbert
7. Valdez

This is what I had said:

Going 1/4 Classic, 3/4 New:

1 Skubal
2 Lugo
3 Ragans
4 Burnes
5 Gilbert
6 Valdez

And in all that will be Clase, who will finish somewhere between third and seventh.

So, that’s a perfect ranking if we squeeze Clase at third, and the AL shows a strong paradigm shift of 25% Classic and 75% FIP-enhanced

***

Other than Imanaga’s strong showing, the NL was *also* at 25% Classic and 75% FIP-enhanced

Out of the top 7 in each league (13 starting pitchers in all), the Weighted Predictor nailed 12 of them, in order, with Imanaga the big miss

The Weighted Predictor is 25% Classic and 75% FIP-enhanced.  The paradigm shift is on its way

I looked at the Cy Young voting in the NL, ballot by ballot.

As I stated earlier:

If you see a ballot that looks something like this:

Sale, Wheeler, Skenes, Webb, Imanaga

or

Sale, Wheeler, Skenes, Imanaga, Webb

Then you will see this makes no sense, as the voter has basically decided to not decide on their view.  They’ve basically taken the position that they have no position and are still trying to balance everything out.  A vote for Webb is a vote for Cease.  And a vote for Imanaga is a vote for King.  To choose one from each group is the reason we are still in this paradigm shift.

And we had ALOT of those ballots!

We had 16 ballots that chose one of Imanaga/King (Classic vote) and one of Cease/Webb (FIP vote).  They SHOULD have chosen two from the same group, but they didn’t.  They went one from each, because the voter themselves are still conflicted as to what to do.

Four of them went Classic (choosing both Imanaga/King, and either putting Cease/Webb 5th or not at all).

Eight went FIP.

Two had fairly odd ballots.

So, leaning toward FIP, but very conflicted with Imanaga especially, deciding that his story needed to be on that ballot.

This is why forecasting the voting is tough.  Even with that oddball, the overall voting was captured pretty well by the unified predictor.

In the AL, Ragans/Burnes would tell the story.

12 had Ragans ahead of Burnes (FIP vote)
16 had Burnes ahead of Ragans (Classic vote)

21 had Ragans ahead of Valdez (FIP vote)
7 had Valdez ahead of Ragans (Classic vote)

So, again here, the voters were inconsistent, selecting one from each, though selecting Ragans+Burnes was defensible

We’re still in a paradigm shift, leaning toward FIP vote.  I’d look for the 3/4 FIP 1/4 Classic as the unified predictor for 2025

As for relief pitchers: the standard has been set that the best a relief pitcher will ever do is finish 3rd