Kings of the Road

In yesterday's article, I identified the leading candidates for the Cy Young Awards and listed their qualifications with a focus on who *should* win rather than who *will* win.

The race for the American League CYA is wide open with at least five legitimate candidates while the National League has two pitchers who are equally worthy and a couple more who have an outside shot as the season approaches the Labor Day weekend.

What's interesting to me in the NL is that the two principal hopefuls pitch in ballparks that are distinctively different. Arizona's Brandon Webb pitches his home games in a hitter's park whereas San Diego's Jake Peavy performs home games in one of the most pitcher friendly environments in recent baseball history. Advantage Peavy, right?

Well, let's take a closer look at Webb's and Peavy's home and road splits:

Brandon Webb

          G   W-L    IP    H    R   ER  HR   BB   SO   ERA   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPSHome     12   6-4   82.2  81   33   27   4   32   76  2.97  .258  .327  .369  .696Away     15   8-4  109.0  83   35   29   5   26   90  2.39  .206  .258  .286  .544Totals   27  14-8  191.7 164   68   56   9   58  166  2.63  .229  .288  .323  .611

Not surprisingly, Webb has bettered his home stats while pitching away from Chase Field. He has started three more games and thrown 26.1 additional innings on the road. I'm not sure if that is by design or sheer luck but Webb's adjusted stats may slightly overstate his pitching prowess this year if the formula assumes an equal number of starts at home and on the road.

Jake Peavy

          G   W-L    IP    H    R   ER  HR   BB   SO   ERA   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPSHome     16   7-5  104.0  91   34   33   5   30  112  2.86  .236  .298  .329  .627Away     11   8-0   73.2  42   13   10   2   24   85  1.22  .163  .235  .225  .460Totals   27  15-5  177.2 133   47   43   7   54  197  2.18  .207  .273  .287  .558 

Based on Peavy's away numbers, I think it is safe to say that his success is not a product of Petco Park. Sure, he is pitching well at home. But check out those road stats. Peavy is 8-0 with a 1.22 ERA outside of Petco. With an AVG/OBP/SLG against line of .163/.235/.225, he's making hitters long to be Nick Punto (.199/.290/.258), who has the lowest OPS of any regular player in baseball.

During Bob Gibson's CYA and MVP season in 1968 when he fashioned a 1.12 ERA during the Year of the Pitcher, opponents "hit" .184/.233/.236 against him. Gibson's OPS was .469 that year. Peavy's OPS on the road in 2007 has been .460. That's right, Peavy's road numbers are comparable to what Gibby put up in what some believe to be the best season ever by a pitcher. In fairness to the Hall of Famer, he tossed over 300 innings so his sample size is more than four times Peavy's. But the purpose of this exercise is to make sure voters don't discount Peavy's performance this year based on the fact that he pitches his home games at Yellowstone Petco Park.

Just as Webb's adjusted numbers may overstate his case, Peavy's adjusted totals may actually understate his success. Either way, the native of Mobile, Alabama is having a truly remarkable year. Excluding teammate Chris Young's current season, Roger Clemens (1.87 in 2005) is the only pitcher in the NL over the past ten years to forge a lower ERA than Peavy's current mark of 2.18.

NATIONAL LEAGUE
SINGLE SEASON ERA LEADERS
1998-2006

                              YEAR     ERA     1   Roger Clemens            2005     1.87    2   Greg Maddux              1998     2.22    3   Jake Peavy               2004     2.27    4   Randy Johnson            2002     2.32    5   Jason Schmidt            2003     2.34    6   Kevin Brown              1998     2.38    7   Andy Pettitte            2005     2.39    8   Kevin Brown              2003     2.39    9   Mark Prior               2003     2.43   10   Al Leiter                1998     2.47   

As shown, Peavy had a similar ERA in 2004 and his peripheral stats (save for HR) are comparable. However, Peavy is on pace to throw about 54 more innings this season.

          IP      ERA   ERA+   K/9   BB/9   HR/92002     97.2    4.52    85   8.29   3.04   1.012003    194.2    4.11    96   7.21   3.79   1.532004    166.1    2.27   177   9.36   2.87   0.702005    203.0    2.88   134   9.58   2.22   0.802006    202.1    4.09   103   9.56   2.76   1.022007    177.2    2.18   189   9.97   2.74   0.35

Source: FanGraphs

I'm not surprised in the least by Peavy's success. He pitched much better than most people realized in the first half last season when he was ridiculed for posting a 4-8 record with a 4.46 ERA. Peavy proceeded to go 7-6 with a 3.68 ERA in the second half even though his peripheral stats were roughly the same pre- and post- All-Star break.

Peavy beat Arizona 3-1 last night, enabling the Padres to pull within two games of the Diamondbacks for first place in the NL West. Jake allowed one run, three hits, and three walks in seven innings. He struck out 11 for the third consecutive start (including seven in a row at one point) and reached double digits for the eighth time this year, running his NL lead to 197.

Webb is scheduled to start tonight and could match Peavy's win total of 15 with a victory. He will be gunning for his seventh straight in the hopes of putting some distance between the D-Backs and the Padres.

As for the Cy Young Award, a strong case can be made for Peavy and an equally strong case can be made on behalf of Webb. It's so close, I would be comfortable giving the award to Brandon Peavy. Or maybe Jake Webb.

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[Source: Baseball Analysts]