Idiots Write About Sports

CNNSi’s John Donovan thinks a reliever is going to win the National League Cy Young Award. He’s probably right. But Donovan also thinks it’s a crying shame that Russ Ortiz won’t win the award.

There, Donovan is laughably wrong.

Russ Ortiz is going to lead the National League in wins — not by a little, either. The Braves starter is likely to be the only pitcher in the NL to win 20 games. And that seems to be the cornerstone of Donovan’s argument in favor of Ortiz. He writes:

Some might argue that Ortiz is not even the best starter in the NL. Again, the ERA thing comes back to bite him. The Chicago Cubs’ Mark Prior (15-5) has a 2.41 ERA, almost a run and a half lower than Ortiz. Los Angeles’ Hideo Nomo, who also has 15 wins, has a 2.88 ERA. Montreal’s Livan Hernandez (15-8) has a 2.94 ERA. But, facts being facts, Ortiz has more wins than any of those guys — they’re all tied for second in wins behind him — and a better winning percentage than any of them. He’s going to be the league’s only 20-game winner.

That ought to count for something.

Well, it probably will — when it’s time for Ortiz to negotiate his next contract. In terms of Cy Young consideration, Ortiz’s win total is largely immaterial. Because his 19 wins — or whatever total he ultimately winds up with — is more a reflection of the team he plays for than the season he’s had.

Ortiz pitches for a team that leads the National League in nearly every relevant offensive category. Thus far in the season, the Braves have scored 819 runs — 26 more than the next highest team. Atlanta has a team OPS of .827, a team average of .288 and 217 home runs — all tops in the National League.

More relevant to Ortiz, every time he steps on the mound, Atlanta provides him with an average of 6.63 runs. That’s the fourth-best run support in the league, behind only teammate Shane Reynolds (11-9), and Cardinals Woody Williams (15-8) and Brett Tomko (12-8).

Woody Williams’ 15 wins are tied for second-most in the NL? Woody Williams for Cy Young! His 15 wins should count for something, too!

As Donovan notes, Ortiz sports a fairly fat ERA of 3.82 — nothing to hang your head about, but nowhere near what the Jason Schmidts, Kevin Browns and Mark Priors of the world have to offer. So one could assume that if you take Russ Ortiz off the best offensive team in the NL and make him pitch for a less productive squad, his won-loss record would be a lot less impressive.

In fact, one doesn’t have to assume this at all. Russ Ortiz is a lazy statistician’s dream. His numbers from 1999 through last year are a model of constancy. Each of those seasons, he pitched in 33 games; he’s pitched 31 so far with the Braves in 2003, with three, maybe four, starts left to make this year. In each of those seasons — the 2003 numbers included — Ortiz’s performance doesn’t vary much. Oh, he’s walked fewer batters here and given more runs there, but everything’s close enough for government work.

2002 season: 33 games, 3.61 ERA, 214.1 IP, 191 H, 94 BB, 137 K
2003 season: 31 games, 3.82 ERA, 195.1 IP, 165 H, 94 BB, 133 K

Fairly identical numbers, right? So how come Ortiz won only 14 games in 2002 as opposed to the 20-or-so he’s going to win this year?

Because the 2002 Giants, while no slouches at the plate, didn’t put up anything close to the numbers recorded by Atlanta this year. The Giants scored 783 runs and hit 198 homers with a .786 OPS — not bad, but not Braves-esque. Ortiz’s 2002 run support was 5.37 — more than a run less from this year’s total.

Suddenly, those 19 wins don’t seem so mysterious.

Put another way, Ortiz has been more lucky than good. The folks at Baseball Prospectus, who are much better at this math thing than me, have a stat called Support-Neutral Won/Loss, which measures what you would expect a pitcher to win or lose with league-average support from the offensive and the bullpen. As of this writing, Ortiz isn’t even among the top 30 major-league pitchers in terms of Support-Neutral W/L record. He is, however, ranked as the luckiest starter in the Major Leagues, with Baseball Prospectus calculating a more Ortiz-like record of 12-10, without the help of the Braves’ bats.

I don’t know who’s going to win the NL Cy Young Award. I think it should be either Mark Prior or Eric Gagne, though I’d be willing to entertain arguments about Brown, Schmidt, John Smoltz, even Livan Hernandez. But if, as John Donovan argues, Russ Ortiz’s win total deserves some consideration, then I’m willing to promote a compromise candidate.

Gary Sheffield for Cy Young!

Um, yup. I'm a huge Braves fan, but you nailed that one.