Close call: Data shows tight AL Cy outcome makes sense

Rick Porcello won the American League Cy Young Award on Wednesday night, and the reaction was, to put it mildly, mixed. Tigers fans were mad, feeling Justin Verlander got robbed because he’d collected 14 first-place votes to Porcello’s eight. Kate Upton, Verlander’s fiancee, was really mad, particularly at the two Tampa Bay-area writers (one of whom was Bill Chastain of MLB.com) who omitted Verlander entirely. And as MLB.com’s Richard Justice ably explained, there was a strong case to make that the voters simply got this one wrong.

Perhaps they did. But while the feeling of this writer is that Verlander probably had the strongest case, was it really a travesty? Not really. Let’s run down a few reasons why this race was always going to be a close one.

Based on advanced stats, Verlander was the likely favorite, but hardly a slam dunk.

You know Wins Above Replacement, right? It’s not the end-all be-all, but it is one of the best tools we have at the moment for capturing total value. FanGraphs’ version is based on what pitchers can control (strikeouts, walks, home runs), and while that omits quality of batted-ball contact, it does get away from uncontrollable things like defense and bullpens. Let’s check out what it said about American League starters.

5.2 WAR (tie: Verlander/Porcello/Chris Sale) 5.1 WAR (Corey Kluber)

Since WAR is an estimate, never really worry too much about tenths of a point, and read this for what it is: a four-way tie, suggesting that if anyone was “robbed,” it was probably Sale. How did it get that way? Verlander and Porcello were basically equal in innings pitched (227, 223). Verlander had a huge edge in strikeouts (254; 28.1 percent) over Porcello (189; 21.2 percent), but Porcello walked fewer (3.6 percent to 6.3 percent) and allowed …

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