Opponent OPS and the Cy Young Award

In recent years, the Cy Young voters have clearly considered advanced metrics in making their decisions. Look no further than 2010, when Felix Hernandez won the award in the AL despite a pedestrian 13-12 won-loss record. However, voters still seem to put weight on factors outside of the pitcher’s control, such as the overall success of his team.

One of my favorite pitching statistics is Opponent OPS. It considers both how often batters reach base and how well they hit for power—everything that made OPS into a popular statistic for hitters but from the pitcher’s perspective. So, based on that metric, how well did the Cy Young voters do this year?

In the National League, Clayton Kershaw dominated the voting. He received 29 of 30 possible first-place votes. And based on Opponent OPS, the voters got it right. Kershaw led all qualified starters in baseball with a .521 Opponent OPS. Jose Fernandez, in third place, was just behind Kershaw with a .522 OPS, but he threw for 63.1 fewer innings. Surprisingly, Adam Wainwright, who received the only other first-place vote, significantly trailed his major competition with a .636 Opponent OPS. Craig Kimbrel, who finished fourth, had the best Opponent OPS among NL closers, but he finished more than 100 points worse than in his dominant 2012 season.

In the AL, Max Scherzer won the Cy Young almost as handily as Kershaw did in the NL. Based on Opponent OPS, it could have been even more so. Scherzer outpaced the second-best starter Yu Darvish by 28 OPS points. No reliever finished in the top-five in the AL voting. However, Koji Uehara led all relievers with at least 100 batters faced with a .400 Opponent OPS, an incredible 64 points better than his closest AL competitor, Joe Nathan.