The Cy-pothetical Young Award: 1912-1945

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by timn1

I dunno guys, I guess I'm just contrary, and I agree that Johnson was the greatest pitcher of all time, but . . . I don't see the whole "if he hadn't been on such wretched teams" argument.

I figure the Senators' W/L record while he was on the team (August 2, 1907 through 1927) at 1531-1559 - that's .49546.

This is a little misleading though. To truly measure how good they were, we need to know how they performed when he wasn't pitching. He was so good that logic says they won games with him they wouldn't have otherwise. For example, in 1914, the Senators were 24-15 when he started and 30-18 when he pitched at all. They finished 81-73. So they were under .500 when he didn't start and multiple games under .500 when he pitched at all.

I'm not seeing a fast way on BBRef to get the team's record in games he pitched without looking at each individual season. However, even if we look at just his pitching decisions, he was 417-279, for a winning percentage of .599. If we take those decisions off the top of the totals you listed, the team is now 1114-1280 for a winning percentage of .465. That's 71 wins a year in a 154-game schedule. 71-83 is pretty terrible, especially over a 20+ year span.

[timn1]

Hi Chris,
I see what you mean - the Senators were obviously a good bit worse when WJ wasn't pitching than when he was. But that would be true with any great pitcher. He will outpitch the rest of the team by a wide margin, which is what makes him a great pitcher. I figure Cy Young's teams as being under .500 (1071-1111, .491) in games he didn't win or lose. Same with GCA (1097-1106, .498). With all three of these pitchers, it appears that they lifted their team's overall WPCT by about 25-35 points. Also, check my previous post where I look at the difference in WPCT between the pitcher and the team. That might be of interest.

To clarify, Washington was somewhat worse than a typical club that has an all-time great pitcher on it. No argument there. But not exponentially worse. The question is how many more hypothetical wins we can imagine the pitcher having with a better club. In my other post I proposed about one extra win a year for Johnson. I'll stick with that for now.

Originally Posted by Tabe

This is a little misleading though. To truly measure how good they were, we need to know how they performed when he wasn't pitching. He was so good that logic says they won games with him they wouldn't have otherwise. For example, in 1914, the Senators were 24-15 when he started and 30-18 when he pitched at all. They finished 81-73. So they were under .500 when he didn't start and multiple games under .500 when he pitched at all.

I'm not seeing a fast way on BBRef to get the team's record in games he pitched without looking at each individual season. However, even if we look at just his pitching decisions, he was 417-279, for a winning percentage of .599. If we take those decisions off the top of the totals you listed, the team is now 1114-1280 for a winning percentage of .465. That's 71 wins a year in a 154-game schedule. 71-83 is pretty terrible, especially over a 20+ year span.