Today's announcement is the winner of the Cy Young Award in the American League. Here are the tips:
> This is a pitching award named for, you guessed it, Cy Young. He pitched from 1890 - 1911 and won 511 games in his lifetime. FYI -- by comparison, a pitcher in this era who gets 300 wins in their career is considered a surefire Hall of Famer.
> This year's Cy Young winner in the American League is Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals. His won-loss record was 16-8. It's not the most outstanding record. In fact, the pitcher who came in 2nd won 3 more games than Greinke.
> So why did Greinke win? Likely because he had a better ERA. ERA = earned run average for each 9 innings pitched. Greinke's ERA was 2.16. The runner up's was 2.49. In other words, Greinke allowed fewer runs per game.
> FYI - if a runner scores because of an error, that's not included in a pitcher's ERA.
Enjoy today's hot tips!
3 comments:
Can you please explain the reason Cy Young pitched in over 500 games vs todays' Hall of Famers at 300? More games per season, fewer relief pitchers or was his career unusually long?
I don't quite get the math of the ERA. Are they dividing # hits by # games or innings? Baseball is my weak link.
Thanks for your insight.
SQ
SQ,
Here's my two cents on Cy = "Cyclone" Young:
+ He had an incredibly long career - more than 20 seasons.
+ There were probably far fewer pitchers available over all.
+ He had an incredibly strong arm, thus the "Cyclone" nickname.
+ FYI - he lost more than 300 games too! Amazing!
In terms of ERA = Earned Run Average:
+ it's about runs and innings and involves a little bit of math. Here's how Merriam-Webster defines it:
" the average number of earned runs per game scored against a pitcher in baseball determined by dividing the total of earned runs scored against him by the total number of innings pitched and multiplying by nine."
Everyone finished what they started back then. The roster size was around 15 player so pitchers were expected to go the distance. Many would pitch both ends of a doubleheader.
Post a Comment