Tonight the
Detroit Tigers Max Scherzer is attempting to become the first member of the
20 win club in 2013.
2011 Topps Opening Day #16 Max Scherzer
The Tigers Max Scherzer has put together an amazing season. Going into
tonight he is
19-1. Sometimes Win Loss records are seen as empty
numbers. Certainly each season there seems like there is one Phillies
pitcher that gets no run support (Hamels in 2013), and one who gets a
lot of runs (Kendrick every season). In Scherzer's case This isn't true.
He may not of racked up 20 wins with less offense, but he was still
destined to get a bunch.
The current
WAR leader among AL pitchers is
Chris Sale. I am not sure why this is. Scherzer and Sale have
comparable innnigs, ERA, ERA+, Strikeout and WHIP numbers.In fact
Scherzer wins All of those categories. I checked around on Twitter and
Dan M @_LeftField (
blog = Left Field) specified
higher competition, ballpark factors, and the
Whilte Sox mediocre
defense as reasons that Sale's WAR rating is better than Scherzer.
This amounts to a WAR calculation for
Sale of 6.2 while Scherzer stands at 5.8.
Regardless
Scherzer is pitching for a team likely destined for postseason play,
while the White Sox certainly are not. There is still a month left to
play and right now I would have Scherzer as unanimous Cy Young in the
AL.
Another interesting aspect of
Max Scherszer's season is his
emergence as staff ace on a team that also has
Justin Verlander.
Verlander has been decent, but not nearly as dominant as his previous
seasons. He has struggled a bit his last few starts and overall his
season has been average since Mid May. Through his first 8 starts of
the Season Verlander had an ERA of 1.93. Since then his ERA has been in
the middle 4s. He has maintained a .500 record across both sets of
starts and is still among the league leaders in Innings and Strikeouts.
However, both of those numbers are in the middle of the top 10 among
his peers. He led the the league in both Ks and IPs in 3 of the last 4
years.
Justin Verlander is still a good pitcher on a good team
and it will be interesting to see if he can return to form as October
approaches. If Max Scherzer can be the staff Ace in the playoffs it
makes for some nice options for
Jim Leyland at the top of the Tigers
rotation.
Sources
baseballcardpedia.com
@_Leftfield
High Heat Stats
