2011 Topps Opening Day #16 Max Scherzer

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

Jason Hammel (5-1) Reality Check

My Orioles contact alerted me to the fact that Jason Hammel has the 2nd most victories in the League and is off to a terrific 5-1 start overall. I started wondering if he could be in for one of those mid-career break out seasons (see John Denny 1983).   

Hammel is coming off a pretty good 2012 (8-6, 3.43 ERA, 1.237 WHIP, 123 ERA+ in 118 Innings - DL Stint July and August) - Perhaps Mr Hammel's good start is a sign of things to come the rest of the season.

Unfortunately for the Orioles that hypothesis appears to be false...

2012 06 10 - Jason Hammel v Hunter Pence @ Camden Yards

The first sign is Hammell's 4.10 ERA which translates to and ERA+ of 103. Both numbers pretty much summarize how pedestrian his season has been.  His WHIP, Hits Walks and HRs per 9 innings are all up over his 2012 numbers.  His K/9 and K/BB ratios are both down from last season.  The promise of 2012 isn't showing up in the auxiliary numbers just in the Win Loss column. 

Looking inside his game logs we see that Jason Hammel has been the beneficiary of tremendous run support.  He is getting 6.7 runs/game. The Orioles are averaging under 4.5 runs for the remaining starters - that is +difference of 2 runs/game in Hammel's favor.  In 6 of his 7 starts he has gotten 5 or more runs. His lone loss was 4-3 to the Twins over a month ago (4/7/2013).  Hammel has also faced a fairly soft schedule in 2013 - five of his 7 starts have been v teams that are currently below .500.

There are 6 MLB pitchers with 5 or more wins: Buchholz @ 6, Matt Moore, Darvish, Jordan Zimmermann, Lance Lynn, and Hammel all at 5. My guess is that none of this bunch reach 20.  Of the set I think Hammel is the least likely to hit 15.  Just guessing I would out Hammel at 13 Wins for the year if he stays healthy.