Could Félix Bautista Win the Cy Young?

On Thursday the Orioles were playing their first game in a series of 4 against the Tampa Bay Rays. After 8 and half innings Félix Bautista entered a tie game in the bottom of the 9th inning. This was somewhat unusual for Félix who, as the closer, is typically only called in to lock down the ninth inning when the O’s are winning and the score is close. Félix had pitched the day before and had only pitched 2 innings twice all year so it appeared that Brandon Hyde was opting to make sure that the Orioles at least made it to extra innings and it looked like Mike Baumann would get the ball in the 10th. This was a decision that most Orioles fans could get behind after watching the Orioles get walked off in the 2016 wild card game while their dominant closer Zack Britton watched from the bullpen. 

The inning got off to a good start with Christian Bethancourt grounding out on the first pitch. The lineup card then flipped over and up next were 2 of the Rays All Stars Yandy Diaz and Wander Franco. 

Félix threw his whole arsenal at Yandy, fastball, slider then splitter. The count sat at 1-2. Félix just missed outside with another fastball ticking up to 100 MPH. With the count even 2-2 Félix went back to the fastball and Diaz struck out swinging. 

Franco followed that up by striking out on 3 pitches swinging through another fastball in almost the same spot as Diaz. It took just 9 pitches for Bautista to take care of the 9th and send the game into extra innings, the Orioles would have another opportunity to hit, Mission accomplished. 

The O’s pushed across the ghost runner to make the score 4-3 and the plan was for Mike Baumann to pitch the bottom of the 10th but instead Félix Bautista re-emerged from the dugout and took the mound. 

Brandon Hyde wanted to win this game badly and he was managing like it was a playoff game. Win or lose it was going to be with his best guy on the mound. 

In order to get the win Bautista would have to prevent the ghost runner who started the inning on second base from scoring. A task that even the best relievers have struggled with since the ghost runner was adopted. 

Bautista didn’t get off to the best start possible either when his first pitch of the inning hit Luke Raley in the leg to make 2 men on with no outs. Bautista then had to face another Rays All Star, Randy Arozarena who has been an Orioles killer his entire career. Bautista went fastball then slider to get strikes 1 and 2 with the count at 0-2 he went fastball again 100 MPH at the top of the zone and Arozarena swung through for strike 3. 

Now with 1 out Brandon Lowe stepped to the plate. After fouling off Bautista’s first fastball he hits a sharp ground ball to the second baseman Adam Frazier who starts the 4-6-3 double play and just like that the Orioles win and jump ahead of the Rays in the division standings. In the biggest game of the Orioles season Felix Bautista had come through. 

Since the All Star break Félix Bautista has made 6 appearances getting 5 saves and 1 win with a 0.00 ERA. During this stretch he has 12 Ks to 0 walks and has only allowed 3 hits. He appears to be getting better as the season goes on. 

It is very difficult for a reliever to get serious consideration for the Cy Young award. The purpose of the award is to recognize the most outstanding pitcher and starters pitch more innings and are able to accrue more counting stats and their position is generally seen as more valuable. 

There are 2 things that have to happen for a reliever to win the Cy Young and one of them is completely out of their control. 

1. They have to have an incredible year
2. All the starting pitchers and I do mean all the starting pitchers in their league have mediocre years. If even one starter has a what could be considered a good year they will win the Cy Young over a great reliever

The Precedents

The last closer to get any Cy Young votes

Last year Edwin Diaz got 6 voting points for Cy Young and zero first place votes. He had a 1.31 ERA, .839 WHIP, 279 ERA+, 32 saves in 62 innings pitched and finished 9th in Cy Young voting. This is a really good season but looking at these stats they are not as good as I thought they would be based on how much of a social media sensation he was last year but a good trumpet solo carries a lot of weight when it comes to Cy Young Voting. Not enough however as Diaz finished 9th in the voting and Sandy Alcantara won the award unanimously. Félix should be able to blow all of these numbers out of the water as long as he maintains his current production and give himself a better shot at winning than Edwin did. 

The last closer to get serious Cy Young consideration 

Fellow Orioles closer Zack Britton had an incredible 2016 season with a 0.54 ERA, .836 WHIP, 803 ERA+, 47 saves in 67 innings pitched. This is the go to example for people who want to argue that a closer will never win the Cy Young ever again.This Britton season is one of the most dominant closer seasons ever, he didn’t blow save the entire year and allowed only 4 ER the entire season. At the same time there wasn’t a single starting pitcher in the American League that was having an incredible year. The top vote getters all had ERAs over 3 and WHIPs over 1 so there was nothing especially dominant standing in Britton’s way and he still finished 4th and only got 5 first place votes. Félix Bautista already cannot have as good of a year as Britton had, Britton was perfect in save opportunities and Felix has already blown a couple, Félix has a great ERA+ but there’s no way he catches up to Britton’s 803 mark. However what I believe gives Felix the chance to get more consideration than Britton got is his crazy strikeout numbers. Bitton only had a K/9 ratio of 9.9 during the 2016 season and Félix currently sits at 17.4. Being elite at managing contact is incredibly valuable but being completely overpowering the way Félix is gets people’s attention and with 60 games to go Félix Bautista has 96 strikeouts which is already 22 more than Britton had in his entire 2016 season.  

The last closer to win the Cy Young 

Eric Gagne won the Cy Young award in 2003. He had a 1.20 ERA, 0.692 WHIP, 337 ERA+, 55 saves in 82.1 innings pitched. Gagne did not have a single blown save the entire year and was in the midst of a historic streak of 84 consecutive saves without a blown save. Besides perfection what stands out to me is his insanely low WHIP and his K/9 of 15. You could argue that Britton’s 2016 season was just as if not more dominant but the streak Gagne carried over from the year before as well as the dominant strikeout numbers made his case more appealing to voters. Also interesting to note that in 2003 multiple pitchers had better years than 2016 Cy Young winner Rick Porcello but Gagne won out over them by a wide margin. I think that Gagne also won in part because it was not that weird for a closer to win. Dennis Eckersley had won in 1992 and before that 4 different relief pitchers won the award in 1980’s. Voters viewed the award as a way to recognize the most outstanding pitcher and that included closers. As time has gone on and people have leaned WAR and other stats that emphasize “value” as a cumulative stat it has become harder to justify giving the award to someone who pitches less than 100 innings. 

What does Félix Bautista have to do to win? 

As of right now here is how Félix stacks up compared to Britton and Gagne. 

So if the season ended today Félix probably hasn’t put up a Cy Young caliber season but some of these stats are cumulative and also Félix got off to a relatively slow start so if we project him to perform as well as he has for the last 2 months for the next two months then the numbers could end up looking like this. 

Projected Stats:

According to the projections Félix should end the year with much better stats than Britton but with stats that fall a little short of Gagne (Although if I got rid of some of the opponent batting stats it would be pretty much dead even) 

If these are Félix’s numbers at the end of the year then I believe he will have done all he could to be deserving of the Cy Young. However, being good enough for the Cy Young is only half the battle if you are a reliever, the other thing that has to happen is you need all the starting pitchers to be mid. 

The Competition

As I mentioned earlier Cy Young voters will favor a good starting pitcher over a great closer and the bad news for Félix is that this year there are several different starting pitchers having great years.

As of right now the award is Gerrit Cole’s to lose with Kevin Gausman, Nathan Eovaldi, Framber Valdez and Shane Mclanahan also in the hunt. 

4 of those 5 are on pace to pitch over 180 innings

4 of those 5 currently have ERAs under 3 

4 of thos 5 have K/9s over 9 

Félix Bautista’s only hope is that all 5 of these pitchers have very bad last 60 games of the season and the odds of that happening are almost zero. 

So I wouldn’t put any money on Félix Bautista winning the Cy Young but if 1 or 2 of those guys have a poor last 60 games of the season then we could be looking at the highest Cy Young finish since Baltimore’s own Zack Britton.