The Mets made one of the biggest signings of the season to date on Monday, when they signed Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer to a three-year deal. Not long after their big New York signing, the Mariners made a big splash when they signed defending AL Cy Young champion Robbie Ray to a five-year contract.
One thing in common between the two teams: Both missed the knockout stages in 2021. The Mets led the table for most of the season, but dropped to third and finished 11.5 games behind the World Series-winning Braves. last in NL East and 13 games out of the second wild card position. The Mariners remained in contention until the last day of the regular season, but ultimately lost to the Yankees two games for the second wild and five games with the American League flagship winning the Astros in the AL West.
There’s no doubt that going out and signing with two of the best teams on the market will increase your chances of reaching the knockout stages and becoming a better team. But how much better will these pitchers make their new team? Sporting News dives into the numbers to find out.
THAN: How will MLB’s frenzy of free agents affect the upcoming shutdown and CBA negotiations?
There’s a Cy Young winner versus none
Last season, the Mariners were a mid lane team when it came to successful pitching. Their employees have the 15th highest ERA at 4.30 and WAR 17th Best Fangraphs at 14.3. Just by making a very basic addition, Ray added 3.9 fWAR to the pool and yielded a 2.84 ERA. Add that fWAR is high and the Mariners are at 18.2, which should be the eighth best team in baseball.
Of course, it won’t happen explicitly. The Mariners will have a different pitcher, Ray will have a different result, and the overall standard for fWAR will be adjusted based on the new results in the tournament. Without making player predictions for the tournament, it would be difficult to know exactly how much value Ray would bring to the Mariners.
However, we can look at the history of how teams have achieved results with Cy Young winning on their team vs. Based on data from the Lahman Database, which includes annual results prior to 2021, teams with at least one Cy Young winner have a win rate of 0.526 and reach the knockout stage 32% of the time. time. That doesn’t sound too great, but compare it to the teams that don’t have a Cy Young winner on their payroll and the teams that have qualified just 13.3% of the time and have a win rate of 0.485.
THAN: MLB . Free Agent Tracker
Even having only one Cy Young winner on the HR team makes a resounding difference. Historically, teams with only one Cy Young winner have made it to the knockout stages 28.3% of the time and have a win rate of 0.522.
And winning the World Series championship is all the more difficult without winner Cy Young on the payroll. Teams lacking previous winner Cy Young have only won 1.8% of World Series time. Even having just one pitcher on the team with a previous level of success increases the percentage up to 5.5 percent.
Now, it’s important to keep in mind that all of these numbers are talking about all 30 teams in the league each year. Only two Cy Youngs are awarded each year – one prior to 1967 – so not many teams will have a Cy Young win on their roster. There’s also only one World Series winner each year, so each team starts with a 3.3% chance each year.
How about the pitcher with the Cy Young award?
There is a lot of advice that has been done on super spins that have been built with many Cy Young winners. Last year, Scherzer was acquired by the Dodgers and together with Clayton Kershaw and David Price form a wheel that has seven Cy Young Awards. Now, Scherzer and Jacob deGrom mean a total of five Cy Youngs in the Mets’ rotation.
It sounds like a lot, but how much does it really help?
Teams with multiple Cy Young winners on their payroll previously had an average win rate of 0.538 and reached the knockout stages 43.5% of the time. Those teams have also won 13.6% of the time at the World Series.
CONTRACT DETAILS: Max Scherzer | Corey Seager | Justin Verlander
There are Mets fans excited about the prospect of having five Cy Youngs on the team’s staff. Only 47 teams own pitching staff that includes at least 5 Cy Young awards. How did 47 before?
Only three people have ever won the World Series: the 1995 Braves, 1999 Yankees and 2000 Yankees. The 1995 Braves featured four Cy Youngs by Greg Maddux (including one in 1995), Tom Glavine’s victory in 1991 and Steve Bedrosian’s victory. since 1987. For both Yankees teams, Roger Clemens accounted for five Cy Youngs. The 2000 Yankees also featured Dwight Gooden’s 1985 award. No other team has won the World Series with so many individual titles.
Don’t worry, Mets fans. Again, this is a small sample size and any team that featured Roger Clemens or Randy Johnson in their later years was included in that sample because they had seven and five awards respectively. .
Which team received the most Cy Young awards?
There have been nine staffed pitching teams with a total of seven Cy Young awards at the same time.
As expected, two of them were just the Astros alongside Clemens in his later years.
THAN: Max Scherzer Believes Not Only in Mets Money, but in Competitive Opportunity for the World Series
Here’s how each of those teams performed with all of their pitching awards.
| Team | Year | Cy Young wins | Take note | Result |
| White Sox | 1986 | Steve Carlton (4), Tom Seaver (3) | 72-90 | Qualifiers missed |
| brave | 1999 | Tom Glavine (2), Greg Maddux (4), John Smoltz (1) | 103-59 | Lost World series |
| Yankees | 2000 | Roger Clemens (5), David Cone (1), Dwight Gooden (1) | 87-74 | World Series Champion |
| brave | 2001 | Tom Glavine (2), Greg Maddux (4), John Smoltz (1) | 88-74 | NLCS lost |
| brave | 2002 | Tom Glavine (2), Greg Maddux (4), John Smoltz (1) | 101-59 | NLDS lost |
| Astros | 2005 | Roger Clemens (7) | 89-73 | Lost World series |
| Astros | 2006 | Roger Clemens (7) | 82-80 | Qualifiers missed |
| Yankees | 2007 | Roger Clemens (7) | 94-68 | Series of lost parts |
| Giant | 2009 | Randy Johnson (5), Tim Lincecum (1), Barry Zito (1) | 88-74 | Qualifiers missed |
Only three of those teams missed out on the knockout stages, and in each example, that’s because Cy Young’s cards were largely taken by veteran pitchers. Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton were both 41 years old on that White Sox team. Clemens was 43 years old on the 2006 Astros. Johnson was 45 years old with the Giants in 2009.
It’s no surprise to see the Braves’ stacked spin with Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz appearing on this list, as to this day they could still be the case for the spin. greatest of all time.
The 2009 Giants were also a particularly fun team as Tim Lincecum went on to win a second NL Cy Young award in a row that season, which means, in a way, that team has the most Cy Young awards. so far with eight.
