This is our old blog. It hasn't been active since 2011. Please see the link above for our current blog or click the logo above to see all of the great data and content on this site.
«
»

This Cain Is More Than Able

Posted by Steve Lombardi on April 16, 2010

A simple question: Is Matt Cain the best young pitcher to be seen in baseball since 1996?

Via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Game Finder - From 1996 to 2010, as Starter, Age 24 or younger, Most Games with GameScore>=60 (min. 30 such games to make the leaderboard):

Rk Player #Matching   W L W-L% ERA GS CG SHO SV IP H ER HR BB SO WHIP
1 Matt Cain 65 Ind. Games 34 8 .810 1.27 65 6 2 0 466.0 260 66 21 154 402 0.89
2 Carlos Zambrano 64 Ind. Games 39 7 .848 1.10 64 5 2 0 473.0 261 58 17 166 429 0.90
3 Felix Hernandez 63 Ind. Games 40 5 .889 1.23 63 7 3 0 476.2 301 65 17 107 430 0.86
4 Dontrelle Willis 55 Ind. Games 40 5 .889 1.07 55 14 8 0 412.0 279 49 14 82 310 0.88
5 Jake Peavy 55 Ind. Games 35 5 .875 1.36 55 3 3 0 390.0 234 59 22 84 410 0.82
6 Barry Zito 48 Ind. Games 38 1 .974 1.09 48 5 4 0 339.1 191 41 17 107 295 0.88
7 Mark Prior 48 Ind. Games 30 2 .938 1.39 48 5 1 0 342.1 219 53 19 75 406 0.86
8 Scott Kazmir 47 Ind. Games 33 1 .971 0.83 47 1 1 0 305.0 181 28 10 101 359 0.92
9 Kerry Wood 46 Ind. Games 30 5 .857 1.63 46 5 3 0 326.2 173 59 17 138 396 0.95
10 Jeremy Bonderman 46 Ind. Games 36 2 .947 1.48 46 6 2 0 347.0 207 57 23 70 304 0.80
11 CC Sabathia 45 Ind. Games 35 0 1.000 1.20 45 3 2 0 315.1 173 42 15 108 282 0.89
12 Mark Buehrle 41 Ind. Games 32 4 .889 1.23 41 10 4 0 315.0 203 43 19 49 171 0.80
13 Oliver Perez 40 Ind. Games 18 6 .750 1.46 40 2 1 0 282.2 175 46 17 95 327 0.96
14 Cole Hamels 39 Ind. Games 24 5 .828 1.37 39 4 2 0 288.1 169 44 24 63 287 0.80
15 Tim Lincecum 38 Ind. Games 22 2 .917 1.23 38 3 2 0 277.0 171 38 5 85 323 0.92
16 Zack Greinke 37 Ind. Games 20 4 .833 1.09 37 1 0 0 257.0 174 31 11 48 201 0.86
17 Ismael Valdez 35 Ind. Games 21 3 .875 1.34 35 2 2 0 255.0 159 38 10 47 219 0.81
18 Jose Rosado 35 Ind. Games 22 6 .786 1.36 35 9 2 0 265.2 158 40 17 63 198 0.83
19 Josh Beckett 35 Ind. Games 22 2 .917 1.12 35 2 2 0 233.0 131 29 6 77 255 0.89
20 Kevin Millwood 34 Ind. Games 24 2 .923 1.46 34 4 1 0 252.0 139 41 17 58 234 0.78
21 John Danks 34 Ind. Games 18 5 .783 1.12 34 1 0 0 232.2 136 29 9 59 197 0.84
22 Ryan Dempster 33 Ind. Games 22 3 .880 1.22 33 4 2 0 250.2 165 34 9 83 220 0.99
23 Jon Garland 32 Ind. Games 21 3 .875 1.57 32 2 1 0 228.2 132 40 18 72 144 0.89
24 Chad Billingsley 32 Ind. Games 24 4 .857 1.14 32 2 1 0 222.0 131 28 8 71 227 0.91
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/16/2010.

.

Related posts:

    Matt Cain
    Matt Cain

This entry was posted on Friday, April 16th, 2010 at 7:25 am and is filed under Game Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

11 Responses to “This Cain Is More Than Able”

  1. Andy Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 8:56 am

    Note too that despite having the most such games on this list, he also has the 4th-worst W-L% thanks to poor support from the Giants' offense. If he had just the average W-L% of this group he'd have about 3 more wins.

    And what about CC going THIRTY FIVE AND OH in his 45 games with a game score of 60? That is one of the most truly amazing stats I have ever seen.

  2. Kevin Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 8:58 am

    By showing Felix Hernandez right there at #3, I think you already answered your own question in the negative. Cain's been fantastic, but Hernandez has been better.

  3. BSK Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 8:59 am

    What is the average game score for these games? Cain might have 65 all hovering right around 60, which could also contribute to his paltry W-L while Sabathia might have 45 all of which are much hire, contributing to his amazing 35-0 record. Obviously, anything over 60 is great, but even to that there are degrees, which would be interesting to see factored in.

  4. Andy Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 9:26 am

    I've written about Cain before on this blog and Steve is onto something here. Cain has been very, very good.

  5. Kahuna Tuna Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 10:04 am

    A stat that stands out to me is Hamels' having given up more than half as many home runs in these starts as earned runs. It makes sense — Hamels is an aggressive pitcher playing in a small home park who is strongly committed to throwing first-pitch strikes. So he's going to give up some solo home runs. He just doesn't give up much else.

  6. JDV Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 10:37 am

    Another way to look at the same data is to calculate what percentage of their total starts during that period resulted in these 60+ GameScores. A different picture emerges. A quick check shows Tim Lincecum with 67.9% of his 24-and-under starts resulting in a 60+. That is far and away the highest mark. Others up there are Kerry Wood (59.7%), Barry Zito (57.1%), and Carlos Zambrano (56.6%). So it's also interesting to see some careers drastically change after 24 too.

  7. Johnny Twisto Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 11:41 am

    BSK, you can see that Sabathia's ERA in his set is 1.20, which in the AL is more impressive than Cain's 1.27 in the NL. But there's probably diminishing returns once the ERA gets so low.

    Throwing them into Excel, it looks like both Cain's and Sabathia's avg Game Scores were 69.2.

    I was trying to think what Sabathia's incredible record in these games actually means. If you look at his Win Probability Stats, he's credited with 16.5 Pitching Wins (just based on his runs allowed and IP, I believe), but 19-20 wins in WPA, WPA/LI, and REW. I think this indicates he has probably done a good job of maximizing the run support he's gotten, pitching better in closer games -- been a clutch performer. But I don't know if the 35-0 above is evidence of that, or of anything. It means when he pitched really well in his early years, he would win the game. Maybe it means if his own team was being shut down, he _didn't_ have his best games, as he never pitched well and lost. I'm not sure. It could be spun in different ways, I suppose, depending on your agenda.

  8. Kahuna Tuna Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 11:41 am

    Dwight Gooden, through the end of his age-24 season (1989).

    Games Started: 175
    # Matching: 112
    Pct. w/GSc >=60: 64.0%
    W: 81
    L: 10
    W-L%: .890
    ERA: 1.28
    GS: 112
    CG: 47
    SHO: 18
    SV: 1
    IP: 922.2
    H: 586
    ER: 131
    HR: 37
    BB: 225
    SO: 862
    WHIP: 0.879

    Gooden's highest game score during this period was 93 on 9/12/84 against the Pirates, a five-hit shutout in which he walked none and struck out 16. His lowest game score was 13 on 8/1/84 against the Cardinals, an 11-2 loss in which he allowed 10 hits and seven earned runs in three innings.

  9. BSK Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    Twisto-

    No agenda here. I just think this chart alone isn't enough to determine if someone was the most "dominating". As another poster pointed out, looking at these starts as a percentage of total starts offers a different picture and looking at how the game scores broke down once over 60 provides more data. This is certainly interesting and helpful data and I think it points out that Cain has put together a pretty remarkable run at a very young age, but I don't know that it answers the question posited at the beginning of the post.

  10. Johnny Twisto Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 4:03 pm

    Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that YOU had an agenda. Just that "one" can use different numbers to posit claims about clutchitude or lack thereof. I was mostly running off on a tangent in trying to figure out if it was significant that CC was undefeated in these starts.

  11. Alex Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    I dunno, are you going solely by WHIP? Every other stat seems to be in Lincecum's favor....

«
»