Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, and XI
When we last left off in our quest to evaluate baseball's major awards, we found that the writers had done just about equally well in the Cy Young and MVP awards (using award shares correlated to player Win Shares). However, given how the Cy Young has been limited over the years—initially only one player per ballot and now three as compared with MVP's ten and initially given to just one player in both leagues—, that's quite an accomplishment.
Next, I would like to compare the two player pools on a more level playing field. First, we have to establish that playing field. What is the distribution of talent for each of the awards? Here are the players receiving votes for each divided into Win Shares totals with the percent of each group to the whole also listed:
| Win Shares | MVP Cands | % | CY Cand | % |
| 3 | 1 | 0.02% | 0.00% | |
| 4 | 6 | 0.13% | 0.00% | |
| 5 | 7 | 0.15% | 0.00% | |
| 6 | 13 | 0.28% | 0.00% | |
| 7 | 20 | 0.43% | 1 | 0.18% |
| 8 | 20 | 0.43% | 2 | 0.35% |
| 9 | 35 | 0.75% | 3 | 0.53% |
| 10 | 40 | 0.86% | 2 | 0.35% |
| 11 | 57 | 1.23% | 3 | 0.53% |
| 12 | 100 | 2.16% | 15 | 2.65% |
| 13 | 108 | 2.33% | 13 | 2.30% |
| 14 | 117 | 2.52% | 18 | 3.19% |
| 15 | 181 | 3.90% | 38 | 6.73% |
| 16 | 176 | 3.79% | 37 | 6.55% |
| 17 | 215 | 4.63% | 40 | 7.08% |
| 18 | 230 | 4.96% | 55 | 9.73% |
| 19 | 245 | 5.28% | 46 | 8.14% |
| 20 | 279 | 6.01% | 58 | 10.27% |
| 21 | 261 | 5.63% | 35 | 6.19% |
| 22 | 286 | 6.16% | 36 | 6.37% |
| 23 | 255 | 5.50% | 28 | 4.96% |
| 24 | 254 | 5.47% | 28 | 4.96% |
| 25 | 266 | 5.73% | 25 | 4.42% |
| 26 | 248 | 5.34% | 20 | 3.54% |
| 27 | 173 | 3.73% | 14 | 2.48% |
| 28 | 179 | 3.86% | 13 | 2.30% |
| 29 | 159 | 3.43% | 13 | 2.30% |
| 30 | 122 | 2.63% | 5 | 0.88% |
| 31 | 101 | 2.18% | 3 | 0.53% |
| 32 | 101 | 2.18% | 5 | 0.88% |
| 33 | 77 | 1.66% | 4 | 0.71% |
| 34 | 72 | 1.55% | 0.00% | |
| 35 | 41 | 0.88% | 1 | 0.18% |
| 36 | 43 | 0.93% | 1 | 0.18% |
| 37 | 37 | 0.80% | 1 | 0.18% |
| 38 | 29 | 0.63% | 0.00% | |
| 39 | 24 | 0.52% | 1 | 0.18% |
| 40 | 15 | 0.32% | 1 | 0.18% |
| 41 | 15 | 0.32% | 0.00% | |
| 42 | 8 | 0.17% | 0.00% | |
| 43 | 2 | 0.04% | 0.00% | |
| 44 | 6 | 0.13% | 0.00% | |
| 45 | 1 | 0.02% | 0.00% | |
| 46 | 2 | 0.04% | 0.00% | |
| 47 | 3 | 0.06% | 0.00% | |
| 48 | 1 | 0.02% | 0.00% | |
| 49 | 3 | 0.06% | 0.00% | |
| 51 | 2 | 0.04% | 0.00% | |
| 53 | 1 | 0.02% | 0.00% | |
| 54 | 2 | 0.04% | 0.00% | |
| 55 | 1 | 0.02% | 0.00% | |
| 4640 | 100.00% | 565 | 100.00% |
Note that an MVP candidate may have as few as three Win Shares while no player with fewer than seven Win Shares has ever received a vote for the Cy Young.
Let's use those two values as our lower limits for each award. How well do all pitchers with at least seven Win Shares correlate to the Cy Young vote as compare to how well all players with at least three Win Shares correlate to the MVP vote?
After running the numbers, I got the following results:
| Decade | MVP (min. 3 WS) | CY (Min. 7 WS) |
| 1910s | 59.66% | |
| 1920s | 51.11% | |
| 1930s | 58.73% | |
| 1940s | 59.51% | |
| 1950s | 58.71% | 30.76% |
| 1960s | 52.87% | 37.00% |
| 1970s | 47.57% | 53.34% |
| 1980s | 47.58% | 50.05% |
| 1990s | 47.70% | 53.91% |
| 2000s | 51.37% | 54.97% |
You'll notice that once the Cy Young shrugged off its early myopia, it has done a better job of meting out votes to its "eligible" players.
One reason for this may be that MVP voters tend to over-reward closers, according to their Win Shares values. The idea is that a closer is an everyday player and therefore, should be considered more thoroughly than starters in the MVP vote. Of course, the reason that they tend not to win the Cy Young as often as starters is that they tend to be much less valuable. I guess it all boils down to you definition of valuable—just as John Kruk's definition makes Chone Figgins more valuable than Barry Bonds.
Next, I would like to limit MVP vote to just pitchers and determine how well the voters have handled pitchers' performances over the years.
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