The 1982 AL Cy Young Award

There haven’t been many good baseball movies. Think back through the history of the sport on film and you can probably count up the good baseball flicks on one hand an still have some fingers in reserve. There’s “The Natural”, “Pride of the Yankees”, and “Field of Dreams”, and after that everything is debatable.

“Bang the Drum Slowly”? Downer. Who could like any movie that ends with a funeral?

“Fear Strikes Out”? An effeminate Tony Perkins playing center field in Fenway? Surely you jest.

And don’t even go “Little Big League”, “Cobb”, or “Mr. 3000” on me. I’m telling you, don’t. It won’t be pretty.

I think the next closest thing you’ll find to consensus on a baseball movie is “Major League”. Funny. Good characters. Charlie Sheen when he was still on cocaine. Dennis Haysbert before he became president as a Cuban slugger who practices voodoo. Renee Russo before the third facelift. Lots to work with in this movie.

One of my personal favorites was the supposed “bad guy” who played for the Yankees, Clue Haywood, the Triple Crown-winning, tobacco-spitting, fat, ugly bastard played so well by real-life Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Pete Vuckovich. Few people realize that the movie, while about the fictionalized Cleveland Indians, was actually filmed in Milwaukee, which is how they got Bob Uecker to be the radio announcer and Vuckovich to play the bad guy.

Vuckovich had only two lines in the movie, but they were both good. Talking to the film’s star, Tom Berenger, when he walked up to the plate the first time, Vuckovich said, “Hey, are you still in the league?” He then followed that with the killer, “How’s your wife and my kids?” Classic.

I can’t help but wonder if Vuckovich would have even been considered for that part if the Baseball Writers Association of America hadn’t pulled one of its’ bigger boners by handing him the 1982 American League Cy Young Award when he didn’t deserve it. That one-time splash of fame in an otherwise forgettable career probably gave Vuckovich a film career that would have never happened if the BBWAA wasn’t wholly unqualified to vote on post-season awards.

The 1982 Cy Young voting is one of the bigger travesties you’ll ever see in sports. The Brewers, a lovable bunch of bashers who were collectively known as “Harvey’s Wallbangers” after their manager, Harvey Kuenn, had a murderer’s row lineup that sported a pair of former home run champs (Gorman Thomas and Ben Oglivie), a smooth, powerful first baseman (Cecil Cooper), and near Hall of Fame catcher (Ted Simmons) and two actual Hall of Famers (Paul Molitor and Robin Yount). The club had a definite beer league softball team vibe about it, right down to their nickname and mascot, and they bashed their way to 95 wins, the most runs in the league, an MVP award for Yount, and a seven-game World Series loss.

Apparently the BBWAA felt this collection colorful guys deserved a Cy Young winner as well, because they decided to bestow the award upon Vuckovich at the end of the season. Vuckovich was a true journeyman, having already pitched for the Cardinals and expansion Blue Jays and failing to distinguish himself in either location. He joined the Brewers in 1981, and while he was serviceable enough, there was nothing terribly distinguishing about him either. Minus the BBWAA’s intervention, Vuckovich would probably be best remembered as the only player to reach the big leagues from Clarion University of Pennsylvania.

But, by the grace of that booming offense, Vuckovich managed to post a record of 18-6 in 1982, with a solid, but rather pedestrian, ERA of 3.34 . That mark was 14% better than the league average, but certainly nothing remarkable. He didn’t lead the league in any important pitching categories, he barely struck out 100 batters in over 220 innings (an anemic rate of just 4.23 strikeouts per nine innings pitched) and allowed a mammoth number of base runners (1.502 WHIP). In a neutral context, where all ballpark factors and winning probabilities are leveled, Vuckovich projected to a record of just 13-11, with a 3.58 ERA. Nothing terribly special there.

At least , not unless you’re a voter for the Cy Young Award. They seem to look for one thing, and one thing only. Wins. Lots and lots of wins. Boy do the voters love a big win total on a starting pitcher, and in 1982, that really favored Clue Haywood…I mean, Pete Vuckovich. Vuck finished tied for second in the league in wins, 18 to be exact. That was one less than league-leader LaMarr Hoyt, but since Hoyt’s White Sox finished with just 87 wins, six games behind the Angels in the AL West, I guess the voters felt that his wins didn’t matter as much. (To make up for it, the voters gave Hoyt a Cy Young Award he didn’t deserve the next season.)

It also apparently didn’t matter that Vuckovich really wasn’t all that good in every category other than wins. He pitched just over 223 innings, not a terribly remarkable total that didn’t even crack the league’s top-10. He struck out 105 batters, a pretty anemic total for that many innings, and nowhere close to the top-30 in the league. (Let’s put it this way; Mariners closer Bill Caudill stuck out more hitters despite pitching 128 fewer innings. Ouch.) Vuckovich’s ERA was a solid 3.34, tied for 6th in the league, but that mark wasn’t terribly distinctive considering that Milwaukee’s County Stadium boasted a pitcher’s park factor of 93, meaning the park severely favored pitchers. In fact, it favored them so much that Vuckovich’s home-away splits were extreme (2.65 ERA at home; 3.95 away).

In essence, Vuckovich was a mildly above-average starting pitcher who happened to play for a team that scored more runs than any other in the league. In terms of stats like WARP3, where he’s granted a score based upon a neutralized environment, this essential mediocrity becomes obvious. Vuckovich scored 4.9 in WARP3 that year, a figure that was equaled or bettered by 33 different American League pitchers. He didn’t even have the best mark on the Brewers, where Rollie Fingers posted a mark of 5.9.

Here’s a quick comparison of Vuckovich’s neutralized numbers against Dennis Eckersley, one of those other pitchers:

Wins – Vuckovich, 13; Eckersley, 14
ERA – Vuckovich, 3.58; Eckersley, 3.39
Strikeouts – Vuckovich, 102; Eckersley, 129
WHIP – Vuckovich, 1.578; Eckersley, 1.140
Innings – Vuckovich, 223.1; Eckersley, 224.1

These guys were pretty much equals in 1982, with all of the slight edges going to Eckersley, who pitched for a pretty good Boston team that won 89 games. Do you know how many Cy Young votes Eckersley got that year? Zero. He wasn’t mentioned on a single ballot.

If that strikes you as quirky, just wait. It gets better. Since the BBWAA decided that Pete Vuckovich was clearly the best pitcher in the American League in 1982 (half of the first place Cy Young votes, almost three-times as many first place votes as any other pitcher, about 50% more total points that the second place finisher), it stands to reason that he would finish pretty well in the MVP voting, too. Right?

Interestingly, no, that’s not what it means at all. Vuckovich, supposedly the best pitcher in the league, finished 18th in the MVP voting with just 11 total points. Not only that, he wasn’t even the top pitcher on the ballot. That honor went to Dan Quisenberry, who finished 9th in the MVP voting, higher than any other pitcher despite being just 3rd in the Cy Young voting. Screwy, huh?

Wait, it gets better. Guess who else finished higher in the MVP voting? Rollie Fingers, one place and one point higher than his teammate, Pete Vuckovich. That’s right, while one section of the BBWAA decided that Pete Vuckovich was the best pitcher in the league, another section decided that he wasn’t the most valuable pitcher on his own team.

I realize that there’s always been some ambiguity about whether or not the Cy Young Award should go to the league’s best pitcher or the league’s “most valuable” pitcher, sort of a pitcher’s equivalent to the MVP. That’s never made much sense to me, but I recognize the confusion exists. Still, no matter how you slice it, the BBWAA screwed up this award. If the award was supposed to go to the most valuable pitcher, well we’ve already seen that other members of the BBWAA decided at least two pitchers were more qualified than Vuckovich. And if the award was supposed to go to the best pitcher, clearly it should have been someone other than Vuckovich. My personal choice would have been Dave Stieb, whose neutralized record while pitching for a sub-.500 Toronto team, was 21-11, with a 2.84 ERA and 144 strikeouts in a whopping 288.1 innings. Caudill would have been a great choice, too (12-9, 26 saves, 2.35 ERA, 111 strikeouts in just over 95 innings for a bad Seattle team). Or, of course, Quiz (9-7, 35 saves, 2.57 ERA in over 136 relief innings, a huge number). Hell, I could name a good two dozen pitchers here.

But, alas, the voters decided that Vuckovich was their man. While it remains an indefensible choice, at least it resulted in us having the immortal Clue Haywood. That’s more than we have to show for most BBWAA foul-ups.