Are Cy Young Voters Intentionally Cheating Felix Hernandez?

It seemed not too l0ng ago that a stat as superficial and meaningless as wins had a major effect on the Cy Young voting. This was a huge obstacle in Felix Hernandez‘s quest for a Cy Young early in his career (until he won the award in 2010).

And now that Felix has the wins, they have to find something else that he doesn’t have the advantage at. This time, they went with FIP, a statistic that takes into account only the things that a pitcher can control. It makes sense, but where were these in-depth sabermetrics when they benefited Felix’s campaign?

Take 2012 for example.

David Price: 2.56 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 3.05 FIP

Felix Hernandez: 3.04 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 2.84 FIP

Price lead Felix when it came to the traditional measures of successful pitching, just like Felix was better in these categories than Kluber this year.

But Felix Hernandez had the significant edge over Price when it came to Fielding Independent Pitching, the main reason given by supporters of Kluber winning this year.

I’m not saying they’re specifically targeting Felix, but it seems like more than a coincidence that he is always on the wrong side of the argument no matter what the strengths and weaknesses of his campaign are.