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Don't worry, Miggy, I use the time waiting for you to retrieve the ball from the backstop (at a baseball game) to recalculate my WAR with respect to Pedro's 1999.

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Well, it's pretty much over. Pretty much. Unless Justin Verlander throws 18 shutout innings of relief in today's game, Zack Greinke has got the "real" (i.e., "internet") Cy Young locked up (and, as I've been saying for a while, he should probably be the MVP, but I'll get to that later). But that was pretty clear a long time ago to most of us. The real question is "where does Zack' s2009 rank in history?" Earlier this season, I broached the question as to how Zack's incredible 2009 might end up ranking among the great seasons. He's done for the year, and we have the league average pretty much set. Given that I'm apparently the only person who posts here anymore, I didn't want to let another day go by. So it's time to bust out the ol' WAR-o-meter.

Although  most people understand (particularly in Greinke's case) that pitcher wins are irrelevant, expressing a pitcher's greatness seems difficult. Do we cite ERA? FIP? Number of innings thrown in games started? WHIP? Number of homers allowed? How do we account for the defense behind the pitcher? And so on. If you haven't been paying much attention to on-line sabermetrics the last few years (or just want a refresher), I recommend taking a look at my earlier column on Pitcher Value (which has lots of informative links, too) and my later thoughts that were implemented in a season preview series. In short, WAR (Wins Above Replacement) gives us the tools to properly weight a pitchers performance not only with respect to his rate of excellent, but the amount of playing time in park, league, and year context.

Here's the brief methodological rundown:

• I chose Pedro's 1999 because we all know how great that season is supposed to be. It also gives us a neat "1999-2009 window" in which to look at pitching performances. I used "top 11" because Zack's 2009 made it into the top 10 (but where?), and I wanted to see who he "bumped."
  
• I use Colin Wyer's BaseRuns-FIP (BsR-FIP),  which combines the defense-independence of FIP with the dynamism and accuracy of BaseRuns. It is scaled to RA rather than ERA (and thus more accurately reflects pitcher value).
  
• Value is based on a Win% generated using PythagenPat in relation to the league (AL/NL) average RA.
• Different replacement levels are used to reflect the difference in league talent: for starting pitchers. I use .390 for the NL and .370 for the AL.
  
• I use terpsfans' five-year, regressed park factors; I don't think KC will have changed that much from 2008 to 2009.
• Adjustments are made for each pitcher's influence on his run environment through a dynamic run-to-win conversion for each individual pitcher.
• Pre-Greinke raw data is taken from the Baseball Databank and calculations done using MySQL.
• Just for the record, I know it is silly to calculate WAR to two decimal places, but it helps with sorting out the rankings here.
  

The basic idea is just like other versions of WAR, like that at FanGraphs. There are some differences -- I use PythganPat (I don't know if FanGraphs does yet), BsR-FIP rather than FIP, and I separate replacement levels (FanGraphs will probably do that soon), among other things. I also can go as far back in history as I want... but anyway, enough yakkin', yet's start ranking the best 11 seasons by starting pitcher, 1999-!

11. Roy Halladay, 2008. 8.76 WAR, .693 Win %, 3.08 adjusted BsR-FIP, 246 IP, 33 GS. Well, Doc may have gotten the All-Star start over Greinke, but Zack bumped him from this all-important list. This is the most recent season on the list other than Zack's 2009. Ominously for Zack, Halladay was the best pitcher in baseball and didn't win the Cy...

10. Johan Santana, 2004. 8.82 WAR, .734 Win % 2.98 adjusted BsR-FIP, 228 IP, 34 GS. It's sort of surprising that this season didn't rank higher, as it's Johan's best of all time according to my rankings at this point. A great season with the Twins, though, as he rightly won the Cy Young (he went 20-6, so that helped).

9. Roy Halladay, 2003. 8.94 WAR, .685 Win %, 3.28 adjusted BsR-FIP, 266 IP, 36 GS. Doc did win the Cy Young this year, and rightly so. If you buy into WAR, this shows how valuable being a workhorse is; while Sanatana's 2004 was more dominating per inning, Doc gave his team a lot more innings. Doc "won" 22 games for the Blue Jays this season. I saw the last game of the season, and Doc started it. It was a relatively fun season in Toronto overall. Vernon Wells and Carlos Delgado had monster offensive season. Delgado hit four home runs on September 25 against the (then) Devil Rays.

And now there's a (relatively) big jump in WAR amounts...

8. Zack Greinke, 2009. 9.52 WAR, .742 Win %, 2.73 adjusted BsR-FIP, 229.3 IP, 33 GS. There it is. I imagine some fans will be disappointed that Zack's 2009 doesn't rank higher, but it really shouldn't take anything away from how dominant he's been this season. I think if you look at the seasons below him (two clear Cy Young winners and another that should have won) and realize that he's clearly been more dominant this season, then it helps put things in perspective. And once you see the seasons ahead of him... A great year all around.

7. Randy Johnson, 2000. 9.66 WAR, .751 Win %, 2.87 adjusted BsR-FIP, 248.7 IP, 35 GS. Barely better than Greinke's 2009, to the point where you can say they are about equivalent. I have to admit I simply have never liked "The Big Unit"  all that much, but there's no denying his greatness. Hopefully, this is the last time I'll have to write about him in this post...

6. Curt Schilling, 2002. 9.75 WAR, .716 Win %, 2.75 adjusted BsR-FIP, 259.3 IP, 35 GS.  Hey, it's a guy I like even less than Johnson! Great pitcher, though. I wish he'd run for Senate so we could all pile on him. He actually got screwed out of the Cy Young this season, by

5. Randy Johnson, 2004. 10.11 WAR, .753 Win %, 2.61 adjusted BsR-FIP, 245.7 IP, 35 GS. Well, at least we're done with him n--

4. Randy Johnson, 1999. 10.18 WAR, .734 Win %, 2.96 adjusted BsR-FIP, 271.7 IP, 35 GS. Yikes, okay I --

3. Randy Johnson, 2001. 10.39 WAR, .757 Win %, 2.62 adjusted BsR-FIP, 249.7 IP, 34 GS. What is there to say? Like him or not, Johnson has been of of the best pitchers many of us have seen. His (first) run in Arizona was utterly frightening. It's one thing to win four Cy Young in a row -- it's even more impressive that  he deserved three of them (and the one he didn't should have gone to a teammate!).

2. Pedro Martinez, 2000. 10.80 WAR, .837 Win %, 2.41 adjusted BsR-FIP, 217 IP, 29 GS. Can you believe this isn't his best season?

1. Pedro Martinez, 1999. 11.78 WAR,  .866 Win %, 2.06 adjusted BsR-FIP, 213.3 IP, 29 GS. There it is. It's really hard to put this in perspective. I "believe in" WAR -- playing time matters. But that only points up just how dominant Pedro was in 1999 and 2000.  These are the two seasons with both the least innings pitched, and the least games started (the only two seasons on the list with less than 30 starts). And they were still the most valuable. Terrifying and awe-inspiring.

Something that surprised me: all of these guys but Schilling played in 2009.

There you have it. Greinke fans might be disappointed after he started out the season looking like he might end up with more than 10 WAR. But when you see the company he's in, it's difficult to complain. Now, if he doesn't win the Cy Young... then we'll get the torches and pitchforks ready.

Here is a table with the rankings for easy reference: