Sawamura Award: Naruse or Darvish?

With Darvish pitching 30+ more innings, 70+ more Ks, and an identical ERA, I'd suppose these will favor Darvish more. But Naruse definitely is up there with him.

Being unbiased, I'd say Darvish deserves it for the Ks. They've both put in a lot of innings. Lotte wouldn't be where they are right now if it weren't for Naruse having such a great season. Anyway, I think NPB will pick Darvish over Naruse, though two winners wouldn't shock me at all. They did it with Saitoh and Igawa when they both won 20 games.

I'm glad to hear that Darvish has a shot.

Pardon me while I go all sabermetric stathead on people for a minute and explain why I think Darvish deserves it.

Yes, Darvish and Naruse both have amazing real ERAs. But there's a statistic called "fielding independent ERA" which you calculate based on things which the pitcher can control - walks, strikeouts, home runs. I ran the numbers for all pitchers in Japan who logged over 100 innings, and Darvish comes out ahead in that with a 2.64 FIP.

Top 5 FIP (using ((13*HR + 3*(BB+HBP) - 2*K) / IP) + 3.2)

1 NHF  Darvish      2.64
2 CLM  H Kobayashi  2.71
3 OB   Kishida      2.76
4 FSH  Sugiuchi     2.87
5 CLM  Naruse       2.89

Okay, so even if FIP was a little bit esoteric for this comparison, I'm thinking more people will have heard of a stat called WHIP: Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched. This is basically an indicator of how many base runners a pitcher is allowing in general. It's important because, after all, if a pitcher doesn't allow a lot of guys on base, then there aren't a lot of guys to score runs. Right? Generally, if a guy posts around a 1.1 or lower, that's great, meaning they allow slightly over one runner per inning. Darvish had a 0.83 WHIP, which is just amazing.

Top 7 WHIP: (everyone under 1.1)

1 NHF Darvish      0.83
2 NHF M Takeda     0.87
3 CLM Naruse       0.92
4 TYS Greisinger   1.03
5 NHF Glynn        1.05
6 CLM S Watanabe   1.06
7 FSH Sugiuchi     1.08

Another way to look at pitchers' strikeouts is in the number of strikeouts per 9 innings they have, not just the total. If a starter is managing to strike out over 1 guy per inning, that's really really good. Usually relievers have higher K/9 ratios because they come out and throw harder for a shorter period of time, but starters have to sustain their ability for a longer outing. Darvish is one of only three pitchers in Japan who logged over 100 innings and managed to strike out over one batter per inning:

Top 5 K/9:

1 RGE Tanaka       9.48
2 CD  Nakata       9.37
3 NHF Darvish      9.12
4 TYS K Ishii      8.83
5 FSH Arakaki      8.67

The only place where Darvish is weak is specifically in walks - his BB/9 and K/BB ratios are a little weaker than Naruse's. Darvish walked 2.13 guys per 9 innings, where Naruse walked 1.40 guys per 9 innings, so Darvish's ratio of strikeouts to walks is only 4.29, where Naruse's is 5.11, just from the lower ratio of walks.

But on the other hand, only three pitchers in Japan logged more than 200 innings: Wakui at 213, Greisinger at 209, and Darvish at 207 2/3. Darvish also has a Japan-leading 12 complete games to Naruse's 6, though Naruse has 4 shutouts to Darvish's 3.

What does this all mean? It basically means that it's pretty difficult to tell who's going to get it. I think there's a good argument for Darvish even on the "normal" stats - IP, K, ERA, W - but it's really not clear-cut. The only thing for sure is, if either of the Giants lefty aces get it, then something bizarre has transpired.

It will probably favor Darvish more, seeing as how he's had 34 and 1/3 more innings. Darvish has 12 complete games to Naruse's 6. As mentioned here, both have an identical ERA at 1.82.

Though breaking it down more, Darvish has the advantage in WHIP (0.83 to Naruse's 0.92), the advantage in K/9 IP (9.1 to 7.17), and in opponent's batting average (.174 to .211). Naruse has the advantage in BB/9 IP (1.4 to 2.12 for Darvish) and in K/BB (1.4 to 2.12 for Darvish).

Breaking their performance down further with the help of Yahoo! Japan:

vs. Pacific League
Yu Darvish (13-4, 1.76 ERA)
Yoshihisa Naruse (14-0, 1.93 ERA)

vs. Central League
Yu Darvish (2-1, 2.05 ERA)
Yoshihisa Naruse (1-1, 1.26 ERA)

Here are the splits for Darvish and Naruse.

With all that said, I'd give the Sawamura Award to Darvish by a slight edge. Though, as mentioned above, Lotte would not be where they are without Naruse, but looking at the stats I still have to give it to Darvish by a slight edge because of logging more innings by a big margin, the lower WHIP, and lower opponent's batting average.