Let me start by saying that I don't think there is a bad choice this year among the top three candidates: Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, and Jake Arrieta. I have seen good arguments made for all three, but most of the "all-encompassing" stats have some major flaws. Jonah Keri nicely summarizes these in his piece on Grantland. His choice in using the Baseball Prospectus stat called DRA (Deserved Run Average) is a fine one, as it doesn't attempt to quantify how good a pitcher actually is (like FanGraphs WAR tends to do), but rather how good a pitcher has actually done based on results. I have been working on a similar (albeit much less complicated) stat for a while now that accomplishes a similar goal. My statistic (which for now I will simply call Adjusted ERA) uses HRs, hits, walks, and a 4th category called EBA (extra bases added) to quantify pitcher performance on an ERA scale. Similar to Bill James' Component ERA, this stat attempts to remove "cluster luck" (the sequencing of hits and other events) from ERA and give a better indication of how the pitcher performed. In my version, the EBA component consists of several events (excluding hits and walks) that allow runners to take an extra base (stolen bases and wild pitches, for example) or remove runners that are already on base (pickoffs and double plays, for example).
The top 15 qualified starters in Adjusted ERA for 2015 are:
Based on this, I would have to give a very slight edge to Greinke. Greinke's ability to suppress extra bases (especially in the running game) gave him the slight edge over Arrieta.
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