AL Cy Young

I'll add this about CC's performance last night.

He was basically pitching with the lead and on a night when the ball was flying out (seven HRs between the two teams) four of the five runs he gave up scored on a pair of two run HRs.

The Yankees rotation is a mess right now. Pettitte is out. Burnett & Vazquez are struggling. Burnett only lasted 3.1 on Friday night and the Yankees had an untested rookie starting on Sunday.

So, while he gave up five runs, he also shut the White Sox out over his final three innings and gave them seven innings and 113 pitches.

That's pretty clutch.

And in running his record to 18-5 (with a respectable 3.14 ERA) he did take a step closer to the AL Cy Young even if he could have easily dropped to 17-6.

 

Jeez, YF, it's like outside the political threads, we're twins. As you note, the Yanks can't really afford to lose a game Sabathia starts. They can't really afford to have him not go seven in the win. He did his job on a night where he wasn't that good. THAT was a win that meant something, at least to me.

 

Hey, when I saw you had replied, I figured you might disagree with me.

I was willing to take one out of two.

So, you're with me on Sabathia & the Sun-Times. If I could only straighten you out politically.

 

Winners win. Sabathia's a winner.

 

If you were a GM, and your guiding philosophy was "Winners win," you would be fired within a year for incompetence.

 

You guys really ought to pay a little attention to Trevor Cahill.

 

I'll be paying attention tomorrow night.

He's got a favorable draw with the Yankees matching up Moseley (who's done better than could have been expected) against him.

A-Rod's out of the lineup and Teixeira's day to day.

If his teammates want CC to win the Cy Young, they could do him a big favor by pounding Cahill tomorrow night.

 

I doubt I'd be fired for getting a winner like CC Sabathia on my team.

 

I thought TSP was being sarcastic or ironic, but he's right, no one is getting fired for signing someone like CC Sabathia.

 

The first comment is sarcasm. I love how all the holier-than-thous on the board have been jumping all over my "winners win" lines.

The second comment is in line with Kenny Williams' philosopy.

 

And yet, Buchholz was still the better pitcher that night, as he has been all season.

 

I was on my phone before, so didn't expand on my Cahill mention.

As I've mentioned before, I believe the two best ways to measure a pitcher's performance (past, not future -- a key distinction) are his ERA and his opponents OBP. ERA measures run prevention and opponents OBP measures baserunner prevention. That's pretty much the pitcher's job in a nutshell. Everything else is either irrelevant (strikeouts), or too much out of his control (wins).

Anyway, Cahill's 2.43 ERA ranks 2nd only Buchholz (2.21) and his opponents OBP of .267 ranks 2nd only to Cliff Lee (.254).

I think that's a pretty strong argument that he's got to be high in this discussion.

Some others, and their ranks among starters...
CC, 3.14 (7th), .307 (20th)
Price, 3.01 (4th), .310 (24th)
Lee, 3.26 (10th), .254 (1st)
Buchholz, 2.21 (1st), .297 (11th)
Felix, 2.47 (3rd), .282 (4th)
Weaver, 3.21 (8th), .273 (3rd)

Now, I think the winner obviously has to come from this list. I'd say the only guy who comes close to Cahill as far as being dominant in both of these categories is Felix. Although he is behind him in both, he's pretty darn close, and he's pitched 50 more innings.

If I were voting today, I'd probably go
1. Felix
2. Cahill
3. Buchholz
4. Lee
5. Weaver

Of course, all those guys are pretty close, so a lot can change in a month.