AL Cy Young

Cranberry, after 8 pages, you & TSP have finally gotten down to the real issue.

I'm fine if you guys want to argue that ERA, WHIP and other numbers should be given greater precedence over wins. You all make a very compelling case.

But, let's be clear, you're arguing for the award to be judged in a different manner than it has been historically. Maybe you're right and there's already been a shift in how voters look at the numbers, but I think TSP is right. Historically, if there's a pitcher who has far more wins than anyone else in the league -- and it's 20 wins or greater -- he's going to win.

When no one has 20 wins, which isn't too often, the other numbers get looked at more closely.

But for posters to act like anyone who puts an emphasis on wins is an idiot is not being fair.

Wins have always been a big part of who wins the Cy Young.

We're looking at it just as voters have looked at it for decades.

 

Darn you and your facts.

 

Wins have been given far too much weight historically and that's gradually being corrected. Wins should have some weight ... but not very much.

 

Like I said, that's a fair argument. You might even be right, and maybe the voters are moving more towards this point of view.

I won't bitch if that's how voters decide to look at it.

But it's not how it's always been. And it would be nice if some of the other posters would acknowledge that.

 

I mentioned Wilson on the last page. He has probably 6 starts left and would have to get a W in all of them to get to 20 wins, which would be historic — you hear of guys like Eckersley and Smoltz going the other way, but I don't know if anyone has ever won 20 games as a starter a year after finishing 30 games as a reliever.

 

That's why I said almost always. It sure as hell didn't go to someone with 15 wins that year.

 

Brandon Webb in 08. 22 wins. Came in 3rd. Lincecum and Santana, with 18 and 16, IIRC. Finished 1-2.

 

More damn facts.

 

I, for one, never said differently. I said what cranberry has been saying, that the voters have gotten better and they know enough now to look past wins.

 

We've acknowledged it. Repeatedly.

We just don't agree with it.

 

This thread has hit on a pet peeve of mine. As one of the (28 or 32) people who votes for the Cy Young, I get irritated reading so many blogs/columns/message board posts that say, essentially...

"XXXX should win, but he won't because the voters are too stupid."

I must have read that 20 times about Zack Greinke last year. Although I never actually read a piece from an actual baseball writer who suggested anyone other than Greinke should win, I read a lot of pieces that said "Greinke should win, but he won't."

Guess what? Greinke got 25 of 28 first-place votes.

Wainwright, who led the NL in wins last year, came in 3rd.
Brandon Webb, who led the NL with 22 wins in 08, came in 2nd (I was wrong before), but he got only 4 first place votes. Lincecum won easily.
Mike Mussina, who won 20 in 2008, came in 6th.

Yes, you can point to Cy Youngs from years ago, or even earlier in the past decade, where the voters got it wrong. But I think it is very clear that the voters do a much better job now than even five years ago.

(As an aside, the voters change every year. The 28 AL Cy voters this year might include only 4 or 5 who voted for that award last year. Another point to remember is that the guys who vote for the annual awards are almost all beat writers, so they are much younger than, say, the HOF voters, a group that includes a lot of old-timers and columnists.)

 

Well, Sabathia got lucky again this afternoon.

His offense picked him up and he was able to run his record to 19-5 despite giving up 1 hit in eight shutout innings.

He also lowered his ERA to 3.02.

All along the reason I've picked him to win the Cy Young was that I believed he'd close out the season strong.

So far, so good with my prediction.