FJM has gone dark for the foreseeable future. Sorry folks. We may post once in a while, but it's pretty much over.
You can still e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach.
Phil Rogers Tinkers With Stats; 4 Dead, Logic Wounded
This is going to be annoying to break down. But I can't ignore an article that says that ERA is three times as important as any other stat for a pitcher.
Forget "poor" Josh Beckett. If anyone got overlooked in American League Cy Young voting, it was the Los Angeles Angels' John Lackey, not the Boston Red Sox's Beckett.
Who has been whining about "poor" Josh Beckett? What are those quotes for? I am the biggest Red Sox fan in the world, and I have absolutely no problem with C.C. Sabathia winning the Cy Young award. It was the right choice.
Sabthia: 241 innings with a 1.141 WHIP, a 209/37 K/BB ratio and a 143 ERA+. Beckett: 200.2 innings with an identical 1.141 WHIP, a 194/40 K/BB ratio, and a 145 ERA+.
An additional 40 innings with the same, excellent WHIP and a better K/BB ratio = better year. That's pretty uncontroversial.
Now.
Lackey: 224 innings with a higher 1.210 WHIP, a 179/52 K/BB ratio and a 151 ERA+.
So, better adjusted ERA than Sabathia, but fewer innings, and a significantly worse K/BB ratio (and thus higher WHIP).
This article should now pretty much be over.
Sure, if you factor in the regular season and the postseason, Beckett was the best pitcher in the majors in 2007—a combined 24-7 with a 3.00 earned-run average. It's no accident his team won the World Series.
Again, no argument from me that Beckett should not have won -- nor from any other rational human who understands that post-season stats do not count toward this voting. Sabathia > Beckett in 2007.
But the Cy Young Award, like the other awards the Baseball Writers Association of America hands out, is about getting your team into the playoffs, not carrying them once they're there. They are regular-season awards, and as such, Beckett should not have been better than third in the tight, four-pitcher race involving C.C. Sabathia (the winner by a nose), Fausto Carmona, Lackey and Beckett.
Well, now, hang on there, Sparky.
Carmona: 215 innings, a pretty pedestrian 137/61 K/BB ratio, a 1.209 WHIP (thanks to that crazy sinker thing he throws) and a 151 ERA+.
I'd say that the 60 or so more Ks and fewer walks puts Beckett's year ahead of Carmona's. Carmona's is almost identical to Lackey's, really. In fact, they're all super close. I'm not sure there's a great argument to be made that Lackey or Carmona had a better year than Beckett, except that they did throw more innings...but not many more, and Beckett allowed fewer baserunners per inning...it's probably the closest 4-man race in a long time. I'd say C.C. is the clear winner, Beckett is second, and Lackey and Carmona tie for third.
This was a fascinating vote, in large part because only one victory separated the four of them (Beckett had 20, the other three 19).
The victory total is the absolute worst possible way to compare or contrast their levels of success.
I have no problem with Sabathia winning, but Lackey would have gotten my vote if I had been voting. He led the AL with a 3.01 ERA. Carmona was second at 3.06, followed by Sabathia in fifth at 3.21 and Beckett in sixth at 3.27. No stat better tells the story for pitchers than ERA.
No stat better tells the story for pitchers than ERA.
This is not a story. This is simply a coarse measure of runs scored, which can be affected by relief pitchers. How many of these runs were inherited by relievers who had bad days? How many other runs were saved by relief pitchers who had good games? The story of ERA (not even park adjusted, for goodness sake?) is a fairy tale with a morally ambiguous ending. It's a Golden Book in a dentist's office with 6 pages ripped out by a hyperactive kid. It's a Richard Bachman novel. It's a terrible story.
WHIP, on the other hand, for example, measures an individual pitcher's effectiveness per inning. That's better, for a lot of reasons which should be self-evident.***
For the sake of argument, I put together a simple formula to compare the top four Cy Young vote-getters.It ranks them among each other in victories, losses, ERA, innings and strikeouts. Because I think ERA is the most important, I've given it twice the weight. That formula gives Sabathia a slight edge over Lackey and a significant edge over Beckett and Carmona, who would be tied for third.
I have created a similar formula for judging the viability of the Democratic Presidential candidates. It ranks them among each other in health care plans, economic proposals, interest in aliens, and foreign policy. Because I think interest in aliens is the most important, I have given it twice the weight. That formula gives Dennis Kucinich a slight edge over Clinton, and a significant edge over Edwards and Obama.
If you weighed ERA three times as heavily as the other four stats, you would have a tie between Sabathia and Lackey, with Beckett dropping to a clear fourth.
If you weighed interest in aliens three times as heavily as the other stats, you would have a tie with Kucinich and Alf.
Sabathia's edge over the other guys comes down to leading the league innings and strikeouts.
Innings and strikeouts? What kind of stupid ways are those to measure the effectiveness of a pitcher, whose job is to throw as many innings as possible, and whose best possible outcome in any one at bat is a strikeout? Talk to me when you start weighing Skewed Angle of Cap Brim three times as heavily as strikeouts. Then you get Sabathia in a cake walk. Or Number of Shark Teeth on Necklace 3x as highly as Ks, which gives the award -- for the ninth year in a row -- to Turk Wendell.
That achievement may have contributed to the Indians not going to the World Series, as Sabathia and Carmona clearly wore down during the championship series against Boston.
Sorry -- real quick -- thought we weren't supposed to take anything that happened in the postseason into account, here, birdbrain. Remember when you wrote this -- "the Cy Young Award, like the other awards the Baseball Writers Association of America hands out, is about getting your team into the playoffs, not carrying them once they're there" -- like eleven seconds ago?
Beckett looked the freshest of the Cy Young contenders in October—no wonder; he barely threw 200 innings during the regular season, the lowest total.
Quick recap of the insinuations of the last two sentences: Sabathia threw the most innings in the regular seaosn? He does not deserve the Cy Young Award more than John Lackey, because throwing that many innings led to him being worn down in the post-season. Also, Josh Beckett does not deserve the Cy Young Award because he threw the fewest innings in the regular season, leading him to be fresh in the post-season.
This Is What Happens When Rick Sutcliffe Tries To Come Up With Unconventional Wisdom
Red Sox-Yankees, 4:49 PST. Dusty Baker's in the booth and yet somehow Rick Sutcliffe manages to outcrazy him:
Rick Sutcliffe: We were talking last week, OB, about the Cy Young winner, and it's probably going to be Sabathia or whoever wins tomorrow, Chien-Ming Wang or Beckett, but you know who's had the best year? It's been Roy Halladay.
(No one responds.)
Dave O'Brien: The 0-2 ...
Roy Halladay. Cy Young. Hmm. That's thinking outside the bun. What if instead of picking the guy with the best ERA in the league, we pick the guy who has the 19th-best ERA? How about instead of choosing a guy who leads his team in WHIP, we vote for a guy who's third on his own staff (behind Dustin McGowan and Shawn Marcum (yes, I realize Marcum has some relief appearances thrown in there, but Jesus, it's Shawn Marcum we're talking about here))?
In previous years, yes, Roy Halladay has sometimes been a phenomenal starter. But let's let these very traditional, very digestible statistics speak for themselves:
3.91 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 129 K, 45 BB
Cy ... Young? Has Sutcliffe even watched baseball this year? Maybe someone is pulling an elaborate experiment on him wherein Sut is constantly wearing contact lenses that show him baseball games from 2003 in place of the current year's games. Yes, that must be it.
--
Later, Robinson Cano strikes out and Sutcliffe tries to remove himself from the giant, crazy person-shaped hole he's just dug.
Rick Sutcliffe: Getting back to Roy Halladay -- the reason I say that is he doesn't have the Yankees or Red Sox lineup behind him, and yet he's gotta face them. I mean, it's so much tougher to pick up a win when you've got to pitch against these two lineups and you don't have that lineup behind you.
There's some grain of truth behind what Sut's saying, but it's obscured by the K2-size mountain of ludicrosity that is picking Roy Halladay for the Cy Young. Yes, Halladay has faced Boston 5(!) times and the Yankees twice. But I'm fairly confident that saying that the quality of lineups he's faced has not, in fact, accounted for the three-quarters of a run in ERA that separates him from some of the best Cy candidates.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that C.C. Sabathia has pitched 40 more innings than Josh Beckett and Chien-Ming Wang to this point in the season? That's pretty fucking incredible. If you're leading the league in innings and you're still third in ERA, you're doing a pretty awesome job at pitching.
The Essence of What Is Wrong with the Way That Awards are Given Out In Major League Baseball; and Also, the Essence of What is Wrong-Headed About Joe
When asked by Karl R. if he thought that John Lackey should be considered the frontrunner for the Cy Young this year, Joe said yes, because, "his team is playing well, and he's 'the man.'"
Emphasis mine. Irrelevancy his.
Can someone explain why the team's performance on the 80% of days Lackey does not pitch should affect whether he gets the award for best pitcher?
Also, please read Junior's attack on Eric Wilbur below. It's way better than this piddling little post. I'm just in a bad mood because it turns out Yakov had no Labor Day Weekend shows scheduled. I was all set to see the 9:30 and the 3:00, and instead I get nothing. What a country.
A rather large hattip to our dear friend Dan, who points out that in accepting the National League Cy Young award, Brandon Webb manages to invoke the first, second, and third persons in the span of three short sentences.
"It was pretty big emotions. We were very excited for it. It's with you forever."
Baseball is unlike any other professional sport. A majority of the players never went to college and were tossed into a business at the age of 17 or 18 and forced to sink or swim -- socially, that is. I'm telling you right now, major league baseball is a haven for social misfits. Guys who just don't get it.
Not Todd Jones. I've never met a more humble, genuine pro athlete. A true good guy.
I'm happy that Todd Jones is nice. That makes me happy. I like nice people. Why do you bring this up, Matt?
Why do I bring this up?
Yes. Why do you bring this up?
Because the other day I was watching baseball highlights and saw Jones mow down yet another team in another comeback situation. He leads the majors in saves, and plays for the team (Detroit) with the best record in baseball -- and the best story in baseball.
Vance Wilson catches for them sometimes. MVP?
Although, to be fair, one of the stated criteria for Cy Young consideration is that the team on which the potential candidate plays must have a Minimum Good Story Quotient (MGSQ) of at least 40.0. The Tigers are an outrageous 88.6 right now, so...point Jones! (The team with the Lowest Good Story Quotient Index? Surprisingly, it's the Giants, at a pathetic 26.3. Must be all the Bonds stuff. Or it could be that I made all this up, and there is no such thing.)
There's still a month and a half to go in the regular season, but if Jones continues to lead the league in saves -- and considering there is [sic] all of three pitchers with an ERA under 3.00 in both leagues -- give him the Cy Young Award.
Anyone else want to handle this? No? It's all me? Okay.
Ahem.
That might be the stupidest idea I have ever heard, in re: who should receive a major award.
Todd Jones:
45.2 IP 52 H 25 ER 21 Ks 4.93 ERA 4.81 DERA (so it isn't flukey)
Do you know where Todd Jones ranks in VORP for pitchers in MLB?
261st.
Daniel Cabrera of the Orioles is 260th. Kirk Saarloos of Oakland is 243rd. Elmer Dessens of Kansas City is 264th.
Granted, Jones is a reliever, but he is incredibly mediocre. The idea that saves, perhaps the most arbitrary stat in the universe, would alone make the guy a viable Cy Young candidate...it's too stupid to even joke about. But if you do want to talk saves, idiotically, here's KRod, who has 30 saves -- or one less than Jonesy:
48 IP 35 H 12 ER 62 Ks 2.25 ERA 2.58 DERA 1.06 WHIP .201 BAA
What is even a remotely possible argument for Jones over KRod? Maybe KRod isn't nice enough.
I also love the insane -- insane -- assertion that an ERA under 3.00 is vital, somehow, for Cy consideration. Roy Halladay and Johan Santana do not have ERAs under 3.00. I would still like them to play for my team, please. Plus, if ERA is so great, how about your boy Jonesy and his sub-par but Very Nice Guyish 4.93? (I know he's a closer, so one bad inning can affect him more, but come on.)
I don't care about Francisco Liriano or Jones' teammate Justin Verlander. Or the argument that relievers don't do enough (compared to starters) to earn the award. Ask the Yankees how important a reliever is.
What does it mean when your left eye goes blurry and you get a tension headache? Is that a migraine or a stroke? Because that's what's happening to ol' Ken right about now.
Liriano is injured, perhaps seriously, and that is going to kill his chances for the Cy. Amazingly, he's still 3rd in VORP in the AL, even though he hasn't pitched in a while. But Verlander...Verlander is so much more important to the Tigers it's not even funny. He's 4th in VORP.
And if you think what Jones is doing is anywhere close to what Mariano Rivera has done in any of the past 11 years, I will call the cops. Seriously. I will have to call the cops on you. Because you are dangerous.
It's too overwhelming to try to point out why Hayes "not caring" about these arguments is not justification for Jones to win the Cy Young Award. Instead, here are some pitchers who, by any measure, are better candidates, and suffice to say each of their claims to the award is backed by irrefutable evidence that even in the partially subjective world of award-giving could simply not be, well, refuted.
Halladay J. Santana E. Santana KRod Verlander Contreras Schilling Rivera Mussina Wang Haren Bonderman Zito Lackey Papelbon Kazmir Sabathia
Now, I don't think all of these guys are actually good choices for the award, but they are all way way way better than Todd Jones. And even if we do that thing where you limit the candidates to teams who are real contenders, that still leaves at least a dozen of those guys.
Is universally regarded as a terrifying train wreck of a closer by Detroit fans.
Is such a humble, genuine good guy that he once declared that if he found out a teammate was gay, he'd refuse to play with him.
Writes for the Sporting News. Why, that's where the article proclaiming him the deserving Cy Young was published! It's a small, wacky world, Ken Tremendous.
This isn't exactly statistical analysis, but for those of you who are interested, here's what Todd Jones -- who is such a good, good, nice, swell guy -- said about gay MLBers:
"I wouldn't want a gay guy being around me," Jones told the paper. "It's got nothing to do with me being scared. That's the problem: All these people say he's got all these rights. Yeah, he's got rights or whatever, but he shouldn't walk around proud. It's like he's rubbing it in our face. 'See me, Hear me roar.' We're not trying to be close-minded, but then again, why be confrontational when you don't really have to be?"
Around The Horn, July 19th, 2006. "Buying or Selling" Francisco Liriano as your AL Cy Young Award Winner?
Woody Paige steps to the mic. First, he informs Kevin Blackistone what "WHIP" actually stands for (Blackistone, believe it or not, had pronounced it letter for letter: W.H.I.P.). "WHIP stands for Why Halladay Is Pre-eminent!"
Great. Hilarious. Here are Paige's reasons why he likes Halladay better than Liriano: "He has more wins, more innings pitched, more shutouts, fewer walks, and he plays for a team that's not as good!"
Let's take it slowly here. More wins.
Halladay has twelve. Liriano has eleven. Of course, Halladay has started seven more games than Liriano. One fewer win with seven fewer starts.
The better argument, of course, is that wins are a poor way to measure a pitcher's value. Keep in mind that Halladay gets 6.98 runs of support per game (good enough for 7th in all of baseball), while Liriano gets 5.82.
Oh wait -- I forgot. Halladay has a Pitcher Influence Over The Hitters Of His Own Team of +5.33. Liriano's is -.40. Maybe Halladay is better than Liriano.
Oh wait -- I forgot again. That doesn't exist. More innings pitched.
He does. Halladay has more innings pitched than Liriano. About 33 innings. More starts, obviously. Should Liriano be penalized because the Twins didn't start him all year? Maybe a little. He's certainly more valuable as a starter than as a reliever.
Still, Liriano's innings are just way better than Halladay's. Liriano's BAA is about .052 lower than Halladay's. Pretty substantial. His WHIP is .11 better.
Use pretty much any metric you want, and Liriano comes out on top. I don't have the energy to go through all of them. More shutouts.
Well, Woodrow makes a good point. I'm sure Halladay has like four shutouts and Liriano doesn't have any. Shutouts aren't a great stat, but sure, they show that on a given day, that guy was absolutely dominant. I'll just look up the stats to confirm --
Oh, okay. This makes more sense. Woody Paige just decided to make this shit up.
Neither Halladay nor Liriano has a shutout this year. They have the same number. Zero.
You know who does have one? Mark Hendrickson! He's not even the AL anymore. Must be better than Halladay and Liriano!
Woody Paige just lied to you. Do not trust Woody Paige.
Fewer walks.
True. Halladay has fewer walks than Liriano. Nine fewer.
He also has fewer strikeouts. Forty fewer. And he plays for a team that's not as good!
I'm not 100% sure what Woody means. First of all, the Twins and Blue Jays have basically the same record. They're separated by like 1/2 a game.
On top of that, I don't know if he meant that Halladay was on a better team, or a worse team. He was using pronouns instead of proper names, and the way he was talking and stumbling, it was basically too close to call.
Thanks to that ambiguity, we have a nice example of two pieces of conventional baseball wisdom that contradict each other.
"Plus, Halladay's on the better team. His team is in the playoff race, and his success is more important than Liriano's because it's kept the Blue Jays close. Halladay for Cy Young!"
vs.
"Plus, Halladay's done all this on a team that's not even that great! He's been the best thing about the Blue Jays this year, and he has a tougher time winning because his team is worse than Liriano's. Halladay for Cy Young!"
So, I don't know which way Woody was going here. Let's break it down like this:
Woody, if you think the Twins are better -- and I think that's what you were saying:
First, look at the standings. Look at the teams' run differentials and their expected W-L records. (As of today, they're identical.) Second, even though you think the Twins are better, look again at Halladay's run support vs. Liriano's. Third, look at all the numbers, not just the ones you chose. And the one you made up. Also consider that one of the main reasons that the Twins are better is in fact because they have Francisco Liriano.
Now, if you think the Blue Jays are better:
First, look at the standings. Second, remember that Cy Young voting is supposed to be independent of the team a pitcher plays for. Third, you are right in that Halladay's team is better, on average, when Halladay pitches than the Twins when Liriano pitches. They score more runs. And this should be held against Roy Halladay.
Now, for the opposite of your enjoyment, Woody Paige's Top 10 lists.
Mike Celizic is wrong all the time. And the interesting thing about Mike Celizic and how he is wrong, is that he often explains his reasoning in a way that indicates that he knows he is wrong. It's very confusing.
To wit: here is his explanation for why Chris Carpenter should have won the Cy Young this year.
Get over the notion that Roger Clemens deserved his eighth Cy Young Award on the basis that he had the lowest ERA in 10 years and is as old as the Rocky Mountains and equally as admired.
Nice opening here -- a crazy run-on sentence, which also ascribes to people a belief I don't think they hold. I think most people held the notion that Roger Clemens deserved his eighth Cy Young on the basis that he had an awesome year. And comparing the amount he is admired to the amount the Rocky Mountains are admired is clumsy and bizarre.
The Cy Young Award goes to the best pitcher, not the most popular, not the one with the best human-interest sidebar nor the one who stands to get the most endorsement deals for hanging up another plaque.
Again, I think that there are plenty of people who simply believe Clemens was the best pitcher last year. I don't believe there were a lot of people who thought he should get the Cy Young Award because he is popular, or because they want him to get endorsement deals. (What does that even mean?)
And as much as I found what Houston Astros' Clemens did last season beyond belief, he wasn’t the National League’s best pitcher. That person would be Chris Carpenter, the St. Louis Cardinals ace who blossomed after seven years of underachievement into a starter who went 21-5 with a 2.83 ERA, seven complete games and four shutouts. And if it’s not Carpenter, it’s Dontrelle Willis of the Florida Marlins, the 2003 Rookie of the Year who rebounded this season after a sophomore slump to lead the NL in wins with 22.
But it’s not Clemens.
Now.
Solid arguments can of course be made for all three of these guys. Let's get this out of the way:
Carpenter: 241.2 IP, 204 H, 18 HR, 213/51 K/BB, 1.06 WHIP, .231 BAA. He went 21-5, 2.83. Clemens: 211.1 IP, 151 H, 11 HR, 185/62 K/BB, 1.01 WHIP, .198 BAA. He went 13-8, 1.87. D-Train: 236.1 IP, 213 H, 11 HR, 170/55 K/BB, 1.13 WHIP, .243 BAA. He went 22-10, 2.63.
To my eye, it's almost a wash. Carpenter and Willis get the slight nod in innings over Roger, but all three WHIPs are essentially identical, and superb. Carpenter wins in Ks, but Clemens's absurdly low hit total (probably party the result of good situational karma) deserves consideration. Clemens and Willis both allowed a ridiculous 11 HR. Really, any one of them is a good candidate. (I can't help but add that Johan Santana had a better year than all of them, and he didn't win his league's Cy, because... well, read my earlier post about Bartolo Colon. Neither here nor there.)
Let's see why Celizic favors Carpenter.
I’ll admit the arguments for Clemens are attractive, even if they’re not compelling. He rang up 1.87 ERA, which is the lowest since Greg Maddux fashioned a 1.63 ERA for the Atlanta Braves in 1995, when umpires were still giving him three or four inches outside the black on both sides of home plate... if the Cy were given to the best age-adjusted performance or the most impressive performance by a guy who uses a walker to get to the team bus, Clemens would be your man.
Why are you making fun of Roger Clemens's age? He's an unbelievable pitcher. Partly because of how old he is, but take his numbers and ascribe them to a guy half his age and they're still just as impressive. What point is Celizic trying to make here? Or is it just a lame joke?
But there’s a little problem with wins; Clemens had just 13 of them against eight defeats. His defenders will say quite accurately that the Rocket got less support from the Astros than Anna Nicole Smith would get from a Kleenex bra. They were shut out in seven of his starts, five of which ended in 1-0 scores, and handed him just 18 runs total in his first 11 starts.
If Clemens were still pitching for the New York Yankees, he would have won 20, but if a squirrel had longer ears and hind legs and a little powder-puff tail, it would be a rabbit. The game isn’t about ifs, it’s about numbers.
Please read that last sentence again.
So, Roger Clemens pitched well enough to win 20 games with a team that had a better offense. But the game isn't about ifs, it's about numbers. So, to put it another way: this game is about numbers, and if one thing -- that has nothing to do with numbers -- were different, Roger Clemens would have won the Cy Young.
Roger Clemens should not win the Cy Young award for individual achievement in pitching because of the failures of the other 24 guys on his team. Explain that. Imagine I run a world record-setting opening leg of a 4x100 relay. I blow everyone else away. Then the next guy stumbles and accidentally swallows the baton and poops in his pants and we lose. Am I a bad runner?
Although I think Carpenter was the man on the basis of start-to-finish consistency, I wouldn’t think it a horrible injustice if Willis were to win. Dontrelle did have one more win, 22 to 21 for Carpenter, and an ERA of 2.63, which was two-tenths of a run lower than Carpenter’s 2.83.
Dontrelle's bullpen was slightly better in his starts than Carpenter's bullpen was in his. So Dontrelle deserves...what? Points for being a good cheerleader? And Dontrelle's ERA was two-tenths of a run lower, which means that Carpenter gave up one extra earned run roughly every four or five starts.
Carpenter...was steady from start to finish — although he struggled somewhat in September —
Carpenter was always good. Except for a period of time when he was bad.
--and he anchored a staff for the National League’s winningest team. He’s a guy who spent six years in Toronto, never winning more than 12 games and putting up a winning record just twice.
Irrelevant.
Last year, he started to find his way with the Cardinals, going 15-5.
Irrelevant.
This year, he added six wins without adding any losses. He, and not Roger Clemens, deserved to be the NL Cy Young winner on Thursday.
Debatable. But not for any of the reasons you mentioned. Certainly not because he had more wins.
Most people would call Dontrelle Willis the midseason NL Cy Young, because he has the gaudy stats (13-3, 1.89). But I favor [Livan] Hernandez because the Nationals are in first place, while the Florida Marlins are in third. Hernandez is the reason the Nationals are in first place. Without him, Washington wouldn't be in first, while the Marlins aren't in first place with Willis.
Livan Hernandez is having a good year. But he has given up 139 hits in 134 innings, and has a 78/50 K/BB ratio for a 1.41 WHIP. What does this mean to me? He has gotten phenomenally lucky. D-Train has a 92/23 K/BB, and a 1.08 WHIP. His BAA is .243, as opposed to Livan's .273. He has given up a total of 3HR in 123.2 IP. He is so much better than Livan Hernandez this year it's a joke. (For the record, Clemens has been better than both of them.) I understand, I guess, factoring in "team performance" for the MVP, but the Cy is for the best pitcher, period. Livan would be a stupid choice, especially if the reason for giving it to him is simply that the Nats have been a few lucky games better than the Marlins this year.
To me, wins are the most important pitching stat, and then I factor in how those wins have contributed to team success. ERA is the least important stat, in my judgment.
Well, yes, ERA is incredibly unimportant. But...wins? So, if I pitch five innings and give up eleven runs, but my teams scores 12, I am a good pitcher? But if I throw a complete-game no-hitter and give up a run on three errors, and my team gets shut out, I am a bad pitcher? Do you EVER think about things before you say them, Joe? Wins are arguably the very least important stat for a pitcher. Look at Clemens and his 7-3 record. Is the Rangers's Chris Young having a better year? Because he's 8-5.
Last year's NL Cy Young winner is also a Cy Young candidate this year. At 42 years old, Roger Clemens has the best ERA in the majors, but the Houston Astros haven't given him much run support (7-3, 1.41).
But...you just said...ERA didn't matter...and...all that mattered...was wins...growing faint...need...logic...
Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter (13-4, 2.51) is in the mix, but I don't think he'll win the award at the end of the year.
Thanks for justifying why you think this. Oh, wait. You didn't.
Although Willis is from my hometown of Oakland and played in the Joe Morgan baseball league in Oakland, Hernandez gets my vote for midseason Cy Young.
This might be the most amazing sentence he has ever written. What kind of causality claim did he reject before settling on this? "Although Willis has a new viking range in his kitchen, Hernandez gets my vote." "Although Willis has never been to Norway, Hernandez gets my vote." "Although Willis spelled backwards is "Silliw," Hernandez gets my vote."
Joe Morgan is making the argument that the an important criterion for winning the Cy Young is how your teammates perform on the four days you don't pitch, which is the main thing that separates these two particular candidates. Do you get the feeling that he has no friends who enjoy talking baseball with him?
Rick Sutcliffe last night said he would go with Jake Peavy. He offered 2 reasons. Reason 1: Peavy had the best era in the national league LAST YEAR; Reason 2: a lot of guys fear him, and do not want to face him.
He didn't elaborate on why he thinks Peavy is his favorite right now. But he is something like 9th in era this year (Clemens is first), and has a worse WHIP than Clemens and the same 7-3 record as Clemens. So, I suppose he would pick Peavy over Clemens because SD is in first place, slightly above .500. Which of course makes no sense.
