During my short hiatus, no thanks to some glitch in the systems, I had to depend on other sites for my baseball fill. My VFTB withdrawal was a hard pill to swallow when you’re stuck reading substandard baseball reporting from the “big” sports news networks. Ugh. I can spew more worthless information about two East coast teams, whom will remain nameless, than I care to know. Double ugh. Yesterday, I came across this gem, “Why C.C. Sabathia should win the NL Cy Young,” by Steve Aschburner. It brought up some interesting history of AL guys coming over to the NL and making a case for the CY Young award even though they had roughly half a season of work.
Wht C.C. has accomplished up north of the Illinois border, is nothing short of impressive. I’m not so sure I’d just hand it over to him just yet though. With about six weeks of baseball left, things go go south in hurry, it’s a little presumptious to be giving out awards just yet. If, and I don’t think it’s going to happen, the Brewers take the Central from the Cubs, then I would most certainly seriously consider it. Kind of like a certain redhead the Cubs snagged back in ‘84. What is it with the Indians?
That being said, I’d still have to look at C.C’s American League portion of the season before I went and handed him the award as well. I’m sorry but, I still think you have to look at the total resume. Granted he pitched on a underperforming Indians team, but he’s been there before. His 6-8 record was nothing to get too weepy over. Although his other numbers (WHIP, BB-K ratio, etc.) were impressive. A dominant pitcher should still get a poor team a chance to win everytime they take the mound. It’s exactly why I don’t think Zambrano will ever win the award. the Cubs can’t count on him to shut down the opponent each and every game. He’s too inconsistent.
I’m not sure how you can completely discount Brandon Webb, or our very own, Ryan Dempster. These two guys over the course of the entire season, have been the most consistent guys to take the bump. I guess, when I think Cy Young award, I think who was the most consistent pitcher that showed he was out classing hitters each and every game. For the whole season. Maybe I’m looking at all wrong. I just don’t think you can hand an award out to someone based off of a segment of their work. That’s like your manager giving you a bonus based on two weeks of awesome work, while you sluff it the rest of the year. It don’t make no sense to me.
His 6-8 record was nothing to get too weepy over.
Are people still using wins to look at the worth of a pitcher? Pitcher are wins have way too much context to give any insight into the type of pitcher one is.
A dominant pitcher should still get a poor team a chance to win everytime they take the mound.
No. A dominant pitcher should be able to dominate a team. That doesn’t mean that the dominant pitcher’s team will win.
Pitcher wins are one of the most overvalued statistics in baseball.
I will have more later… maybe a full post.
Dempster = no
Webb = absolutely
If you look at his starts during that 6-8 record Dave, he wasn’t dominant. That’s what I’m saying. He was down right atrocious during some of those games.
Unless Webb implodes it is his to lose. You all know I have been mentioning our own Ryan Dempster who I think will now be seriously considered in the top 4 or 5 candidates. Unfortunatley WINS carry alot of weight with this award. And often wins take luck. Dempster has certainly proven to be worthy of the award this year but has not been as lucky as Webb.
I will still have more later… BUT…
Tim Lincecum probably deserves to win the Cy Young. He has been the best pitcher in the NL all year.
If Cliff Lee can win the Cy Young in the AL, Lincecum should be able to win it in the AL.
I agree with most, there is a month left though, so Demp has an outside shot, IF the D-Backs miss the playoffs, and IF he can reach 20 wins.
But it’s probably WEBB, based on performance and importance to his team. Certainly, the D-Backs are buried without him.
Certainly, the D-Backs are buried without him.
Well… they are also buried without Haren, who you could argue is having a better season than Webb. And they are also buried without Randy Johnson, who has been pretty dominating in the second half of the season.
More on Haren vs. Webb.
Webb has more wins and a better ERA.
Haren has more k’s, less bbs, and a better whip in slightly less innings.
Webb has 20 winshares to Haren’s 18.
Webb has a 49.6 VORP to Haren’s 48.2.
They are essentially equal in their performances, possibly giving a very slight edge to Webb.
But I think this shows pretty clearly that starting pitcher wins are somewhat meaningless - Webb has five more wins than Haren, but hasn’t really been a better pitcher this year.
I’m not sure W-L is meaningless. It’s just emphasized more than it should be. Lots of luck is tied to it. BUT, you still need to pitch well to get Win.
BUT, you still need to pitch well to get Win.
No you don’t.
You can pitch poorly and get wins. And you can pitch great and get a loss.
For example… Rich Harden has one loss and two no decisions where he gave up 1 run or less.
Marquis has wins where he gave up 5 runs in 7 innings, 4 runs in 6 innings, and 4 runs in 5.1 innings. That is not pitching well, but he still got wins.
Hmmm, seems to me Marquis must have pitched well, at least one of those innings to at least let the offense take the lead, and thus him getting the win.
^Dave, I understand what you are saying, but if you’re going to make it as simple as that then anybody could go pitch in the majors. Just throw anybody on the mound and hope your team hits.
Rich Harden pitched very well in those games he lost. They were close games because of his pitching–if he’d had an off day, those games would/could have been blow-outs.
We can sit here and argue about the if, or if not, Win-Loss records are stupid til we’re blue in the face. The fact of the matter is, that no Cy Young winner has ever won less that 16 games, with the exception of the few closers that have won it.
Win-Loss will always be an important factor in the award, it’s just the way it is. No use fighting it. Blah.
Hmmm, seems to me Marquis must have pitched well, at least one of those innings to at least let the offense take the lead, and thus him getting the win.
No… it just means that the Cubs offense was better than Marquis was bad.
I understand what you are saying, but if you’re going to make it as simple as that then anybody could go pitch in the majors. Just throw anybody on the mound and hope your team hits.
No… not at all. There are good pitchers and bad pitchers. And good pitchers typically give a team a better chance of winning than bad pitchers. But evaluating pitchers on their win-loss record doesn’t made sense. Evaluating pitchers on how well they pitched makes sense.
Win-Loss will always be an important factor in the award, it’s just the way it is. No use fighting it. Blah.
Oh… don’t get me wrong. I agree that W-L records factor into how people vote for the Cy Young. My point is that the rest of us shouldn’t use the same very faulty argument.
Wins and losses are the foundaltional element to choosing Cy Young candidates (except for the occassional reliever). This might be good or bad. But there is no doubt that it is the win loss record that gets people invited to the dance.
Blown wins by the bullpen…kills some of the best SP’s.
I rather like quality starts as a tie breaker if the race is close. Of course those stats may also be comparable.
Webb is the clear leader, IMHO.
I rather like quality starts as a tie breaker if the race is close.
Quality starts are a half-decent measure to judge half-decent pitchers.
But it is another pretty irrelevant stat for Cy Young winners. If a pitcher through a quality start every outing, they could have an ERA of 4.50.
Ace pitchers (i.e. Cy Young candidates) should have much higher expectations than 3 runs in 6 innings.
Brad Ziegler for AL Cy Young - anyone with me?
Maybe we can over-analyze that too.
Lincecum should be the NL Cy Young Award winner. Period.
We can over analyze anything!
Haha, Matt - that is why I’m addicted to this site!
Josh…we have a ways to go yet. Neither Linecum or Webb are locks by any stretch of the imagination.
For C.C. to get the Cy is a joke.
Even when they hand them out it’s a joke, it’s a wait and see type of deal even a great pitcher on a bad team could get it.
I think Tim Lincecum should be included in this discussion…
Pretty sure he has already been included in the conversation…
What’s his Win - Loss record?
One guy who deserves some Cy Young hype that isn’t getting is Brad Lidge. As much as I hate to say nice things about him, he has made a tremendous impact on that team and has been consistently good all season. Probably the biggest impact pitcher on a contending team that has been there and performing consistently well all year.
After that, you’ve got to go with Lincecum, Webb or Dempster… and they are not going to give it to Dempster cause Cliff Lee is going to win in the AL and the writers just won’t be able to handle to non-star names in one year.
Maybe someone should suggest Soto for the NL Cy Young. I mean no actual pitcher has separated himself from the rest, but this guy has been the one consistent fixture for the NL’s best staff top-to-bottom and all in his first year. His first year that coincides with incredible performances in new roles by Dempster and Wood. Soto has to get a little credit for their breakthroughs and the continued performance of our other hurlers. Just a silly thought.
^ Kind of like Sandy Martinez. Remember him? He was the catcher for Wood’s 20K game.
Poor, poor Sandy.