NL Cy Young: Holy close vote, Batman

Honestly, I'm not trying to be antagonistic with this but doesn't the whole vote for the local player thing just make these types of awards a joke. Shouldn't you take your vote seriously if you have one?

 

I meant I don't usually have a problem with a guy getting a low vote when you know it's a runaway. For example, if it was just Lincecum and a bunch of stiffs and local guy is just as good as any of the rest of the stiffs, I could see a 3rd-place vote for him.

But when there's pretty much no question whatsoever that there are 3 guys head and shoulders above everybody else ... and everyone seems to think it's going to be a ridiculously close vote ... you've gotta vote those three guys 1-2-3.

And Keith Law will get exactly what he wants out of this: people paying attention to, and talking about, him.

 

Batting average against (.206 to Carpenter's .226) and he pitched 32 2/3 more innings. I'd include BAA with strikeouts as statistics that help demonstrate a pitcher's dominance, but the innings do matter. Those are times that Lincecum was out there helping his team and Carpenter was not.

I still would have gone with Carpenter because if it's close, I say you go with the lower ERA. But I have no problem with Lincecum as the choice.

 

Those of you who believe Carpenter is a complete lock for one of the top three spots aren't paying attention to anything other than W/L totals.

Carpenter = 1.007 WHIP, 6.7 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 3.79 K/BB
Vazquez = 1.026 WHIP, 9.8 K/99, 1.8 BB/9, 5.41 K/BB
Haren = 1.003 WHIP, 8.8 K/BB, 1.5 BB/9, 5.87 K/9 (Haren led the league in WHIP)

Vazquez and Haren pitched many more innings than Carpenter.

Lincecum = 1.047 WHIP, 10.4 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 3.84 K/BB (Lincecum led the league in K/9, CG, and shutouts)

Lincecum got the boost from being the reigning champion. He pitched just as well as he did last season and no one was significantly better.

 

Thoughts:

-- Lincecum, by just about every measure, had a better year this year than he did to win his first CYA. Didn't realize that.
-- Was almost certain that Wainwright and Carpenter would cancel each other out. Didn't think it would be that close, actually.
-- Vazquez (and I'm not just being a fanboi) certainly belonged in the discussion. He had a dominating season by any measure. No pain in sticking him in your top 3, especially if you value the innings-pitched factor. He was easily the Braves' best pitcher, and one of the best in the NL.
-- Santana '05 was a much bigger screwjob than Carpenter '09.
-- Here's where Carpenter loses me:

Eckersley, 1992, 80 IP
Gagne, 2003, 82.1 IP
Bedrosian, 1987, 89 IP
Davis, 1989, 92.2 IP
Hernandez, 1984, 140.1 IP
Sutcliffe, 1984, 150.1 IP
Cone, 1994, 171.1 IP

Those are your Cy Young winners in the last quarter-century with fewer than 200 IP (Carpenter, of course, had 192.2 IP.) Just two of those seven winners are starters, and one's in a strike year. Sutcliffe was an extraordinary case.

And here's the damning stat for Carpenter, to me: Three of the four CYA winners in the strike years of 1994-95 threw more innings than he did this year.

Maddux, 1994, 202 IP
Maddux, 1995, 209.2 IP
Johnson, 1995, 214.1 IP

Yeah, he was lights-out when he did pitch, but Lincecum was just as lights-out ... with 30+ IP/4+ GS. That pushes him ahead, and I don't think the 2.24 < 2.48 ERA advantage was enough for Carpenter to overcome the relative lack of time he spent on the mound.

One more thought:

- I hope, for Will Carroll's sake, that he doesn't have any archiveable columns blasting the BBWAA voters for getting anything wrong in years past. (And I don't encourage anyone else to look, either. Not cool to do that.) ... Still. Pretty weak excuse, dude.

 

It's weirder than that, Elliotte. He works for Baseball Prospectus and hadn't thought about the NL Cy Young award? Hell, I'm just a guy who used to be a sportswriter, and I'd thought about it.

 

Be fair to Will Carroll. He was busy tweeting Jenn Sturger's breast-reduction surgery. (This is true.)

 

No way that windup makes it there

 

Vazquez was better than Wainwright.

The people who voted that guy first or second need more scrutiny than the Vazquez votes

 

No offense... but did you guys watch Vazquez pitch this season?