Sabathia wins AL Cy Young

I'm not discounting how great a ratio that is, because it is ... (higher than any active pitcher's career K/BB today) ...

But Sabathia's 5.65 K/BB ratio was the lowest to lead the American League since 2001 (when Radke had a 5.27). Speaks more to how dominant the top AL pitchers (Schilling, Halladay, Martinez) have been than anything else, though.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/SOpBB_leagues.shtml

That said, it's a pretty clear sign of how much more dominant Sabathia was than Carmona.

 

I'm not a big fan of the ratio argument, or strikeouts for that matter, over ERA.

I would argue for Sabathia over Carmona, too, but only because of the large gap in innings pitched. Sabathia was leading the way for the Indians all season. It's not Carmona's fault that the Indians didn't put him in the rotation sooner, but it's not like you can credit him for things he didn't get to do, either.

Also, if you take away those two extra starts Sabathia got before Carmona's first outing of the season and the big lefty would still have thrown 13 more innings.

Is it unfair to say the Indians asked more of Sabathia than they did of Carmona and that he stayed in games at times when Carmona would have been pulled?

 

I have to admit, Junkie makes an interesting case for Carmona. But Sabathia's peripherials are so much better that I'd still vote for himi. In addition, Carmona's K ratio makes me wonder how good he'll be long-term...he's better than Chien-Ming Wang, certainly, but I can't see him emerging as an ace unless he records more whiffs. Though when you throw 97 with sink...

And really, the only reason I can think of for Mark Shapiro winning Executive of the Year is because he's a great politician. Roberto Hernandez, Trot Nixon, David Dellucci, signing Cliff Lee and Jake Westbrook long-term...that's a whole lot of money pissed away for a team that's supposedly pinching pennies. His homegrown/internal guys (Franklin Gutierrez, Jensen Lewis, Rafael Betancourt, Carmona, Aaron Laffey) ended up emerging over the veterans anyway. And unless CC has made it clear he wants to oblilterate Zito's deal, I will never undersatnd why they decided to sign Lee and Westbrook and leave Sabathia unsigned going into his walk year. Even then, the Indians have some pretty good pitching in the minors. No reason, none at all, to re-sign both Lee and Westbrook.

 

He isn't even MVE of the Indians, that's Omar.

 

Can't argue with that. Imagine if the Indians hadn't pissed away Phillips. See what I mean? Lots of mistakes made by a team whose cheap-ass owner market leaves it no margin for error.

 

One thing about Carmona is that his K-rate improved a great deal over the final four months of the season. In nine starts during April and May, Carmona struck out only 3.32 batters per nine innings pitched.

The rest of the way, in 23 starts, he struck out 6.7 betters per nine innings. If that is the real Carmona, he is striking out enough batters to be effective. A ratio of 6.7 strikeouts per nine innings pitched is better than Derek Lowe (6.64), Bronson Arroyo (6.66), Roy Oswalt (6.54), Andy Pettitte (5.89) and Brad Penny (5.84), to name a few.

Carmona's actual ratio for the entire season was 5.73, not that far behind Penny and ahead of Tim Hudson (5.30). Also, Carmona doesn't need an elite strikeout ratio to be effective because he generate so many ground balls. The double plays he gets behind him help compensate when he isn't missing bats.

He could fall back some, but he has shown the ability to improve that strikeout ratio.

Wang's ratio, by the way, was 4.7.

 

Hard to argue with the signings (Lee and Westbrook, no the other guys) at the time. Who knew Lee would shit the bed so spectacularly?
Maybe the award was kind of like a lifetime achievement thing though, more for the big-picture rebuilding of the team than any move this year, who knows. He does have their minors pretty stocked, especially with pitchers.

 

Lee's numbers K ratio dropped dramatically in 2005 and 2006:
2004: 161 Ks/179 IP
2005: 143 Ks/202 IP
2006: 129 Ks/200 2/3 IP

In that span, the only year he had an ERA below 4.00 and a WHIP below 1.40 was 2005.

A very good case could be made that the Indians had already gotten the best out of Lee. I can understand signing Westbrook b/c he was pretty durable before this year (and displayed a better K rate when he came back)., But Lee? That looked to me like a bad signing from day one.

 

No one does, actually. An "elite strikeout ratio" has little to do with effectiveness, on its own.

But striking out a lot of batters -- or having a high K/BB ratio -- is a sign of dominance. The most dominant pitchers tend to strike out more batters, giving them more control of the outcome (or, as Simon put it, it's the only out that guarantees a baserunner not advancing, K-PB aside.) Same with WHIP -- you don't need a low one to be effective, but you're more dominant if you do.

Guys with lower strikeout totals are more at the whim of the players behind them, so a pitcher on a good fielding team will tend to have better numbers than a pitcher on a poor fielding team, even if they induce the exact same results on the mound.

Sabathia was a lot more dominant than Carmona this year. Not just because of his K/BB, which led the AL, but that's definitely part of it.

 

More than being at the whim of fielders, they are also more subject to luck. Some grounder go through, some popups fall.

 

True enough, and Carmona had a few starts in which he blew up because all of the grounders snuck through. But his ability induce double-play grounders helps somewhat.

I was talking about Carmona in terms of whether he can sustain his success more than arguing for him over Sabathia for this season.

 

Joba for Cy Young?