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NL Cy Young Voters Get It Right
Written by Daniel Moroz   
Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:31

Congratulations to Tim Lincecum for winning the NL Cy Young award this year, as well as to the BBWAA voters for actually giving it to him. I was fairly sure that Chris Carpenter was going to win based on his league leading 2.24 ERA and 17-4 record, or – failing that – it would go to his Cardinals teammate Adam Wainwright (2.63 ERA, 19-8). That no starter won 20 games probably played into the decision, and the voting for the top three was very close. Wainwright actually got the most first-place votes (12), followed by Lincecum (11) and Carpenter (9), but he ended up in third-place by points (though just 10 behind Timmy).

Lincecum was the correct call in my opinion, having placed him first on my “ballot”:

1. Tim Lincecum (SP, SFG)2.48 ERA, 225.1 IP, 261 K, 68 BB,10 HR, 2.34 FIP, 2.60 tERA, 8.2 WAR

He was 2nd in ERA and expected FIP (2.94); 1st in K’s, FIP, WAR, complete games (4), shutouts (2),and K/9 (10.4). He was – by far – the most valuable pitcher in the NL this year, despite having a 15-6 record.

The improvement shown with the Cy Young voting is actually fairly amazing. Even a couple years ago, there was a good chance that Felix Hernandez would have won in the AL and one of the Cards’ pitchers in the NL (and we can all remember Bartolo Colon over Johan Santana in '05). Such progress (though there’s still work to be done) is heartening. Lincecum became the first starting pitcher to win a Cy Young with only 15 victories (in a full season), so maybe the focus on W’s really is being wiped away.

I will note that the next two pitchers by my ranking – Javier Vazquez and Dan Haren – only received one mention each. Keith Law’s ballot was Lincecum-Vazquez-Wainwright which, in my opinion, was the correctingest one submitted (I didn’t love Haren at #3, and had Wainwright 4th myself). Will Carroll had it Wainwright-Lincecum-Haren, which I like less but at least someone acknowledged the great season Dan had in Arizona.

These awards don’t really matter much, but it’s just nice to see the best work recognized. And this year – at least for the Cy Youngs – it was.



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Comments (6)Add Comment
wow
written by DaneF, November 19, 2009
You're a stat junky, go to a game. Wins matter way more than anything else! Recognize those who lead and take the team somewhere besides your local jail. Lets keep baseball, well baseball and thats winning.
...
written by Daniel-Moroz, November 20, 2009
Obviously run support and defense have no bearing whatsoever on a pitcher's win-loss record. I assumed they did because that's what my spreadsheet told me, but I'm glad that's been cleared up.

So thank you Dane. If you hadn't said anything, I was going to campaign for Cy Young for the 2010 Cy Young award. He may be dead, but according to the stats (at least, the ones you want to use) he is the winningest pitcher in baseball history.

Just to reiterate from above: "Such progress (though there’s still work to be done) is heartening." Work to be done, indeed.
Yeah
written by Daniel-Moroz, November 20, 2009
Instead of leaving a sarcastic reply I should have just gone to bed. Note even sure what that Cy Young deal was about.

Anyway, I'll say that I did look at which pitcher contributed more wins to his team - I just used a different statistic to make that determination. Instead of relying on Wins, which has the aforementioned issues with run support and defense distorting what the pitcher actually contributed, I used Wins Above Replacement which much more accurately conveys how many wins the pitcher himself contributed. It's better. Really.
...
written by Bill@TDS, November 20, 2009
I'm so glad this site works with IE7 now so I could read Dane's comment. Pure genius. I suppose your AL MVP is a 25-way tie among the Yankees, each tied with 103 wins, since that's what baseball is...
...
written by Zach Sanders, November 22, 2009
I'm glad you left a comment instead of going to bed.
...
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