Tuesday, November 08, 2005
I mean, I like Colon, butt...
As great as it is to see the word "Colon" in a bunch of headlines, the choice of him for the AL Cy Young is pretty awful. Eighth in the league in ERA at 3.48 (Milwood was 1st with 2.86, Santana 2nd with 2.87), 8th in strikeouts with 157 (Santana was 1st with 238), 8th in K/BB at 3.65 (Silva was first with 7.89, Santana 2nd with 5.29), 13th in BAA at .254 (Santana was 1st with .210), 10th in OPSA with .698 (Santana was 1st with .596, which is absolutely incredible). There was only major category he was even in the top 5 in: wins. First, with 21. Whoop-de-fuckin'-do. He got a lot of run support, over 6 runs per game. Which only put him 7th overall - David Wells was first with (this is wild) 7.97 (Matt Clement was 3rd with 6.88). But being in the top 10 in run support and the top 10 in ERA is enough to give you the most wins in the league. And that's all you need to win you the Cy Young apparently. Ridiculous.
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Earl,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Earth. This has been happening for years and years. Look at last year when clemens won over the Unit, because the Unit was only 16-14 while the Rocket was 18-4. Or 2003 when Halladay won and Loaiza was second but Pedro's ERA, WHIP, and K's were better than both, but only won 14 or 15 games. Or Zito over Lowe in 2002 - its kind of funny now. Hell even go back to 1990 Bob Welch won because he had 27 wins for the A's but Clemens had an ERA a run lower, nearly twice the K's and A whip about 25% better.
Its all about winning. And the same argument extends to the MVP.
Welcome to earth?!? In 2004, Curt Schilling led the AL in wins, but Santana got the Cy.
ReplyDeleteYeah but you are talking about 21 versus 20 wins and the same number of losses, while Johan dominated in ERA, WHIP, K. It was 28-0 on the ballots.
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm not arguing with your overall point. Sorry about the welcome to earth comment. The point was that this type of voting is typical.
Tomorrow should be a real good test - D-Train versus Carpenter. Very, very similar numbers in counting and % stats. Amazing I was reading some writers predictions over the weekend that still were picking Clemens. Sure the ERA sparkled, but voters love those wins and with "only" 13 I don't see that happening.
Yeah, I know. It's just this one is particularly egregious. I mean, in the examples you gave, you can generally point to some (lame) "intangible" reason the winner beat out the others -- say, Clemens's unretirement, Halladay and Loaiza being the only bright spots on their team, etc. And in the case of all of them -- Zito, Clemens, Halladay, Loaiza, (maybe not Welch) at least the winner was one of the top 3 pitchers that year, borne out in all sorts of stats.
ReplyDeleteThis time, not so much.
I probably would have given it to Rivera. I usually don't like closers unless it was like when Gangne was unstoppable, but there was no starter that jumped out at me.
ReplyDeleteI got pissed this AM driving to work when two separate stations said that the AL manager of the year was likely to be Ozzie (which is fine) and that the two other top candidates are Wedge (again fine and actually he would be my choice) and Torre. And both commented on what a good job Torre did patching together a lineup and dealing with injuries.
Excuse me? Patching together a lineup? By a team that has the resources to go get Al Leiter and pay over a million dollars b/c they need a starter for a game against the Sox?
I do agree Torre had it tougher this year than others, but he did mismanage his bullpen. and he gave Womack a number of ABs near the top of the lineup at the beginning of the season. And they did have injuries, but if he is a candidate, then Francona has to be mentionned in the same breadth (not that I think either should actually win it). But Francona practically has a freaking heart attack the first week of the season, loses his top starter and closer to injuries, his left setup man implodes, well I won't even bother.