Who SHOULD win the AL Cy Young?

[Sports Guy]

It seems like the race is down to Felix Hernandez, David Price and CC.

Wins:

CC: 20

Price: 18

FH: 12

Losses:

CC: 7

Price: 6

FHer: 12

ERA:

CC: 3.26

price: 2.84

FHer: 2.31

K rate:

CC: 7.42

Price: 8.07

FHer: 8.45

BB rate:

CC: 2.83

Price: 3.56

FHer: 2.53

HR rate:

CC: .75

Price: .68

FHer: .63

FIP:

CC: 3.56

Price: 3.54

FHer: 3.07

WAR:

CC: 4.6

Price: 4

FHer: 6.1

IP/Starts:

CC: 33 starts...229.1 IP

Price: 30 starts..199.2 IP

Fh: 33 starts...241.1 IP

Side note: In Felix Hernandez's 12 losses, Seattle has scored 14 runs...In 9 of those losses, they scored 1 or less runs 9 times.

I think this is a tough call. I doubt Hernandez gets it but maybe he deserves.

However, FHer pitches in a great pitchers park and he pitches in an easier division but he is also pitching knowing he has to be very good every single night.

Hernandez is also throwing more innings and perhaps the IP differences should seperate CC and Felix from Price.

I think I would go with Hernandez but I wouldn't be terrible upset if CC or Price won it, even though I think it should be CC before Price.

And notice that the question is, who SHOULD win, not who WILL win.

[Hank Scorpio]

Hernandez is probably the best pitcher in the league, but Sabathia will win the CY Young.

I think Hernandez should win it.

[backwardsk]

I think it should be Hernandez

Felix rarely has a bad game. He's had 33 starts this year and gave up 4 in 1, 5 in 1, and 7 in 2. Sabathia has had seven starts where he's given up 5 or more runs.

[BaltimoreTerp]

I'm doubting more and more that Sabathia wins it. Between all of the recent press about how Hernandez should win it and how any pro-Sabathia article is inevitably ripped to the shreds it (in most cases) deserves, and the way he choked against the Rays the other night, I'm thinking he finishes third.

Hernandez is going to get a LOT of votes, and at this point I think the "traditional" voters are going to go with the far-more-defensible pick of Price.

I think Sabathia takes enough votes from Price to give the race to Hernandez, but it's close.

Either way, Hernandez SHOULD win it, and anyone who denies that better have a reason that does not involve the word "wins". It's becoming a situation where either you believe all of the evidence that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun, or you hold fast to an impossible belief in geocentricism.

[SteveA]

Hernandez is specificaly the best starter, so if that is how you define the CY, then he should get it.

However, what weight do you give to the context of some of those statistics? It's certainly harder to pitch in Yankee Stadium or Trop Dome against an AL East schedule than it is to pitchi n Safeco against an AL West schedule.

Some might also argue that when your team isn't in a pennant race and the games don't "mean" as much, it's easier to go out out there than it is when there is more at stake.

I fully understand why you don't want to talk about wins, but they are, after all, the actual (and only) goal when your team takes the field. Obviously it's a team game and the pitcher can only pitch. But the only thing he is trying to do when he takes the field is do whatever he can to help his team win. Yes, it takes a better pitcher to get a win with Seattle's offense backing him up than with the Yankees. But it's a bottom line game, it's about winning. I would never use Ws as a predictor to determine whether to trade for a player, or to come up with some sort of evaluation of his "true talent", but it IS what they are trying to do each time they take the field and it's reasonable to judge and reward past performance on how often they were able to help their team do that.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Hernandez is specificaly the best starter, so if that is how you define the CY, then he should get it.

However, what weight do you give to the context of some of those statistics? It's certainly harder to pitch in Yankee Stadium or Trop Dome against an AL East schedule than it is to pitchi n Safeco against an AL West schedule.

Some might also argue that when your team isn't in a pennant race and the games don't "mean" as much, it's easier to go out out there than it is when there is more at stake.

I fully understand why you don't want to talk about wins, but they are, after all, the actual (and only) goal when your team takes the field. Obviously it's a team game and the pitcher can only pitch. But the only thing he is trying to do when he takes the field is do whatever he can to help his team win. Yes, it takes a better pitcher to get a win with Seattle's offense backing him up than with the Yankees. But it's a bottom line game, it's about winning. I would never use Ws as a predictor to determine whether to trade for a player, or to come up with some sort of evaluation of his "true talent", but it IS what they are trying to do each time they take the field and it's reasonable to judge and reward past performance on how often they were able to help their team do that.

Wins measure what a team does, not an individual.

Using them as-is (and not worked up in the sense of WAR or something similar) is simply diluting the value of the performance you are trying to measure.

When the performance of a starting pitcher is MAYBE 35% of what goes into the performance of a team in a win, you are saying that the other 65% that falls under the bullpen and the defense and the offense is something the pitcher can control.

If you don't believe the pitcher can control those things, it is impossible to use "wins" as a valid measure.

[sangar]

FH certainly has the best numbers but, as SG pointed out, he is not doing it against the same competition and he is in a stadium conducive to good pitching. If he pitched exaclty the same in Yankee Stadium his numbers would not be as good.

As much as I detest any Yankee winning anything I'd give it to Sabathia.

[mrbig1]

Hernandez is probably the best pitcher in the league, but Sabathia will win the CY Young.

I think Hernandez should win it.

I agree sir.

[SteveA]

Wins measure what a team does, not an individual.

Using them as-is (and not worked up in the sense of WAR or something similar) is simply diluting the value of the performance you are trying to measure.

When the performance of a starting pitcher is MAYBE 35% of what goes into the performance of a team in a win, you are saying that the other 65% that falls under the bullpen and the defense and the offense is something the pitcher can control.

If you don't believe the pitcher can control those things, it is impossible to use "wins" as a valid measure.

Look, just the fact that the vast, vast majority of CY and MVP winners come from winning teams and usually good winning teams, i.e. contenders... this fact alone proves that these awards are not PURELY individual awards. They are awards for how well an individual does in the CONTEXT of the overall goal of trying to help his team win.

So while these awards purport to be individual awards, they aren't really and never will. They are sort of a hybrid... they are asking the question, in the context of helping a team win, what player did the best? Occasionally there will be a winner from a last place team because he is so much better than the other contenders... and maybe Felix is such a case this year. Cal was. Steve Carlton was that year he won half his team's games.

I'm just saying it isn't as cut and dried as you would like to make it, and it never has been. A guy goes out and performs great but his team doesn't do squat -- what has he really accomplished? The ultimate goal, after all, is wins and losses. That is the context under which guys take the field every day.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Look, just the fact that the vast, vast majority of CY and MVP winners come from winning teams and usually good winning teams, i.e. contenders... this fact alone proves that these awards are not PURELY individual awards. They are awards for how well an individual does in the CONTEXT of the overall goal of trying to help his team win.

So while these awards purport to be individual awards, they aren't really and never will. They are sort of a hybrid... they are asking the question, in the context of helping a team win, what player did the best? Occasionally there will be a winner from a last place team because he is so much better than the other contenders... and maybe Felix is such a case this year. Cal was. Steve Carlton was that year he won half his team's games.

I'm just saying it isn't as cut and dried as you would like to make it, and it never has been. A guy goes out and performs great but his team doesn't do squat -- what has he really accomplished? The ultimate goal, after all, is wins and losses. That is the context under which guys take the field every day.

But you need to decide what an award is and work within that concept. The Most Valuable Player award is one thing because "valuable" can be a variable concept to a certain point. But my understand is that the Cy Young goes to the BEST pitcher in the league.

And if you are choosing the BEST pitcher in the league, than anything that is not under their control should be discounted as much as possible.

Because most of what constitutes a team win goes to individuals or groups other than the starting pitcher, assigning such a win, let alone using it as a measure of value above all else (which most of those arguing for Sabathia seem to believe), is a fallacious argument.

The vast majority of award-winners come from winning teams, that cannot be denied. However, that comes in part because writers have either not had, or more recently chosen to ignore, the information to discover individual value, and in part because good teams tend to have good players, and the best teams are more likely to have the best players.

However, sometimes that isn't the case. As Annie Savoy quoted in Bull Durham, from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard":

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Well, Hernandez is the flower, and the Mariners' offense is the Atacama Desert. Joe Posnanski did some research last week and figured that the Mariners are on-pace to score the fewest runs in the AL since 1971.

If you think it is fair judging Hernandez on that kind of offensive performance, then I really don't know what else to say.

[byrdz]

King Fifi, of course, but he won't get it though. I can see making the case for the other two since they play in a more competitive division.

[El Gordo]

Is the CY for best pitcher, or most valuable pitcher. To my mind the best pitcher is the guy who throws the most inngs, giving up the fewest runs, striking out the most and walking the fewest. Teams win or lose games, not pitchers. The most valuable pitcher would be the best pitcher to help take his team to the playoffs. The best pitcher is Felix H and the most valuable is CC.

[BaltimoreTerp]

The most valuable pitcher would be the best pitcher to help take his team to the playoffs...and the most valuable is CC.

Why wouldn't it be Price?

And again, why are you penalizing an individual for his team?

[Don Quixote]

Hernandez.

SG's abbreviation looks like "F Her." :rofl:

Yeah, I know, real mature on my part....

[Sports Guy]

BTW, Lester also belongs in the conversation but he won't win it either...And I don't think he finishes ahead of either of these 3.