AL Cy Young
jaybyrd
Posts: 377 ✭
in Sports Talk
Cliff Lee - not exactly sure what his record is but it is something like 18-3. He should be a strong candidate especially if the Indians win the divsion.
Collecting vintage material, currently working on 1962 topps football set.
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Major league pitchers must love the Yankees, have one good year and they will set you for life. So what if you never equal that one good year again.
Kevin Millwood is 8-11 with a 2.97 ERA
Cliff Lee has been fortunate that the Indians have scored runs for him this year. ERA is more important than wins in telling how good a pitcher is. Hopefully sportswriters when they vote will realize this. How about Aaron Small at 9-0?
Mariano is 7-4 with a 1.32 ERA and he has 41 saves.
<< <i>Cliff Lee is 18-4 with a 3.90 ERA
Kevin Millwood is 8-11 with a 2.97 ERA
Cliff Lee has been fortunate that the Indians have scored runs for him this year. ERA is more important than wins in telling how good a pitcher is. Hopefully sportswriters when they vote will realize this. How about Aaron Small at 9-0?
Mariano is 7-4 with a 1.32 ERA and he has 41 saves. >>
You are right ERA is important, but a starter with a losing record will never win a Cy Young. I think you have to pitch for a full season also to even be considered.
<<a starter with a losing record will never win a Cy Young. I think you have to pitch for a full season also to even be considered.>>
I agree.
Don't look now but the best pitcher in the league is none other than Johan Santana again!
IP 217.2, ERA 2.98, K's 223, BB 41, H 171
Looking at Johan's numbers he is far and away the best pitcher in the A.L. If you are interested in novel stats like single season W-L record, then he is 14-7.
If the writers determine the Cy Young based on where the team finishes, then it trivializes the award, plain and simple. Heck, I already went through that exercise with the MVP. It is even a worse crime if you assign the "winning team" standard to the Cy Young. If you are giong to give an award to an individual while basing it on results that are out of control of the individual player, then it is a stupid method. Yet that is what W/L record does, and that is what your team's Won/Loss record does.
They have awards for for a team finishing in first place! One, the award is first place and the playoffs. Two, a little extra money to each player as a reward. SO those guys get the awards already, so everybody please stop saying an MVP or Cy Young has to come from a winning team as that is stupid and makes those awards trivial. Give the award to the best pitcher that season, and base it on what that pitcher did, and not what his teammates did. Same for MVP.
P.S. Rivera is also a very good candidate, and more worthy than Lee for sure. If you factor in leverage innings for a closer, then he could give Johan a race.
<< <i>Nobody mentioned Bartolo Colon...20-7 with a 3.34 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and almost 4x as many K's as walks...Sounds good to me...Cliff Lee shouldn't win it, he's faced the Royals about six times this year...Rivera second, Santana third >>
Cliff Lee shouldn't win because he has faced the Royals six times. I'm sure the Indians planned that out at the begining of the year so he could get more wins. Come on, that is a very lame argument.
<< <i>
<< <i>Nobody mentioned Bartolo Colon...20-7 with a 3.34 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and almost 4x as many K's as walks...Sounds good to me...Cliff Lee shouldn't win it, he's faced the Royals about six times this year...Rivera second, Santana third >>
Cliff Lee shouldn't win because he has faced the Royals six times. I'm sure the Indians planned that out at the begining of the year so he could get more wins. Come on, that is a very lame argument. >>
True.
If someone is going to use that argument, then all Boston and Yankee pitchers should be excluded as well because they get to play the Drays so much.
I was simply stating that if you are going to factor in the Royals as a reason he should lose votes, then you'd have to do the same with those facing Tampa Bay.
If you are going to factor in a team's opponents, you have to do it across the board. Royals batting .263 and D'rays batting .275? That's not much of a difference.
Also, of the 3 teams you mentioned (Chicago Sox, Detroit, Minn), 2 of them have team batting averages lower than the Royals.
<< <i>I *wasn't* comparing them.
I was simply stating that if you are going to factor in the Royals as a reason he should lose votes, then you'd have to do the same with those facing Tampa Bay.
If you are going to factor in a team's opponents, you have to do it across the board. Royals batting .263 and D'rays batting .275? That's not much of a difference.
Also, of the 3 teams you mentioned (Chicago Sox, Detroit, Minn), 2 of them have team batting averages lower than the Royals. >>
This many games into the year, that's a huge difference. (.275 compared to .263). Another factor against Lee, you just mentioned those 3 teams in parentheses, they all reside in Lee's AL Central. You may or may not be for Lee, but he doesn't stand a chance in the Cy Young...
It's my opinion that the cy young should never go to a reliever, unless there are no worthy starters. This year in the AL, there are plenty of starters who are more worthy than Rivera. A reliever may have a great ERA, but how many innings is he contributing to his team? I think that you can't solely look at ERA to determine a pitcher's worth to the team.
Example, let's say you have a starter who goes 7 or 8 innings in every start, saving his bullpen from work for the days when the #3, 4 and 5 starters go. Isn't that worth having a bit higher ERA? ERA is important, yes, but in the grand scheme of things, if I have a guy who will go out every 5 days and goes long into games to save my bullpen, that's worth a marginally worse ERA.
Bartolo Colon, as the leagues (likely) only 20 game winner, #6 in innings, #4 in ERA, #8 in K's, and nearly 4 K's for every walk, all while leading his team to the AL west title? That's who I'd choose.
Johan Santana would be #2, and he'd win if Minnesota were more competitive.
Cliff Lee would be third.
I think he had 2 poor games against Boston the first 2 times he faced them. That was it as far as starting the year poorly. It shouldn't factor in the decision at all. Since then he has handled the Red Sox easily.
He seems to be getting fatter all the time though. I guess he throws his weight behind those screaming fastballs!!
Obviously, Saves are what a Relief Pitcher is measured on but Saves are a product of how many games a team wins and how many of those wins were a Close situation. With the said, the most important Statistic for a pitcher is ERA. All of Mariano's seasons have been dominating and great, making him the one of the Best Relief Pitchers of all time, if not the best. This year so far he has the lowest ERA (1.32) of his career. His next lowest ERA was in 2003 when it was 1.66.
Mariano Rivera's Lifetime Statistics to date
Old Mo does not seem to be slowing down one bit. He is 35 years old. He currently has 377 Saves and will be the first Relief Pitcher to have 500 Saves. He seems to be ageless and 600 Saves is not outside the realm of possibility.
Earlier in the season ARod had 3 Home Runs off of Bartolo Colon in one game!!!!