Johnson Romping NL Cy Race

Dave Paisley

Well, no sooner had I tagged Pedro with the AL Cy than he went on the 15 day DL. Do you think Randy Johnson will fare any better this week? In many ways they've had parallel seasons - massive dominance interspersed with bouts of mortality. Now admittedly Pedro has been a shade more fragile than his NL counterpart, but not too much.

As we all know, that Baseball Writers Association of America loves to focus on the triple crown stats, and while I disagree with that stance on principle, it rarely fails completely. I think where it usually falls down is in a tight race where one guy has superior triple crown stats, especially wins, against another candidate with much better fundamentals. However, to their credit, last year the BBWAA did give the nod to Johnson based on ERA rather than tapping Mike Hampton, who had the sexier number of wins.

So here's how the first half of the season stacks up in the NL, based on Triple Crown stats. What I've done here, as in the case of the AL, is award 100 points in each of the three categories (Wins, ERA and Strikeouts) to the leader, with everyone else getting a proportional number of points relative to the high water mark. Note that ERA is inverted - 100 points to the lowest. I've eliminated relievers from the list (Danny Graves, for example) mostly because they only show up because of poached wins and low ERAs in a lot fewer innings. It's not to say a reliver couldn't win the Cy Young Award, it's just unlikely to happen if even one starter has a great year.

Name Team G W L ERA SO Win pts ERA pts K pts Total
R Johnson Az 17 12 2 1.57 177 100 100 100 300
A Leiter NYM 16 10 1 3.04 104 83 52 59 194
D Kile StL 18 11 5 4.63 110 92 34 62 188
K Brown LA 16 7 2 2.31 101 58 68 57 183
R Dempster Fla 17 9 4 3.39 109 75 46 62 183
G Maddux Atl 18 9 3 3.37 104 75 47 59 180
C Park LA 17 9 4 4.17 93 75 38 53 165
K Benson Pit 17 7 6 3.19 99 58 49 56 163
T Glavine Atl 18 8 5 3.62 92 67 43 52 162
An Benes StL 16 8 3 4.40 98 67 36 55 158
P Astacio Col 17 7 5 5.04 115 58 31 65 154
C Pavano Mon 15 8 4 3.06 64 67 51 36 154
G Stephenson StL 17 9 4 4.30 66 75 37 37 149
R Wolf Phi 16 7 5 3.83 83 58 41 47 146

The thing that strikes you immediately (other than a Randy Johnson fastball up and in) is that Johnson is romping this race. But you knew that, right? Kile and Leiter are close in wins, but the nearest challenger in ERA has a mere 68 points (Kevin Brown) and the nearest in strikeouts a mere 65 (Pedro Astacio). All combined, nobody gets within a hundred points of Johnson. Remarkable. Striking out 1.35 batters per inning and giving up just over two walks per nine innings, Johnson is absolutely on top of his game. Even 11 home runs in 131 innings is about as stingy as it gets this year, as only Mike Hampton and Shawn Estes are managing significantly better.

By the way, kudos to Pedro Astacio for hanging in on the leader board here despite pitching half the time in Coors. With a road ERA just over 4.00, he's not in any danger of winning the award, but he is doing a lot better than most people think.

The only question, as it was with Pedro, is can Johnson stay healthy? I thought that Pedro could (and he still might be healthy enough to qualify), and I believe Johnson will, too. But if he doesn't, as in the AL, the CY would suddenly become a horse race.

A dime covers the next five guys on the list, and a hot finish by any one of them would vault them into sole possession of the runner-up slot. Also, the fourth factor then comes into play. The infamous "did your team make the playoffs?" rule. All other things being equal, it's a good thing to be playoff bound. Al Leiter is winning for the Mets, and has the third best ERA behind Johnson and Kevin Brown. He's right up there in the after-Johnson pack in Ks, too. Cy Young winner, though? I doubt it.

Darryl Kile? Forget it. Planty of wins, but an ERA that frightens little children. The Cards do appear to be playoff bound, but unless he gets that ERA under 4.00 by the end of the season, forget it.

How about Kevin Brown? If the Dodgers make a run, he'd be my bet for the runner-up slot right now, if only because he can't continue to be that unlucky with wins in the second half.

Ryan Dempster? Nice numbers, but he pitches for Florida... so let's just say that you only need to to change the first vowel in his last name to know where his CY chances belong.

Finally, we get to the nutty professor. Okay, so maybe he isn't nutty. Sure, he isn't having a "Greg Maddux" kind of year, but if all else fails and Johnson gets hurt and the Dodgers don't make the playoffs, then Maddux could be the safety vote for a lot of guys.

So, to sum up: Johnson wins in a romp, but in the unlikely event he gets hurt enough not to qualify, in all likelihood Kevin Brown or Greg Maddux step in and seize the moment.

about the author

Ever wonder what all those letters stand for in Dave Paisley's email address? We do too, but so far he's not talking. It's probably better if you don't mention anything about this conversation when you write him at drdjp@strikethree.com.

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