Big CY

Dave Paisley

After last week's look at the MVP, here comes a look at the other big award - the Cy Young. Like the MVP, the Cy Young awards are voted on by members of the Baseball Writer's Association of America, or BBWAA for short. These guys don't like to spend a whole lot of time doing complicated math, like dividing numbers into other numbers, multiplying this by that and so on. Heck, they don't even like adding up bar tabs. So when voting time comes around, they like to keep it simple. Remember the acronym KISS? It stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. And well, it applies in spades here. When it comes to avoiding hard work, journalists are definitely experts, and so come voting time they're darn glad that the triple crown stats for pitchers include two numbers that are just season totals (wins and strikeouts) and one that is calculated for them by every stat bureau in the land -- ERA.

The amazing thing is, though, that these triple crown stats very rarely lead you astray. Sure, it's possible to poach a lot of wins as a pitcher, but a low ERA, combined with a high strikeout total will usually get you close to the lead in wins. But let's allow the numbers speak for themselves. Here's the National League to date. I've awarded 100 points in each category to the leader in Wins, K's and ERA, with the other pitchers getting points proportionately.

PITCHER TEAM W L ERA K BB IP WHIP W Pts ERA Pts K pts Total
Randy Johnson ARI 17 6 2.45 303 55 198.2 .99 94 100 100 294
Curt Schilling ARI 18 6 2.98 234 33 211.1 1.08 100 82 77 259
Greg Maddux ATL 17 7 2.86 147 21 192.0 1.06 94 86 49 229
Matt Morris STL 17 7 3.31 136 46 176.2 1.28 94 74 45 213
Chan Ho Park LOS 12 9 2.95 187 71 192.1 1.09 67 83 62 211
John Burkett ATL 11 8 2.53 161 51 184.2 1.08 61 97 53 211
Darryl Kile STL 13 8 2.80 137 49 186.1 1.24 72 88 45 205
Jon Lieber CHN 17 5 3.42 116 29 189.2 1.08 94 72 38 204
Javier Vazquez MON 13 11 3.76 183 41 193.2 1.14 72 65 60 198
Russ Ortiz SFO 14 7 3.36 133 76 179.2 1.29 78 73 44 195
Kerry Wood CHN 10 6 3.50 183 84 144.0 1.31 56 70 60 186
Wade Miller HOU 13 7 3.77 131 58 162.1 1.23 72 65 43 180
Roy Oswalt HOU 11 2 2.98 111 22 111.2 1.09 61 82 37 180
Ryan Dempster FLA 14 11 4.54 142 91 176.1 1.52 78 54 47 179

And guess what? Randy Johnson emerges as your clear favorite, leading two categories, and trailing teammate Curt Schilling by only one win. Tie him and Randy's good for the maximum 300 points. There are those who favor Schilling, though that sentiment appeared to be based more on win totals than anything else. If they both win 20+ I don’t see Johnson missing out.

And what of the also-rans? Greg Maddux is out there having another great season, lagging Johnson in ERA by a small amount,. but getting smoked in the K column (but then again, who isn't, except Schilling?)

Beyond those big three names, the scoring method brings out some not so familiar names. Matt Morris is having a very nice year, as is Chan Ho Park, except for the poor W-L record, which we know isn't his fault. It will probably depress his market value, though, because we all know he "can't win the big games when he needs to", or some other hogwash like it.

And how about the resurrection of John Burkett? He's having a year unlike any since his heyday in San Francisco in the early nineties. Due to poor run support, he won't see the likes of his 22-7 record in 1993, but this is easily his best season from a pure pitching perspective. He'll also break 200 innings for only the second time since that 1993 season. That 11-8 record is going to keep potential voters away, though.

Of the rest, Jon Lieber may get a few looks because of the 17 wins so far, but his ERA is nothing special (at least in this company) and the K total is way off - 38% of Johnson's league romping numbers.

The National league race isn't close in my opinion, although a run up to 23 wins by Schilling and a failure to get to 20 wins by Johnson would probably tip the scales. Unlikely, though. Over in the AL, things are a little tighter.

PITCHER TEAM W L ERA K BB IP WHIP W Pts ERA Pts K pts Total
Roger Clemens NYY 17 1 3.56 176 56 182.0 1.24 100 86 100 286
Tim Hudson OAK 14 7 3.36 147 56 190.1 1.20 82 91 84 257
Mike Mussina NYY 12 11 3.71 163 36 179.2 1.18 71 82 93 246
Andy Pettitte NYY 14 8 3.74 139 30 171.0 1.27 82 82 79 243
Freddy Garcia SEA 14 5 3.29 117 57 189.0 1.18 82 93 66 242
Mark Mulder OAK 15 7 3.66 122 37 179.1 1.19 88 84 69 241
Hideo Nomo BOS 11 5 4.19 172 77 156.2 1.31 65 73 98 235
Mark Buehrle CHA 12 6 3.06 106 41 173.2 1.03 71 100 60 231
Barry Zito OAK 10 8 3.96 165 58 170.1 1.23 59 77 94 230
Bartolo Colon CLE 10 10 4.21 160 70 179.2 1.36 59 73 91 222
Jamie Moyer SEA 15 5 3.67 86 35 164.1 1.14 88 83 49 220
Joe Mays MIN 13 12 3.38 92 46 183.2 1.17 76 91 52 219
Cc Sabathia CLE 13 4 4.58 125 74 137.2 1.38 76 67 71 214
Jarrod Washburn ANA 11 6 3.51 108 44 156.1 1.30 65 87 61 213
Aaron Sele SEA 13 4 3.51 87 39 179.2 1.21 76 87 49 213
Eric Milton MIN 12 5 4.29 120 46 174.0 1.32 71 71 68 210
Paul Abbott SEA 13 3 4.20 96 64 133.0 1.38 76 73 55 204
Brad Radke MIN 11 8 4.04 111 17 178.1 1.18 65 76 63 204
Jeff Weaver DET 10 13 4.02 119 59 188.0 1.32 59 76 68 203
Tim Wakefield BOS 8 10 3.72 127 66 147.2 1.36 47 82 72 201
Ramon Ortiz ANA 11 7 4.08 107 57 163.1 1.40 65 75 61 201
Jason Johnson BAL 10 9 3.43 91 55 162.2 1.29 59 89 52 200

Roger Clemens is the "obvious" winner according to the pundits. After all, he's 17-1. My God, he's only lost one game all season! And even that lone loss was to that steamroller that is the 2001 Seattle Mariners, so even that hardly counts.

Let's pretend we don't notice that there are seven pitchers with better ERAs, and that a 3.56 ERA, while pretty darn good, is hardly earth shattering. So how come the 17-1 record? Well, boys and girls, can you say "run support"? Clemens is second in the league with 7.22 runs per nine innings of support (FYI, Mariner Paul Abbott leads the league with slightly higher numbers.) With that run support, his ERA and 18 decisions, we'd expect him to be 15-3, so he's even had a little more luck to dodge a couple of losses. The interesting comparison is with teammates Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina. Pettitte has a slightly worse ERA, and a very similar run support (6.74, third in the league), but he has only a so-so record given that kind of backup (14-8). He's obviously not a "clutch" pitcher. Mussina, on the other hand, has been shafted by the Yanks offense all year long, such that he only gets 4.46 runs per nine innings of work, a mere 61% of what the Rocket's getting. So his 12-11 record, while viewed as "disappointing" by those unable to figure out how to turn on a calculator, is probably better than Pettitte's, given the 2 run per game support differential.

Having said all that, there's no doubt that Clemens gets the award if it goes to a Yank. The only question is whether Tim Hudson, Freddy Garcia or Mark Mulder can crank out enough wins to reach the magical 20. Even then, Hudson and Garcia would have to maintain a decent edge in ERA over Clemens to have even a remote chance of taking the hardware, and it wouldn't hurt if Clemens ran into a little cold streak in September. If he ends up 23-1, forget it.

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Please send your application to join the BBWAA to Dave Paisley at drdjp@strikethree.com Fat lot of good it'll do you, though...

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