Thursday, November 13, 2008

Cliff Lee Wins the Cy Young Award

That makes back-to-back Indians winning the award. At present, Jeremy Sowers is a 3-1 favorite over Jake Westbrook for the 2009 honors . . .

I know there are some folks who were making arguments for Halladay based on strength of opposing batters and stuff, but really, when you win the most games, have one of the highest winning percentages of all time, and lead the league in ERA, you're going to win the award, and you're not going to be a bad choice.

Great season for Halladay, but Lee was deserving.

UPDATE: Apparently three dudes left Halladay off the ballot entirely, which makes absolutely no sense at all. Not that we've come to expect sense from these guys or anything.

9 comments:

EricInBoston said...

is that really their website?

Craig Calcaterra said...

It is indeed. Scary, isn't it? It's also quite telling.

Jason @ IIATMS said...

That green.... seriously, my eyes are sprained. Going from this white to that GREEN and back... your site looked bizarre!

TC said...

I think it's a shame that this is what we've come to with the major awards: "not a bad choice". Brandon Phillips wins a Gold Glove--that's fine, he's probably the second best defensive 2B in the NL. We're no longer agitated when the best player isn't chosen for the award. We're just satisfied that the BBWAA (or whoever) didn't make an embarrassingly bad selection.

That's not to say that Lee was the wrong choice. He wouldn't have been mine, but I can see the argument. For Halladay, though, in brief, on merit:

According to B-Ref, LgAvgERA for Lee was 4.44. Over 223.3IP, that totals out to about 110 earned runs allowed. Lee allowed 63, so he prevented an extra 47 runs from scoring.

LgAvgERA for Halladay was 4.27. Over 246IP (what Doc pitched), that's 117 runs allowed. Doc allowed 76ER. That's 43 runs better than average.

Take into account that Doc faced New York, Boston, and Tampa Bay more than anyone else, while Lee faced Kansas City and the National League... well, I think that accounts for a 4 run difference.

Anonymous said...

First the ROTY screw-up, now this? Perhaps these three didn't know Halladay was eligible? ;-)

Craig Calcaterra said...

OK, that above comment looks like an ad. Anyone gonna complain if I nuke it?

Anonymous said...

Holy crap! That's the crappiest website of all time!

Best part: "Message Board (to come)."

Awesome. Good one guys.

Matt Glenn said...

I've been checking checking regularly for snarky followups to the awards voting, and I nearly shed a tear when I saw this: http://www.firejoemorgan.com/

Say it ain't so, (fire)Joe(morgan), say it ain't so. :-(

Craig Calcaterra said...

Wow! Thanks for the heads up, Matt. I just posted about it with a hat tip to ya.