AL CYA -- Sabathia! Secondary stats prevail over Wins! Comments?

Question

For those who understand baseball.

player // 1st - 2nd - 3rd // points
Sabathia 19 8 0 -- 119
Beckett 8 14 4 -- 86
Lackey 1 5 16 -- 36
Carmona 0 1 4 -- 7
Bedard 1
Halladay 1
Santana 1
Verlander 1

I'm glad either way -- I was just expecting the writers to be swayed by that warm, fuzzy "20" in Beckett's win column over Sabathia's "19". But they saw clearly, and this is a good thing.

Amazing that one writer found Sabathia not worth considering at all.

Answer 1

Sabathia was an outstanding choice just as Beckett would have been a great choice. We all have to understand that an award like this is not just about the numbers they put up, it also involves other aspects of their pitching performance such as; how many games did the pitcher win with the team coming off a loss, how many innings did the pitcher give them, how consistent was the pitcher, how many quality starts, how many games did the team win when the pitcher started, ect. If it were only about certain numbers you could create a formula and have the computer select the winner. Good choice and congratulations to Sabathia for a great season.

Answer 2

Sabbathia was great, and I can't believe that people are going to complain. Someone actually said Beckett was better by far, seriously by far there stats were really close. If they are so blinded by emotion that they want to ignore the fact that both pitchers were great and both ended up on a team tied for the best record in baseball than they have no business on here.

Don't get me wrong obviously Beckett had a great regular season which is what it's based on. I'm glad it is based on the regular season because say there is a great pitcher with maybe 20 wins but his team doesn't make it to the playoffs, how would that be fair if they counted those stats too. That didn't apply in this case, but I'm just saying.

It had to be a tough decisions because these two pitcher were both amazing in the regular season. I agree CC was just the man this year and totally deserved to win.

Answer 3

I agree that just using wins is short-sighted and stupid. I think that given how close they were in the season, Sabathia's greater number of innings is worth quite a bit--really, it's about 5 good performances by a #1 pitcher versus Boston having to give those slots to somebody else (not a #1).
I think Santana should have been higher with his secondaries, but I will admit to being a Twins fan.

Answer 4

Sabathia : 19-7, 3.21 ERA, 209 K's, 241.0 innings, 37 BB's.

Beckett : 20-7, 3.27 ERA, 194 K's, 200.2 K's, 40 BB's.

ERA : Sabathia

Wins : Tie. 19-7 20-7 is a tie.

K's : Sabathia

Innings : Sabathia.

Playoffs : Beckett.

Walks : Sabathia

Trust me, I was SHOCKED to see Sabathia win the Cy Young, but if you look at it that way it looks like Sabathia should have one. And im not just saying that 'cause Beckett is a Sox.

P.S. Wins is not a, 'real' stat for me. You can pitch nine innings and give up 1 run but your offense can still screw up for you. I think a ERA is way more important.

Answer 5

Congrats to CC. He had a great season for Cleveland and I think he deserves the Cy Young Award. To more fully answer your question, I am quoting from a blog on indians.com

"The postseason has no bearing on the Cy Young voting or any of the other BBWAA awards. That voting takes place upon the conclusion of the regular season.

Sabathia and Josh Beckett's regular-season statistics are fairly similar, aside from Beckett reaching the 20-win plateau and Sabathia logging 40 more innings. Those 40 innings loom large, in my opinion, and I know of others who were swayed by them, as well."

Answer 6

I am surprised by the vote to say the least...an argument could be made for either of the top two players to be the CY Young (In my opinion Beckett should have won but that is just me)...but I honestly thought the vote would have been closer...the 19 to 8 first place votes is a shock...I don't argue that C.C. deserves the CY Young and I honestly don't mind him winning over Beckett but I am just surprised that it wasn't a closer vote.

Edit:
You said "Amazing that one writer found Sabathia not worth considering at all."...it should be noted that (unless I am mistaken) Beckett was left off two ballots which was another ridiculous part of this voting.

Answer 7

The fact he had more than twice as many first place votes as Beckett indicates a fair number of voters thought he had a better year. There was only victory difference between the two. It could be argued either way. I would have placed him no. 1, with Beckett second, if I had a ballot.

Answer 8

Sabathia helped take the AL Central from the Tigers and Boston was in cruise control for the whole season and almost blew the AL East to the Yanks. That is why they took CC.

Do I agree with it? Yeah, but I am biased and hate the East Coast.

Answer 9

Beckett was snubbed.

He was the ace of the team with the best record in baseball. He was the most dominant starter in the league the second half of the year - as a matter of fact, all season. Without Sabathia, the Indians would've had Carmona as their ace - not that much of a drop-off. Take Beckett off the Sox, and they go with Schilling, Dice-K, or Wakefield. In other words, they finish 5 games back. Beckett carried the Sox.

The margin of victory is an insult and a joke.

It's time to bury the "east coast" bias now, don't you think?

Let's look at the numbers

Wins:

Beckett - 20
Sabathia - 19

Win %:

Beckett - .741
Sabathia - .731

ERA:

Sabathia - 3.21
Beckett - 3.27

WHIP:

Beckett - 1.141
Sabathia - 1.141

SO/9 inn:

Beckett - 8.70
Sabathia - 7.80

BB/9 inn:

Sabathia - 1.38
Beckett - 1.79

Hits/9 inn:

Beckett - .942
Sabathia - .988

Not sure how the "secondary" numbers don't add up to Beckett being the winner.
.

Answer 10

I think it is a good pick, he was the guy who carried them, Carmona was a surprise for them this year but CC was the man, Beckett may have been hurt by the stint on the DL but he was just as deserving. Shock is that Wang was not in the Top 4! He had a pretty good season, the only Yankee pitcher to really have a good season!