2009 SBNation Awards: Cy Young Award

by Al Yellon on Nov 11, 2009 8:00 AM CST in Chicago Cubs News

For the Cy Young Award, Mike & I agreed on our ballots right down the line -- and neither of us voted for the SBN winner, Tim Lincecum, who got 18 first-place votes. Carpenter and Wainwright appeared to split the Cardinal vote down the middle, so neither could win. No Cubs received any votes; none was expected to.

The AL voting was more predictable; you might only be surprised by the order of the runners-up.

BCB ballots:

Al: 1) Chris Carpenter 2) Tim Lincecum 3) Adam Wainwright   
Mike: 1) Chris Carpenter 2) Tim Lincecum 3) Adam Wainwright

National League

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Tim Lincecum	San Francisco Giants	18	13	-	129
2	Chris Carpenter	St. Louis Cardinals	9	4	7	64
3	Adam Wainwright	St. Louis Cardinals	4	4	10	42
4	Javier Vazquez	Atlanta Braves	-	5	7	22
5	Dan Haren	Arizona Diamondbacks	-	3	4	13
6	Ubaldo Jimenez	Colorado Rockies	-	1	1	4
7	Cliff Lee	Philadelphia Phillies	-	-	1	1
8	Jair Jurrjens	Atlanta Braves	-	-	1	1

American League

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Zack Greinke	Kansas City Royals	28	1	-	143
2	Felix Hernandez	Seattle Mariners	-	17	6	57
3	Justin Verlander	Detroit Tigers	-	8	9	33
4	Roy Halladay	Toronto Blue Jays	1	2	11	22
5	CC Sabathia	New York Yankees	-	1	2	5
6	Jon Lester	Boston Red Sox	-	-	1	1

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Comments

I would've gone

I thought Lincecum and Greinke were the two best pitchers in baseball, so I agree with the top slots.

NL -

1. Tim Lincecum – Dominant season, 15 wins.
2. Javier Vazquez – I thought it was an excellent trade last offseason, and Vazquez came through big time. Atlanta shouldn’t even ponder dealing him. Extend him.
3. Split vote – Wainwright/Carpenter

AL -

1. Zack Greinke – Just filthy.
2. Justin Verlander – Great year. I’d call it a bounce back … except he bounced back to be far better than he was previously.
3. CC Sabathia – Cases could be made for a number of players, like the NL. Sabathia was the best pitcher on the best team. He was very strong in the 2nd half, and he gave the Yankees stability in the rotation.

by toonsterwu on Nov 11, 2009 8:49 AM CST reply actions

Even if you added up all the votes for Wainwright and Carpenter, they still lose to Lincecum

Maybe their disappointing postseason brought them down?

by madcow256 on Nov 11, 2009 9:09 AM CST reply actions

I doubt the postseason had an impact

For the most part, online blogs pay attention to advanced metrics (the writers seem to be slowly coming around), and there was a clear case for Lincecum as the better pitcher this year.

by toonsterwu on Nov 11, 2009 9:17 AM CST up reply actions

Also, the votes were due in before the postseason began.

"You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra

by Al Yellon on Nov 11, 2009 9:18 AM CST up reply actions

Well, that debunks my theory

by madcow256 on Nov 11, 2009 9:24 AM CST up reply actions

IMO Lincecum and Grienke were the two best in baseball this season

Carpenter wasn’t as durable as Lincecum, and Wainwright wasn’t quite as dominant.

Just say no to players named Aaron on the Cubs.

by nji232 on Nov 11, 2009 9:55 AM CST reply actions

Whoever gave Cliff Lee a vote

for NL Cy Young doesn’t deserve to be writing a baseball blog. Aside from the fact that he was only in the National League for two months, he wasn’t even all that outstanding (7-4, 3.39 ERA in 12 starts).

by Drunk Cubs Fan on Nov 11, 2009 10:12 AM CST reply actions

According to the one voter who did...

… it was for his whole body of work, plus, it was a 3rd-place vote, not a first place vote.

"You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra

by Al Yellon on Nov 11, 2009 10:33 AM CST up reply actions

I understand it's just a 3rd place vote, but...

1. You should probably only judge a pitcher based on his performance in the league he’s eligible to win the award in. If there were one Cy Young Award winner in all of baseball, I would have no problem with this.
2. His whole body of work, while good (14-13, 3.22 ERA, 7 K/9 IP), still does not begin to approach the performances of Tim Lincecum, Chris Carpenter, or Adam Wainwright.

by Drunk Cubs Fan on Nov 11, 2009 10:48 AM CST up reply actions

I disagree about Carpenter and Wainwright.

Carp only pitched 193 innings, with 233 for Wainwright and 231 for Lee. 40 innings is big, 6 to 7 more starts of 6 to 7 innings or almost 20% of a full season.

If you’re not impressed with Lee’s 7 K/9, then you’d be less impressed with Carpenter’s 6.7 K/9. Both had great control, but Lee squeaked on an insignificantly lower walk rate, 1.7 vs. 1.8 BB/9. And Lee pitched almost 2/3 of his innings in the AL, against DHs instead of pitchers. Wainwright was more impressive than Carp, but had similar peripherals to Lee, but again, against lineups with pitchers the whole year (and then not in Philadelphia’s high-HR park).

I get the whole NL Cy Young should only include NL performance thing and I probably wouldn’t vote for Lee had I to do it again. But he was better than Carp or Wainwright this year.

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by Sky Kalkman on Nov 11, 2009 9:28 PM CST up reply actions

Sorry for the delayed response...

ERA+
Cliff Lee: 131
Adam Wainwright: 157
Chris Carpenter: 183

WHIP
Cliff Lee: 1.243
Adam Wainwright: 1.210
Chris Carpenter: 1.007

Cliff Lee’s first and second half splits are almost identical in terms of opposing batting average, OBP, and slugging, implying he performed roughly the same from league to league. You may attribute that to the fact he moved from Progressive Field to Citizen’s Bank, but he actually pitched better at home in the National League than he did on the road.

As a National Leaguer, he had a higher ERA, ERA+, and gave up more hits and runs/9 IP than Carpenter and Wainwright. I just don’t see how Lee was better.

"I intend to live forever-- so far, so good." - Steven Wright

by Drunk Cubs Fan on Nov 16, 2009 2:16 PM CST up reply actions

I swear it wasn’t me!

http://www.thegoodphight.com

by WholeCamels on Nov 11, 2009 12:37 PM CST up reply actions

I wonder

If this means that Lincecum has a real shot to win the actual NL Cy Young award. Yesterday, over at Baseball Prospectus, he won their Internet Baseball CY award as well.

One can only hope.

The kid is pure All Star.

by backtocali on Nov 11, 2009 10:29 AM CST reply actions

You can't go wrong with either Lincecum or Carpenter

But its hard to overlook the fact that Carpenter had career bests in winning percentage and ERA, he led the Majors in win %, and the NL in ERA with 2.24. I know some people feel that pitchers wins are overrated, but he wins games for the Cardinals but shutting down the opponent consistently. Since the Carpenter helped the Cards bounce back after missing the playoffs the past two seasons, he would be my choice.

by tripdenten on Nov 11, 2009 10:36 AM CST reply actions

Carpenter was aided by an awful division

Lincecum went up against a much better offensive division.

by Pre on Nov 11, 2009 1:56 PM CST up reply actions

Really?

I am not sure that the Rockies/Dodgers make up for the pitiful Padres and D-Backs.

While were were all disappointed in the Cubs this year, the Brewers, Astros, Cubs, Reds, and Pirates aren’t really “awful” when compared to the NL West.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think that East was much different either.

Eamus Ursuli!

by WGNstatic on Nov 11, 2009 3:51 PM CST up reply actions

If wins mean anything...

Padres + D-Backs > Astros + Pirates > Mets + Nats.

by bison on Nov 11, 2009 10:20 PM CST up reply actions

Consistenly? How abou the starts he missed?

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by Sky Kalkman on Nov 11, 2009 9:29 PM CST up reply actions

He was still better than WEllemeyer

by vivaelpujols on Nov 12, 2009 10:29 PM CST up reply actions

GREINKE FTW!!

ROYALS CUBS WORLD SERIES 2010

"The riches of the game are in the thrills, not the money." --Ernie Banks

by dtpollitt on Nov 11, 2009 12:50 PM CST via mobile reply actions

man what are you smoking??

Probably something that Lincecum has….too soon??

Wrigley Bound in the Summer of 2010

by Chanman25 on Nov 11, 2009 3:57 PM CST up reply actions

C'mon Mike

you’re supposed to be the advanced stats guru around here. Tim had a better FIP-TRA-K/BB-WAR, Carpenter had a BABIP 30 points lower than his norm possibly thanks to lower LD%’s, a very flukey (for his career) HR/FB ratio, and a higher than his avg LOB%, while trailing Lincecum in just about every adv. stat and traditional stat category.

the ghost of stokes, camp, lugo strikes TB-sept 2009

by CubFanRaysaddict on Nov 11, 2009 6:54 PM CST reply actions