This ballot is for the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, a group of baseball bloggers (duh) who are pooling votes together to give out our own post-season award.
I do have Pirates’ coming later today or tonight, but for now I have to submit by BBA ballot for Cy Young Award and this one’s important to me, so I want to make sure I get it posted. Also, please note that Andrew McCutchen won the Rookie of the Year voting pretty handily. As the greatest movie dad in history would say, “Hey! That’s a Major Award!” I don’t think ‘Cutch will win the real ROY, but I’m very happy to see him recognized here.
My NL Cy Ballot is after the jump:
I am considering five pitchers for my ballot, which has to include three names. They are Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Danny Haren, Javier Vazquez, and Tim Lincecum. Actually, I’m only considering Carp because I think he might win the real Cy Young Award, but we’ll get to that.
Here are the five guys with the “traditional” Cy Young stats:
- Wainwright: 19-8, 2.63 ERA, 1.21 WHIP
- Carpenter: 17-4, 2.24 ERA, 1.01 WHIP
- Lincecum: 15-7, 2.48 ERA, 1.05 WHIP
- Vazquez: 15-10, 2.87 ERA, 1.03 WHIP
- Haren: 14-10, 3.14 ERA, 1.00 WHIP
Seems like a pretty clear-cut case for the two guys at the top, right? Now, I’m going to randomize the players and give you their important rate stats, which I think give a much more complete picture.
- Pitcher A: 8.8 K/9, 1.5 BB/9, 1.1 HR/9
- Pitcher B: 6.7 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 0.3 HR/9
- Pitcher C: 8.2 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9
- Pitcher D: 10.4 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 0.4 HR/9
- Pitcher E: 9.8 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9
Now, the pitchers seem a lot more clumped. If two stand out, I think they’re Pitchers D and E, who are Lincecum and Vazquez, respectively. Carpenter, Pitcher B, stands out in the wrong way, and Haren (A) and Wainwright (C) suddenly seem very, very comparable. Wainwright’s 19 wins come with an average of 5.52 runs of support per start, which is way more than anyone else on this list got (Vazquez: 4.96, Haren: 4.42, Lincecum: 4.57, Carpenter: 4.59).
Wainwright’s probably going to win the NL Cy Young and Carpenter is probably going to finish second and really, they’re good pitchers that have had great years, but the award should go to the best pitcher and Haren, Vazquez, and Lincecum are the top three pitchers in the NL according to both WAR, and xFIP, and so they’re the three getting my votes.
3. Danny Haren, SP, Diamondbacks
2. Javier Vazquez, SP, Braves
1. Tim Lincecum, SP, Giants
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