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
| 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 |
| 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 |
0 recs | 23 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.
toonsterwu - November 11, 2009
Even if you added up all the votes for Wainwright and Carpenter, they still lose to Lincecum
Maybe their disappointing postseason brought them down?
madcow256 - November 11, 2009
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.
toonsterwu - November 11, 2009
Also, the votes were due in before the postseason began.
Al Yellon - November 11, 2009
Well, that debunks my theory
madcow256 - November 11, 2009
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.
nji232 - November 11, 2009
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).
Drunk Cubs Fan - November 11, 2009
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.
Al Yellon - November 11, 2009
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.
Drunk Cubs Fan - November 11, 2009
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.
Sky Kalkman - November 11, 2009
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.
Drunk Cubs Fan - November 16, 2009
I swear it wasn’t me!
WholeCamels - November 11, 2009
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.
backtocali - November 11, 2009
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.
tripdenten - November 11, 2009
Carpenter was aided by an awful division
Lincecum went up against a much better offensive division.
Pre - November 11, 2009
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.
WGNstatic - November 11, 2009
If wins mean anything...
Padres + D-Backs > Astros + Pirates > Mets + Nats.
bison - November 11, 2009
Consistenly? How abou the starts he missed?
Sky Kalkman - November 11, 2009
He was still better than WEllemeyer
vivaelpujols - November 12, 2009
GREINKE FTW!!
ROYALS CUBS WORLD SERIES 2010
dtpollitt - November 11, 2009 via mobile
man what are you smoking??
Probably something that Lincecum has….too soon??
Chanman25 - November 11, 2009
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.
CubFanRaysaddict - November 11, 2009
sorry had the names mixed up, Mike
Still I think Lincecum was the easy decision here.
CubFanRaysaddict - November 11, 2009
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