Weighing In On the NL CY Young
Written by Andrew Kneeland   
Friday, 20 November 2009 15:36

Don't ever say that people don't care about the Cy Young Award. Just hours after Tim Lincecum was announced as the winner of this year's NL Cy Young, fans and the media alike went berserk.

The two writers who awakened this beast were Keith Law and Will Carroll. Their offense? Leaving Chris Carpenter off their Cy Young ballots completely.

* Now, it should be noted that while I don't have an issue with leaving Carpenter off the NL Cy Young ballot, Carroll placed Adam Wainwright ahead of Lincecum. I cannot defend that, as I am convinced that Lincecum is the best pitcher in the National League, bar none.

In case you weren't aware, this is how the two sports-writer's ballots stacked up:

Law: 1) Lincecum, 2) Javier Vazquez, 3) Wainwright.
Carroll: 1) Wainwright, 2) Lincecum, 3) Dan Haren.

Leaving off Carpenter is totally acceptable. Not only did Carpenter tally a few dozen less innings than his competitors, but nearly every stat supports the fact that a combination of Lincecum, Wainwright, Vazquez, or Haren was better. Here are a few of these stats, and how these five pitchers compare to each other. As you will see, Carpenter lags behind in all of the counting stats because of about four less starts.

K/9

1) Lincecum, 10.4
2) Vazquez, 9.8
3) Dan Haren, 8.8
4) Adam Wainwright, 7.1
5) Chris Carpenter, 6.7

Pitching Runs Created

1) Lincecum, 137
2) Wainwright, 126
3) Haren, 121
4) Vazquez, 120
5) Carpenter, 119

FIP

1) Lincecum, 2.37
2) Vazquez, 2.80
3) Carpenter, 2.81
4) Wainwright, 3.16
5) Haren, 3.26

WAR

1) Lincecum, 8.2
2) Vazquez, 6.6
3) Haren, 6.1
4) Wainwright, 5.7
5) Carpenter, 5.6

VORP

1) Lincecum, 69.8
2) Carpenter, 68.7
3) Wainwright, 67.1
4) Haren, 60.2
5) Vazquez, 58.8

Clearly, there are some very talented pitchers in the National League. I'm not trying to take anything away from Carpenter or the season he has had this year. That said, I'm not sure he's deserving enough to be placed ahead of both Wainwright and Lincecum.

What do you think? What would your NL Cy Young ballot have looked like?



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Comments (2)Add Comment
...
written by fetch9, November 22, 2009
Don't use VORP for pitchers. Or at all really.
Interesting...
written by andrewkneeland, November 22, 2009
Is that solely based on the fact that VORP ranks Carpenter as the second best pitcher in the NL, or an error in their valuation of a "replacement pitcher?"

But you also said not to use it at all, which leads me to believe you have a problem with the entire concept of "replacement player?"

Please elaborate...

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Andrew Kneeland can be reached by emailing: akneeland [at] bleacherreport [dot] com.

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