AL Cy Young?

[Parker 1st MRB]

Wow Felix won with a 13-12 record?!?!?! Yea he had a 2.27 ERA, was second in strikeouts and had 29something innings pitched - but how the hell did he win 21/28 votes? Thats a lot of people placing him number 1.

Now that I think about it, he did do all that on the Mariners who were terrible this season. Yea I'm ok with the decision.

[Englebretson 1st MRB]

Yea I was not surprised that he won.

[Dillon 1st MRB]

I think the sportswriters are finally understanding how "Wins" is mostly out of the control of the pitcher. The old school thought was that the pitcher had to pitch to win. Well, if your team doesn't score, it makes it hard for your pitcher to win. The big push the last 10 years on sabermetrics is something that I think has shown some progress this year. I don't think that Felix would have won this 3 years ago. It would have been unheard of 10 years ago.

In the past, numerous pitchers were overlooked for this award. In 2005, Bartolo Colon won over Johan Santana (who came in third).

Colon was 21-8 with a 3.48 ERA and 157 K's.

Santana was 16-7 with a 2.87 ERA and 238 K's.

Same thing happened when Barry Zito won in 2002 over Pedro Martinez.

Zito: 23-5 2.75 ERA 182 K's

Pedro: 20-4 2.26 ERA 239 K's

The numbers are even better for both Santana and Pedro if you used more advanced stats.

[Englebretson 1st MRB]

WOOO JOHAN SANTANA WOOO

[Kabasares]

Wins don't mean everything. Matt Cain for the Giants went 13-11 this year and 14-8 the year before. However, out of all the pitchers in the MLB, Matt Cain has one of the lowest run support for the past 3 years. His record could have been easily 18-6 this year and 19-5 the year before had the bullpen not imploded or if we had scored more runs. This is one of the reasons why a couple of friends and I think that Cain is better in terms of consistency than Lincecum.

[Dillon 1st MRB]

Cain isn't more consistant than Lincecum.

Lincecum has had a 10.24 K/9 over the last three years. This is phenominal, Randy Johnson 1993-2003 level numbers. Matt Cain has been very good with 7.29 K/9. Cain gives up .86 HR/9 while Lincecum only gave up .53 HR/9. If you move into Fielding Independant Pitching (defense not being a factor like in ERA), Lincecum had a stellar 3.08 FIP while Cain had a 3.26, which is still pretty nifty. However, once you start looking into WAR (Wins of Replacement-level player), Lincecum has been worth a total of 20.8 Wins over the last three seasons while Cain has been worth 11.2 Wins.

Lincecum is without a doubt the better and more consistant pitcher. However, Matt Cain is a severely under-rated pitcher who has brought $80+ million of worth in wins for the low, low price of $1.9 Million per year. Of course, Lincecum has brought in $91.1 Million of worth for the bargain basement price of $400,000 per year (aside from his signing bonus and all).

I know this is beyond what a casual fan cares about, but when looking at roster construction, the yearly budget is the constraint on how much can be spent on the team. The fact that the SF Giants have one of the top 2 pitchers in the NL (Top 5 in MLB) and a pitcher that would be in the top 20 of all of MLB all for $2.3 million..... Its a big reason why they were able to win it all. Now, if only they had brought Buster Posey up earlier in the season, they wouldn't have had such a nail-biter to make the playoffs. Stupid that they ran that sort of a risk just to push back his arbitration eligibility back another year.

[Englebretson 1st MRB]

GO BARRY ZITO WOOOOO

[Parker 1st MRB]

I get the wins debate, but even with the stats you pulled all those pitchers at least got over 15 wins. Felix had 13!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not disappointed by any means. I had him in my fantasy league and always knew he had the potential to win. I'm just glad it wasn't CC or Price.

[Kabasares]

Thanks for pointing it out Dillon. Its just that I'm rather upset that Cain doesn't get any credit for some of the Giants' success. I talk to so-called "Giants Fans" and when I mention Matt Cain, they're like, "Matt who?". I just think that Cain doesn't belong in Lincecum's shadow, and I don't care how many stats are given to me. I just think the guy deserves some credit for his work, despite the fact the Giants are just unable to give run support. I agree Lincecum has better stats than Cain, but for example, when Lincecum gets into a slump, he slumps for about a month and then starts to become phenomenal. Take this last August when Timmy went 0-5 and made it only to the 6th inning at best. I guess that's how my city came up with the theme of torture for this year, but I'll tell ya, it was worth it in the end. GO GIANTS!

[Dillon 1st MRB]

I get the wins debate, but even with the stats you pulled all those pitchers at least got over 15 wins. Felix had 13!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not disappointed by any means. I had him in my fantasy league and always knew he had the potential to win. I'm just glad it wasn't CC or Price.

I get that. But remember, the Mariner's scored fewer runs than any team since the DH was introduced. In 1972. Oh, and ESPN called them the worst offense... ever.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...mp;sportCat=mlb

[Gooderham 1st MRB]

Its interesting, Monday night Dan Patrick was talking about this on his show. In his opinion, Hernandez was going to win.

[S. Kirby]

Cliff. Lee.

That is all.