Cy Young Race 2009 in final stages
The Cy Young award is expected to go to Zach Greinke in the American League because he has been lights out throughout the entire season and is well separated from the field as the AL leader in ERA. Greinke today has a 2.32 ERA, which does not happen often in the American league. The only AL starting pitcher to have a sub 2.40 ERA in the past ten years is Pedro Martinez. Greinke is in a class by himself right now.
In the National League, good pitching is more common. The leading candidates for Cy Young play for two teams, the Giants and the Cardinals. Starting with the Cardinals, Adam Wainwright has the most wins of any starter in the American league and will most likely eclipse 20 wins this season. Wainwright’s ERA is under 2.47 which is among the tops in the NL. Chris Carpenter is the ace of the Cardinals and leads the majors with a 2.20 ERA. The St. Louis Cardinals have pulled away in their division and will most likely make the playoffs. Chris Carpenter will be the front runner for Cy Young because he leads the MLB in ERA. In addition, sportswriters tend to reward big name players like Carpenter who lead their teams to a playoff run.
The SF Giants have Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain both performing at high levels. Both pitchers are serious Cy Young candidates. Lincecum is seen as the ace of the staff, but there is a month left in the season and Matt Cain can win the award by outpitching his teammate Lincecum and the candidates.
Lincecum has been praised since he first entered the league and sportswriters love him so he has the best chance of winning the award over Chris Carpenter, but the Giants are still trying to fight for a wild card spot. Since the Giants are not the leaders in their division, both Lincecum and Cain are underdogs to win the Cy Young award. Also, the Giants are competing with the Colorado Rockies to be the 2nd place team in the NL West. I do not see a way that Cain or Lincecum can win the Cy Young without making the playoffs.
The Cy Young race is entering its final stretch and all the candidates are deserving of the award. The sportswriters will have a difficult time deciding who should win the award for the National League, especially if the Cardinals win their division and the Giants also make the playoffs through Wild Card or winning the division. My prediction is that Tim Lincecum will win, not because he deserves it over Carpenter or the other leading candidates, but because ESPN and other sports media are enamored by him.
It will be interesting to see how the Cardinals manage their pitching staff down the stretch once they win the division because The Cardinals understand the importance of being rested and ready for the playoffs. They have been in this position before and Tony LaRussa seems like a coach who would prefer his pitching staff to get additional rest instead of trying to win a regular season award. Regardless of who wins the award for the NL, all the candidates mentioned have been superb and I do not envy whoever has to vote at the end of the season.
There is a reason the "writers" as you say love Lincecum. He is a beast and looking at his size and build he shouldn't be able to do what he does much like Pedro in the late 90's. This also means he is likely to end like Pedro, broken down, but we won't get into that now. I wouldn't just assume that Chris Carpenter or Adam Wainwright won't win because the media as you say also loves the Cardinals because of their mid-american, mid-market appeal and Albert Pujols.
i agree with rembrandt, its almost like implying he's undeserving of the praise he receives. Anyone that's seen him pitch must recognize that he is a dominant talent and barring injury will continue to get better, which is scary. he's the premier strikeout guy in baseball and is good for double digit k's on any given night. If he were on the phillies he'd win over 20 games easy. Wainwright is a great pitcher but he's not even close to lincecome and carpenter was injured for a good month or so. What impresses me about tim is that with all the increased publicity,.tv commercials, video game covers, and a shaky first couple starts, he's still been able to produce on an incredibly high level. On another note, depending what they do in the last month, javier vasquez josh johnson and ubaldo jimenez are in the mix as well.
ps. sounds like u got some hate in ur blood
after checking the stats lincecome and carpenters numbers are pretty close, whip and era nearly even lincecome has the edge on k's but carpenter's win/loss is excellent especially being that the two also have almost the same run support. I'm big on win loss records, although some ppl argue its meaningless and hard to win (or easy to lose) based on run support (ex. johan santana) i still believe that there is value to a guy that can come out and win a game regardless of what his offense is doing. You need a guy that can get a 1-0 lead and not give in. on the otherhand wainwright is great but not even close to these two, his whip , opponent batting average, and k's are all significantly behind the other two to consider him cy young
bazoogieman, I am a little biased being a Giants fan but watching Matt Cain the past couple years and the horrendous run support and luck he got has made me hate that the won/loss record is SUCH a huge factor in Cy Young voting and all around. Cain finally got run support this year (well the first half at least). Here are several interesting things:
Wins in games pitcher was losing when removed but offense scored that inning to give them the win.
Carpenter 2
Wainwright 0
Lincecum 0
Cain 0
Cain08 0
Cain07 0
Wins in games pitcher was tied when removed but offense scored that inning to give them the win.
Carpenter 0
Wainwright 2
Lincecum 0
Cain 0
Cain08 0
Cain07 0
No decisions in games pitcher was winning when removed but bullpen blew it.
Carpenter 1
Wainwright 2
Lincecum 3
Cain 2
Cain08 3
Cain07 5
Games not won when giving up 2 ERs or less
Carpenter 3
Wainwright 9
Lincecum 7
Cain 7
Cain08 11
Cain07 13
Quality Starts/Games Started
Carpenter 19/23
Wainwright 20/28
Lincecum 23/28
Cain 18/27
Cain08 21/34
Cain07 22/32
Quality Starts not Won
Carpenter 6
Wainwright 8
Lincecum 10
Cain 8
Cain08 14
Cain07 16
Wins that were not quality starts
Carpenter 2
Wainwright 4
Lincecum 0
Cain 2
Cain08 1
Cain07 1
Win/loss record actual versus predicted based off Quality Start or not
Carpenter 15-3 19-4
Wainwright 16-7 20-8
Lincecum 13-5 23-5
Cain 12-4 18-9
Cain08 8-14 21-13
Cain07 7-16 22-10
Ranked offense in runs scored
Cardinals 8th
Giants 15th
Giants08 15th
Giants07 15th
your an idiot
one of the cardinals pitchers should win because if you look at the season the cardinals starters have been better than the giants pitchers
The game is not over at this time, but right now it is a battle bewtween Wainwright and Carpetner for the Cy. Yes, Lincecum and Cain have put up really good, comparable numbers to the other two, but the won-lost record has to be considered. After all, that is why you play the game, to win. An offensive player suffers quite often because the rest of his team doesn’t perform and they don’t win, so it should be with pitchers. You can’t argue with Wainwright’s win total and Carpenter’s won-loss record, and both have ERAs that are the best in the league. STrikeouts, to me, are somewhat overrated, because it doesn’t matter if you strike out 10 guys and lose. I would rather have a guy that gives up 7 hits and wins opposed to a guy that gives up four hits, gets 10 ks and then loses. See Nolen Ryan early in his career.
The idea of the game is get outs and that equals winning. A strikeout counts as an out. The player doesnt put the ball into play for a possible hit, or error. Im pretty sure K's are pretty damn important. If you take away half of Lincecums K's and put those balls into play, how many are RBI singles, doubles, homeruns, errors, or outs. We wont know cuz the batter didnt put the ball into play.
I did a comparison and these are the rankings i came up with to win the CY Young….
1. Tim Lincecum
2. Chris Carpenter
3. Dan Haren
4. Adam Wainright
5. Matt Cain
6. Wandy Rodriguez
7. Javier Vavquez
8. Josh Johnson
9. Ubaldo Jimenez
However, things have changed in the past week and with Carpenters blow-up yesterday and Wainright faltering as well. Lincecum should be a lock for the Cy Young, barring blow-up. And BTW, I am a die hard Cardinal fan so there is no bias here. I would love to see Carp or Waino win it but Lincecum's overall numbers are too good. W/L are nice but ERA, K's, WHIP, and opp BA is so much more important.
And my predictions using the same formulas for….
AL Cy Young
1. Zach Greinke
2. Felix Hernandez
3. CC Sabathia
4. Justin Verlander
5. Jon Lester
NL MVP
1. Albert Pujols
2. Hanley Ramirez
3. Prince Fielder
4. Ryan Braun
5. Chase Utley
Obviously assuming that nobody gets hurt or nobody goes off the charts with numbers for the next 3 weeks
AL MVP
1. Miguel Cabrera
2. Joe Mauer
3. Derek Jeter
4. Bobby Abreu
5. Kevin Youkilis
Chris Carpenter for cy young. He ranks high with wins, innings pitched, era and has only had 2 off outings all year.
Carp or Waino- either one. Love my redbirds! Lincecum blew the all star game! I was there and wanted to see the NL finally take it back.
Look @ Greinke, he is a monster. If he had C.C.’s run support and Sabathia had his, Greinke would be 23-3 and Sabathia 9-11. He has been shutout all year, having a 3.14 ERA in his worst 2 month stretch.
I mean it is hands down. No pitcher, NL or AL, is as dominant as he is. He will get to 20 wins this year no problem…..and his WHIP is 1.09?! He has I believe 279 strikeouts, the bst slider in the game, and one nasty curveball. Him and Joakim Soria are deadly……too bad their offense is equivalent of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams haha. What is it? 1 TD this season?
I think that everyone is over looking what CC Sabathia has done this year
he has 19 wins and is on his way to have 20 this year. I dont want to take anything away from the dodgers
Zach Greinka he is doing a great job also. i think that CC Sabathia needs to get a little bit more respact in
this Cy Yong race
I think that with this stats W-L 19-5 and ERA 2.49 it will be real hard to take it off from Felix Hernandez
PLAYER TEAM G IP ER K SHO W-L ERA VB
Felix Hernandez SEA 34 238.2 66 217 1 19-5 2.49 0
Zack Greinke KC 33 229. 1 55 242 3 16-8 2.16 0
CC Sabathia NYY 34 230. 0 86 197 1 19-8 3.37 12
Amie, how can you blame the NL’s All Star loss on Lincecum? He wasn’t the only pitcher for the NL in the game. Good luck to all the Cy Young contenders.
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