from Amazon
Friday, November 18, 2011
Courtesy votes
Wezen runs them down, with the most glaring one being Ben Sheets in 2004.
In 2004, the runaway winner was Roger Clemens, followed by runaway 2nd place Randy Johnson. Third place was a grab-bag between Oswalt, Jason Schmidt, Zambrano, and Pavano. Sheets was #7 among starting pitchers with a single vote.
We see that in 2004, the ERA leader, Peavy, had 166 innings, so he was discarded immediately by the BBWAA then (as he would be today).
The ERA leaders after that were RJ (2.60), Sheets (2.70), and Zambrano (2.75). Under the current mindset, that would be enough for these three guys to lead in Cy Young, with the W/L being the tie-breaker, and IP being the next tie-breaker. So, RJ, Zambrano, Sheets would have been the top 3.
Clemens with his 2.98 ERA (18-4), Pavano 3.00 (18-8), Oliver Perez 2.98 (12-10).
Then Jason Schmidt 3.20 ERA (18-7).
Roy Oswalt would have sneaked in somewhere near the back, with his 3.49 ERA (20-10). He’d be that year’s Gallardo.
So, at some point between 2004, where W/L took center stage and ERA was #2, and 2009, where ERA took center stage and W/L was #2, there was a shift in mindset among the BBWAA. To some, that meant that the sabermetic revolution has taken hold. The reality is that all that happened was the W/L took a back seat to ERA.
WAR by the way would have said:
RJ easy #1
Sheets easy #2
Then a cluster for #3, with Zambrano, Schmidt, Clemens, Pavano leading the way. Oswalt is nowhere in sight.
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 344 pages 1 2 3 > Last »Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date