Felix Hernandez wins AL Cy Young Award

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   I am DB Cooperposted 14 years ago

   This was the most discussed award this postseason. In the end, Felix Hernandez won because he was clearly the best pitcher in the American League. His record may have only been 13-12, but he played for a team that had one of the worst offenses in history. Hernandez had the best ERA and the most innings pitched, and that was more important to voters than C.C. Sabathia's 21 wins, which were backed by a powerhouse Yankees lineup.
   
   The top 3 in BBWAA voting were as follows:
   1. Felix Hernandez
   2. David Price
   3. C.C. Sabathia

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      bogerkposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I just wrote a Hub on this topic. Very interesting decision, and I support it 100%. As a Brewers fan, I remember many seasons where Ben Sheets dominated on the mound but never received any recognition due to his terrible win/loss ratio every season due to awful run support.
      
      Congratulations to Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez! Both Certainly were the best in 2010, "The Year of the Pitcher."

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2. 59

   rotlposted 14 years ago

   I don't know about this one. Seems like an anti-Yankee vote to me. Maybe baseball "purists" saw this coming but I certainly didn't. I guess its nice to see that players from terrible teams can win the league "MVP" award unlike football. The Mariners don't deserve him in any case, and I wonder if part of why he won was because "hey, if he was on the Yankees with that run support, he would have won 30+ games!" I mean do the most accurate quarterbacks win MVPs because "if they had better receivers they would have x amount of yards and TDs"?

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   1. 86

      I am DB Cooperposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Well Hernandez lost a painful number of 1-0 and 2-1 games this season. Sabathia was worse in every category except for wins. The run support was the major difference. Sabathia got about 6 runs per start, while Hernandez got about 3 runs. Those two pitchers happened to have the best and worst run support in the league, respectively.
      
      The Mariners, quite frankly, don't deserve anyone with talent right now. In addition to Hernandez, they also had Cliff Lee for half a season, and they had one of the best fielding teams in baseball. Yet they finished with a horrible record. That's how bad the hitting was. They had Ichiro getting his singles at the top of the lineup, and then nothing from the next 8 batters.

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         jobisterposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Hernandez doesn't seem like the obvious choice, but he does make a case for himself and I agree with DB Cooper. 2nd in strikeouts (by 1), lowest ERA. Plus the award is not for the whole team, it is for his individual performance.

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            bogerkposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            It will be interesting to see if the same theory is applied in the MVP race where Carlos Gonzalez arguably had the best overall stats in the NL, but I assume due to team success that Joey Votto will win the award.

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               I am DB Cooperposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               The difference there is that a lot of voters define "most valuable player" as different from "best player". That's why there are rarely winners from bad teams. They figure "how valuable can a player be if his team was terrible?" The criteria for the Cy Young Award specifically states that it should go to the best pitcher in the league.

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3. 59

   rotlposted 14 years ago

   I still can't believe this one...  13 wins and 12 losses... come on a man! His era was 2 something... if it was 1 something, maybe. I guess everyone does hate the Yankees... what does CC need to do, win 30 games?

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      I am DB Cooperposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      What C.C. needs to do is pitch better. A 3.18 ERA is not terribly impressive. He won a lot of games because he had the top offense in the American League backing him. Winning 20 games shouldn' t automatically win him the award, especially when he received the best run support of any pitcher in baseball. Hernandez was nearly a run better over 9 innings compared to Sabathia. If they had been closer, Sabathia would have had the edge because of the record, but in this case the difference between the two was just too great.
      
      It just goes to show how important offense is to a pitcher's win-loss record. Sabathia had the best run support, while Hernandez's run support was dead-last in baseball. I wrote a Hub on this topic and I switched the run support around and evaluated each pitcher start-for-start (they each started 34 games). Sabathia would have lost 17 games and had a losing record with Hernandez's run support.

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