N.L. Cy Young Award winner is...

[Cringer]

Roger Clemens (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6444176)

#7, thats not too bad. ;)

[Desnudo]

Roger Clemens (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6444176)

#7, thats not too bad. ;)

If he hadn't gone tubby in Boston he could have won 10. Still bitter about that.

[Franklinnoble]

Bah. Randy Johnson should have won it. Sucks for him that he was on a crappy team.

[Crapshoot]

idiotic decision from an idiotic group.

[MrBug708]

Bah. Randy Johnson should have won it. Sucks for him that he was on a crappy team.

Seconded

[Blackadar]

Johnson had the better stats beyond W/L record. No doubt.

But then again, he didn't pitch in a hitters' park like Clemens. He didn't have to perform down the stretch - Houston won Clemens' last 9 starts to get them into the playoffs. I view the Cy Young as the MVP for pitchers - and in that sense, Clemens is the clear choice.

[DeToxRox]

Both were equally deserving. You gotta' give the tiebreaker to Clemens based on W/L, Ballpark played in, playoff run, etc.

[John Galt]

Johnson had the better stats beyond W/L record. No doubt.

But then again, he didn't pitch in a hitters' park like Clemens. He didn't have to perform down the stretch - Houston won Clemens' last 9 starts to get them into the playoffs. I view the Cy Young as the MVP for pitchers - and in that sense, Clemens is the clear choice.

You might want to look at the stats for BOB before saying Johnson didn't pitch in a hitters' park.

[Subby]

Please - the D-Backs scored 2 or fewer runs in half of Johnson's starts. He can't help it that his team sucks. It is amazing he even had a winning record on the worst team in the NL...

Considering that he had NOTHING for which to pitch, I think his stats are even more amazing.

[Blackadar]

Subby, that may be true. But then again, he had no pressure, made no impact, pitched in a neutral park (not a hitters park), and barely had above a .500 record.

With that in mind, he'd have to be the most dominant pitcher in his league by a huge margin to get my vote. And he wasn't - at least not to the degree in which he needed to.

[Bomber]

The award is for the best pitcher in the NL and Randy Johnson was pretty clearly the best pitcher in the NL.

[John Galt]

Subby, that may be true. But then again, he had no pressure, made no impact, pitched in a neutral park (not a hitters park), and barely had above a .500 record.

With that in mind, he'd have to be the most dominant pitcher in his league by a huge margin to get my vote. And he wasn't - at least not to the degree in which he needed to.

I don't know where you are getting your stadium stats from. Minute Maid was a neutral park last year and BOB was a hitter's park according to ESPN.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor

As for the "no pressure" part, how is that the other pitchers on bad teams didn't do as well (except maybe Sheets)? The .500 record is a product of his team's poor hitting (something he can't control).

[Blackadar]

The award is for the best pitcher in the NL and Randy Johnson was pretty clearly the best pitcher in the NL.

Obviously, that's your opinion. But 23 out of 32 'experts' disagreed with you and voted for Clemens. It wasn't even close.

[Bomber]

Obviously, that's your opinion. But 23 out of 32 'experts' disagreed with you and voted for Clemens. It wasn't even close.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with this possibly being Clemens' last year.

[The_herd]

No pressure????? Johnson had to pitch a shutout every start or he was going to lose. Look at the run support Clemens had tell me who had more pressure.

[Blackadar]

No pressure????? Johnson had to pitch a shutout every start or he was going to lose. Look at the run support Clemens had tell me who had more pressure.

Are you really going to try to claim that pitching for a 100 loss team is as much or even more pressure than putting a team on your back and pitching them into the playoffs?

[Bomber]

Here are some great comments on this, as usual, from Baseball Musings:

"Congratulations to Roger Clemens on winning his 7th Cy Young Award, and his first in the National League. It certainly was the year of the old pitcher in the NL, as Clemens beat out Randy Johnson for the award. Once again, the voters show they are more interested in wins than actual pitching performance. Johnson was ahead of Clemens in K per 9 and BB per 9, and just slightly behind in HR per 9 (and both were extremely good in that category). If Randy Johnson were on a decent offensive team, he would have won going away.

Wins are a team statistic that is applied to players. No pitcher gets a win in isolation. Sometimes the wins are mostly attributable to a pitcher (a 1-0 shutout, for example), but there are always fielders doing their job to back him up, and batters who need to put some runs on the board for a victory. I've been hoping for years that Cy Young voters would realize the difference between wins and ability, but it hasn't happened yet. In my opinion, wins should act as a tie breaker; given two hurlers that have very similar seasons, use the wins as a tie breaker. But in this case, Johnson had the superior season and should be recognized for that.

Amazingly to me, Jake Peavy did not get a single vote. You might think that the league leader in ERA would merit a third place point from the SD voters at least. I guess it was a combination of too few innings and playing in a good park for pitchers."

[The_herd]

Are you really going to try to claim that pitching for a 100 loss team is as much or even more pressure than putting a team on your back and pitching them into the playoffs?

Would you have rather had Clemens or Johnson on the mound for your team this season?

[Ksyrup]

All things being equal, I think Johnson probably deserved it, but the fact is, he didn't raise his team as high above their massive amount of SUCK as Steve Carlton did in 1972. Carlton was 17 games over .500 on a team with a winning % of .378. Johnson was only 2 games over on a team with a winning % of .314. Carlton's ERA+ was 182; Johnson's 171. So the seasons are comparable, but Johnson's team's performance wasn't that much greater when he pitched to make it a slam-dunk, IMO.

[MrBug708]

Are you really going to try to claim that pitching for a 100 loss team is as much or even more pressure than putting a team on your back and pitching them into the playoffs?

Let's give it to Lima then :D

[Abe Sargent]

Randy Johnson was the best, but he didn't win. It sucks, but that is ALWAYS happening in sports individual awards when people spend too much time lookingat team accomplishments and not individual ones. No sense crying about it now when the entire system is flawed.

-Anxiety

[JeeberD]

Woot, way to go Roger! Hopefully next year Roy will finally get his... :)

[Bomber]

Interesting stat: "Johnson went 13-2 when his team scored more than two runs."

[ISiddiqui]

Should have gone to Johnson, but I guess we all knew that voters would be more impressed by wins.

[Glengoyne]

Should have gone to Johnson, but I guess we all knew that voters would be more impressed by wins.
I don't think it is just the wins. I think the voters see such a disparity in win totals, and the voters probably don't put enough weight on things like run support and the war in Iraq.

Besides it's Roger Clemens, and can anyone really make an argument that he isn't deserving without mentioning Johnson?

[Breeze]

Bah. Randy Johnson should have won it. Sucks for him that he was on a crappy team.


He had a chance to get off of that crappy team and didn't take it. I don't feel sorry for the big unit.

[panerd]

So everyone feels sorry for RJ because Roger Clemens is the bigger name? Boo hoo. How about Jake Peavy, who only one person has even mentioned in this thread, who had a better year than both of them? He was hurt for part of the season so he probably shouldn't win the actual award, but no votes? Please don't tell me how sorry you feel for Johnson though when pitchers like Peavy continue to get the massive screw job. How about a thread on why Oswalt should get votes over Peavy? Oh that's right Oswalt is a bigger star on a better team. Let's quit acting like RJ is suffering from some inferiority complex when next season he will probably be making like $800 million playing for the Yankees hype machine every Saturday on Fox, while Peavy continues to be one of the best pitchers in the game who only Padres fans and true baseball fans even recognize.

[oykib]

So everyone feels sorry for RJ because Roger Clemens is the bigger name? Boo hoo. How about Jake Peavy, who only one person has even mentioned in this thread, who had a better year than both of them? He was hurt for part of the season so he probably shouldn't win the actual award, but no votes? Please don't tell me how sorry you feel for Johnson though when pitchers like Peavy continue to get the massive screw job. How about a thread on why Oswalt should get votes over Peavy? Oh that's right Oswalt is a bigger star on a better team. Let's quit acting like RJ is suffering from some inferiority complex when next season he will probably be making like $800 million playing for the Yankees hype machine every Saturday on Fox, while Peavy continues to be one of the best pitchers in the game who only Padres fans and true baseball fans even recognize.

Not to mention Ben Sheets. There is actually a case to be made that Clemens wasn't even in the top three ths year.

He also didn't deserve the award he got while pitching for the Yanks.

[Ksyrup]

Randy Johnson's season was even more amazing when you consider that he pitched the last half of the year with his middle finger extended at the Arizona fans...

[Breeze]

Randy Johnson's season was even more amazing when you consider that he pitched the last half of the year with his middle finger extended at the Arizona fans...


:D Very nice...

[Crapshoot]

So everyone feels sorry for RJ because Roger Clemens is the bigger name? Boo hoo. How about Jake Peavy, who only one person has even mentioned in this thread, who had a better year than both of them? He was hurt for part of the season so he probably shouldn't win the actual award, but no votes? Please don't tell me how sorry you feel for Johnson though when pitchers like Peavy continue to get the massive screw job. How about a thread on why Oswalt should get votes over Peavy? Oh that's right Oswalt is a bigger star on a better team. Let's quit acting like RJ is suffering from some inferiority complex when next season he will probably be making like $800 million playing for the Yankees hype machine every Saturday on Fox, while Peavy continues to be one of the best pitchers in the game who only Padres fans and true baseball fans even recognize.

Uh No. Johnson was a lot better- stop making it personal - the award should be his even if he eats Trouts for breakfast. Clemens was probably the second best pitcher, followed by Sheets, Schmidt, and then Peavy. Oswalt was ridiculous - that because the "experts" that Blackadar cites have a hard on for the 20 win total - as useless a statistic as wins may be. The bigger city/star arguement is best applied to Derek Jeter.

And the "we're ignored" bit- let Peavy do it again before calling him one of the best pitchers in the game..

[John Galt]

And using VORP, Pavano is above Clemens as well.

[Blackadar]

As I mentioned above - which all of the pro-Johnson supporters have conveniently ignored - the real question is whether the Cy Young is given to the pitcher with the best statistics or the pitcher who has great stats and is the most valuable.

Pure stats? Hell, if you're going to use that, a case could be made for Armando Benitez, with 47 saves and a 1.29 ERA.

As for the Rocket, let's look at the real stats:

2nd - wins
4th - ERA of all pitchers with 13 or more wins
1st - fewest losses
5th - strikeouts
Of all the leading contenders, was the only one who got into the playoffs. Furthermore, he was the emotional bedrock for getting them into the playoffs and his team won his last 9 starts to do it.

I like Randy Johnson - he's a helluva pitcher. But I don't see giving the Cy Young to a pitcher who ultimately didn't mean jack in the scheme of things, whose team lost 100 games, who was a clubhouse problem, and who barely had a .500 record. And 23 of 32 voters saw it the same way.

[John Galt]

As I mentioned above - which all of the pro-Johnson supporters have conveniently ignored - the real question is whether the Cy Young is given to the pitcher with the best statistics or the pitcher who has great stats and is the most valuable.

Pure stats? Hell, if you're going to use that, a case could be made for Armando Benitez, with 47 saves and a 1.29 ERA.

As for the Rocket, let's look at the real stats:

2nd - wins
4th - ERA of all pitchers with 13 or more wins
1st - fewest losses
5th - strikeouts
Of all the leading contenders, was the only one who got into the playoffs. Furthermore, he was the emotional bedrock for getting them into the playoffs and his team won his last 9 starts to do it.

I like Randy Johnson - he's a helluva pitcher. But I don't see giving the Cy Young to a pitcher who ultimately didn't mean jack in the scheme of things, whose team lost 100 games, who was a clubhouse problem, and who barely had a .500 record. And 23 of 32 voters saw it the same way.

So, Clemens is 4th and 5th in the two stats he has control of (assuming we use your wins cutoff) and that makes him the number 1 pitcher in the NL?!?! And "emotional bedrock" is a nice story after the fact. If the Cubs hadn't choked, would Clemens have been an "emotional bedrock?"

As for Benitez, he doesn't measure in stats because he didn't pitch enough innings. Of course, the voters were stupid enough to give the award to Gagne last year when Benitez has been almost as good or better this year.

And you keep saying 23 of 32 voters agree with you as though that means something. I guess we shouldn't debate things anymore since the "truth" was already decided.

And where do you get the nation of most valuable as a Cy Young? You appeal to the voters, but I'm pretty sure they vote on W-L and only you are defending the Cy Young as the MVP for Pitchers.

[ISiddiqui]

the real question is whether the Cy Young is given to the pitcher with the best statistics or the pitcher who has great stats and is the most valuable.

Best stats. It isn't the Most Valuable Pitcher award. And like John Galt said, if the Cubs win 50% of their last 10 games, no one is talking about Clemens' being the bedrock to a playoff team.

[Bomber]

Interesting stat: "Johnson went 13-2 when his team scored more than two runs."

I'm pretty impressed with this stat. Not much a pitcher can do if his team can't even score 3 runs for him.

[Blackadar]

Best stats. It isn't the Most Valuable Pitcher award. And like John Galt said, if the Cubs win 50% of their last 10 games, no one is talking about Clemens' being the bedrock to a playoff team.

Fair enough - but then Armando Benitez should be considered somewhere in this discussion if you're looking at raw statistics. As for the Cubs, they didn't win. You can play the "what if" game all you want but it doesn't change what REALLY happened.

Me? If I had a vote, I'd look at stats as the most important factor. But I'd also look at a players' impact on their team and their impact on the league as a whole. To me, the Cy Young is a combo of the best pitcher (stats) and the most valuable pitcher. Considering that some voters won't vote a pitcher for MVP, then the Cy should be considered the MVP for pitchers.

And under that definition, Clemens is far and away the winner.

[VPI97]

I'm pretty impressed with this stat. Not much a pitcher can do if his team can't even score 3 runs for him.Rocket went 16-1 when the Astros scored more than two runs.

[Blackadar]

Best stats. It isn't the Most Valuable Pitcher award. And like John Galt said, if the Cubs win 50% of their last 10 games, no one is talking about Clemens' being the bedrock to a playoff team.

By the way, I respect your position. I just don't agree with it.