Even assuming the words “not including relief pitchers,” that is not true. Brandon Webb won the award going 16-8, Randy Johnson won it going 17-9, and Pedro Martinez won it going 17-8, all in 162-game seasons. Rick Sutcliffe won the 1984 NL award going 16-1; he’d won 4 games with Cleveland before being traded, though.
mhendo:
Nitpick: First STARTER to…etc
Speaking as a Boston fan, no. Frankly I think he’s being a jerk.
I have no problem with a KC fan being happy that the Royals won that game.
Yeah it is pretty silly of you. Sabathia averages over 3 more runs of support a game. Do you think that maybe this is why he has more wins? Honest question: Say the yankees and royals swapped Greinke and Sabathia before the season and they put up similar seasons to what they did in terms of era and innings. How many wins would each of them have?
Also Greinke is fifth in the league in innings, only 10 behind Sabathia. Sabathia has given up 31 extra earned runs. Are you saying that if Greinke pitched an extra 30 innings (one per start) and gave up an extra 30 runs he would be more valuable than he is now? He would still have a better ERA than Sabathia in that scenario.
Yeah, good thing Mauer caused the Tigers to collapse. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been very valuable.
What Exit?, what about Greinke’s innings per game make you question his qualifications for Cy Young? He’s second in the league with 7.0 innings per game.
It might not be that different. How much of Greinke’s success, like that of so many others, is attributable to him being in a low-pressure environment? If he really had to win a Game 7, with 50,000 people screaming at him, could he do it? We won’t know even about Sabathia until next month - but he has a postseason history that should make Yankee fans a little concerned until he proves otherwise. We may not know about Greinke until he goes free agent - will he sign with, and then perform for, a contender? And what if his anxiety disorder kicks back in - what would playing in Wrigley do to him?
Yes, Mauer for AL MVP. Catchers aren’t supposed to be able to hit like that, especially not late in the game when their left hands are sore. He’s not necessarily the best team player, but there’s evidence of that anyway, and the award is for individual performance anyway.
Does everyone here know how chain-yanking, friendly taunting, and trash talk work? I’m not convinced you all do. It’s part of being a fan, guys. Baseball is a game. Entertainment. Sheesh.
Now, if anyone would like to get into baseball’s problem with revenue disparities between markets relegating so many cities to permanent noncompetitiveness, I’ll be happy to do so. It isn’t good for the game that only Boston, New York, Chicago, and LA fans can count on having a contending team every year, while the Oaklands and Baltimores of the world can only pray for a smart front office and a lot of luck. Pittsburghers can’t even pray for that.
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Game Room Moderator.
How is Buckholz doing? You know your guy that couldn’t cut it in a big market? But I don’t really wish to rehash silly arguments on sample size, so I’ll just say the Cy Young has no requirement on the quality of team around you.
For the 437rd time, Baltimore isn’t a small market.
Sorry. AL Starter was the category i should have said. My bad.
What Exit?, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.
I find your MVP voting rationale completely illogical and absurd. It rests on a definition of “valuable” that is completely independent of the player’s actual ability. Even if he is objectively the best player in the world, but he plays on a really shitty team, then under your system he can never win the award. I think that’s a complete travesty.
And the Wins thing for pitchers is even worse. A Win is “the most important stat” as far as the team goes. The purpose of a team is to win games. A win is a win, and a 9-8 victory is just as important for your team’s final W-L total as a 2-1 victory. But getting to the postseason is the reward for team wins; the Cy Young award is about rewarding the best pitcher, and the best pitcher is the guy who actually pitches the best, not the guy who happens to have a whole lot of awesome sluggers backing him up.
Hawkeyeop, you give a stat about Sabathia and Greinke’s run support. Do you know how i can find run support figures for different pitchers, for the innings when they were actually on the mound (as opposed to the whole game)? I can’t work out how to do it on Baseball Prospectus or Baseball Reference.
I don’t know whether or not I would call Baltimore small market. But, I do know that their losing has a lot more to do with a short sighted greedy owner than with the size of the market.
Elvis, trash talking done before the game is fun and healthy fan stuff. Doing it after a loss kind of makes you look like a sore loser.
I was using this:
It has Peavy at 23.40 runs for his one start, so I assume it only counts while the pitcher is active.
mhendo, you weren’t asking me but
show runs per innings in game. RS/IP
Based upon what criteria? How many times have you played on a team with him? Did he steal your cleats? What did he do, specifically, that made you think that he was not a “team player.”
Outstandingly. Slot him in as the #3 guy for the postseason. 
That was one possible explanation for last year, another (which turned out to be right) being that he was brought up too early. But he did have a mental toughness problem last year; do you disagree? If instead he was older, more set in his ways, could he have adjusted mentally the way he did, or would he be Kenny Rogers instead, hoping to be Roy Halladay someday?
Don’t discount mental toughness and confidence. That’s what wins when it matters, not VORP.
Compared to NY, Chi, LA, even Bos, of course it is. But you’re right that a dumb front office is a more immediate problem than lack of revenue there. Same for Pittsburgh and, oh, far too many other places to count.
mhendo, I’m sure you really do know what a team player is.
Never said i didn’t.
What i questioned was how you know that Joe Mauer isn’t one.
First off, I think there’s a lot of validity in this line of questioning. But there’s just so much guesswork involved, it’s hard to make any complete judgment. The thing is - winning isn’t easy anywhere. It’s hard in Boston, because there’s constant scrutiny and high expections. It’s hard in Kansas City because your team sucks ass. I think that over a 162 game season, a lot of that cancels out. But I don’t think you can take an award away from a guy because you think that in a different environment he’d fold.
I think that’s unfair. I think that’s a question a GM absolutely has to answer when trying to figure whether he wants to sign the guy, but for a writer voting on who had the best regular season? They’re different discussions. I love Greinke, but I don’t think he’d prosper in an intense environment - the confines of his own head seem to be complicated enough. Doesn’t mean his on-field regular season accomplishments are any less important. Sabathia puts the same numbers up in NY - you give the award to CC. But he didn’t, so you don’t.
I’m not sure why you’re bringing up post-season mettle in a regular-season discussion. Is that a factor you’d really consider if you were casting a ballot?
I’m not saying Greinke can’t perform under pressure, only that we literally don’t know, and there’s more reason to worry about it with him than with most guys. Same for Roy Halladay, since we were discussing him back at the trade deadline. I would say that the pressure of performing in a major market for a contender is of a different kind than the pressure of trying to stand out on a bad team in the hopes of getting a nice free agency offer, though.
I wouldn’t apply postseason toughness as a criterion for a regular-season award, no. But in the broader area of discussing a player’s value, hell yes I would. And yes, btw, I’d go with Greinke for the Cy for all the reasons discussed here. Not the MVP, because I’d disqualify pitchers, but that’s another topic.
Even those reasons involving actual numbers? 
Yes, I disagree. Or rather I do not and cannot know. Maybe it was a mental problem, maybe it was a problem with pitch selection, maybe he didn’t adjust to the talent level increase quickly, maybe it was an injury etc. There are many possible reasons and I see no reason to assume he wasn’t mentally tough or that he would have had more success in Kansas City. What I did think at the time, was that he was a very successful pitcher except for a brief period in Boston, and that he would eventually figure it. You I believe were in the he can’t hack it in Boston based on a brief trial camp.
Okay, give me a list of teams that have players that have strong mental toughness for next season. Then we can compare whether the team over or under achieved their VORP.
In what way is Boston large than Baltimore?
Likable in interviews and signs autographs? Oh and dives whether or not it is necessary.
Well, according to the numbers here(might be behind paywall at BaseballProspectus) Boston has the 8th largest “Attendance” fanbase and 8th largest “TV” fanbase. Baltimore is 12th and 16th respectively. I believe this has to do with having to share the market with Washington.
These numbers were developed by Nate Silver to get a grip on which teams were truly hurt by their locations and which just like to cry poor.