I’m looking it over and overall Felix Hernandez has the best numbers except at 11-10 he is going to lose a lot of votes.
After him, CC Sabathia stands out at 19-5 with very good numbers including a 3.02 ERA and the second most innings pitched per game and overall after Felix.
Clay Buchholz has a gaudy 2.25 ERA and is 15-6. The starts and IPs are not great though.
Usually for Cy Young the writers don’t worry much about team record unless they are looking at the pitcher’s Win% vs. Team Win%. But they don’t vote higher for contending players like the MVP voting.
Who else will be in the conversation for Cy Young? Cahill, Weaver, maybe Price?
You can put Cliff Lee in the conversation too if you like. Alternately you can have a really short conversation. King Felix has been the best pitcher in the al, unhittable during the last month, and with the falloff of Lee there isn’t anyone else all that close.
I agree, but the thing is, what is the least wins and worst winning percentage a Cy Young winner ever had?* That is going to work against King Felix in the voting. My guess is he won’t win. Will they lean towards Wins & Win % or ERA? How much will they consider Innings per Game and overall Innings? Usually they like work horses and ERA. I don’t think anyone is standing out with Ks enough to pick up #1 votes for Ks.
Checking BB-Ref: For a non-closer and non-strike year: It looks like Tim Lincecum’s 15-7 was the least wins. Also the only Win% below .667 were for guys with over 20 wins. Even then, .600 for Gaylord Perry in 1972 appears to be the worst.
Yep. He’s going day-to-day now, just like our shortstop Elvis Andrus. Very infurating the last several games and I don’t know when the slide will stop.
Well, the Padres have managed two wins in a row after their ten-game skid. the Giants keep wining, though, so San Diego’s lea is still only 1 game. It’s going to be a nail-biting month.
And the Rockies begin their patented late season winning streak. Won five in a row, and have a perfect schedule ahead - not an easy one, but one that they need to move into the playoffs - tough teams ahead of them at home and weak teams on the road. 24 games left and they probably need to win 15 of them to get in.
The Giants and Padres appear to be getting their acts together just in time for a relaxing 4 game series in San Diego.
A series loss for the Giants would be a crushing blow considering they are already 2 losses back, but a split would leave the Giants in great shape due to their easier schedule the rest of the way.
With the Phillies, Braves, Giants, Padres, Rockies, and Cardinals all fighting for 3 spots things will be crazy.
I think a few people in this thread were involved in the discussion, a few months ago, about turning double plays at second base. In that discussion, i argued that too much latitude is given to the baserunner in terms of taking out the second baseman. I think that MLB should write stricter rules regarding the extent to which a baserunner can stray from the basepath in order to disrupt the infielder attempting to turn a double play.
Well, it does occasionally happen that baserunners get called for this sort of thing, and it happened on Tuesday to Craig Counsel of the Brewers.
Despite the early whining of the commentator, i think this was an excellent call by the umpire, and there should be more of it. Counsel made absolutely no attempt to get anywhere near second base; his only intention on the play was clearly to disrupt the second baseman.
Texas continues it’s losing streak with another loss to the Jays. We’re still 7 games up, but things aren’t looking pretty right now if we continue to not hit and pitch like crap.
Speaking of Cy Young, at what point do we put Latos in the discussion. He hasn’t given up 3 runs in a start since June 4th in which he gave up 3. Before that you have to go back to April. Having him in a keeper league numbs the pain a bit of losing Strasburg.
Yeah, he’s been fantastic. I also have him in my Fantasy league.
Latos has a WHIP of 0.96, and is the only NL starter whose WHIP is under 1. At 2.21, his ERA also leads all starters in the league. He’s 11th in strikeouts, and would probably be in the top two or three except for the fact that he’s made 2-3 fewer starts than a few of the other contenders because he was on the DL for a couple of weeks, mainly to ensure that he didn’t get overworked. Recently, his K/BB ratio has been incredible, and he’s averaging over 9 strikeouts per 9 innings pitched.
He has to be one of the favorites for the Cy Young right now, although i reckon that Ubaldo Jimenez’s incredible start to the season will linger in the minds of a lot of voters. Wainwright, Halladay, Hudson, and Johnson all have to be in the conversation too. Halladay actually has a pretty comfrotable lead in VORP, at 70.1, with Latos in 5th (56.0) behind Hudson, Wainwright, and Johnson. It will be an interesting vote.
Another thing about Latos: if he had pitched to just 3 fewer batters last year, we would also be talking about him as a Rookie of the Year candidate, but he pitched just on inning too many to qualify.
More Latos. Since April ended he is 13-3, has an era of 1.65, a whip of .89 and has 157 k’s in 142.1 innings. Pitching in San Diego certainly helps, but he might be entering the conversation of top pitchers in the game.
Ooh, a defining moment series! Awesome! Wish I could stay up late enough to watch the games, being in the EST zone.
The Reds are sliding having lost five of their last six (and hopefully, like the Padres, they are getting their losing ways out of the way now rather than next month!) but the Cardinals keep losing too, so the NL Central lead is still at 6 games.
They can only beat good teams, apparently, whereas the Reds slaughter bad teams and can’t beat the good ones. And since the NL Central is populated with shitty teams like the Astros, Pirates, Cubs and to a lesser extent, the Brewers, you have what we have. I can’t explain it either!
The Blue Jays have claimed Taylor Buchholz off waivers from the Rockies. Almost 29, he had a good year with the Rox in 2008 (ERA+ of 217, WHIP of 0.95), but has since undergone TJ surgery.
Jesse Litsch has been moved to the 60-Day DL to make room on the 40-man.
