Who do you think will win the AL Cy Young Award this year?

[bongo870]

cole Hamels or Roy halladay

Did you even READ the read title? ::facepalm::

sorry my bad. head it hurting bad today and cant see well and just read cy young.. my bad. Sorry. I will delete my reply and sorry for messing up this bad..

 

[craftysouthpaw]

Pitchers who are very good and get good run support usually pitch to the score. Boomer Wells was famous for this. CC does this all the time when he has a lead. He will just throw fastballs and not be picky about it. The Cy Young award should be the guy who puts it all together. Gotta be lucky too. I wasnt a fan of Felix getting it last year but that happened because there was no other overwhelming candidate.

"Pitching to the score" is a complete myth used when there isn't any concrete evidence to support one's argument. If you have any evidence that any pitcher has actually done this AND that it can be borne out by reasoned analysis, I would love to see it.

Jack Morris is the poster child for this argument and Joe Posnanski did an amazingly detailed breakdown showing it to be complete bunk. Morris won a bunch of games because he pitched for one of the best offenses of the '80's, not because he "pitched to the score".

Did Morris forget how to win (since "pitching to the score" is a crucial subset of the "knowing how to win" argument) in the three years after 1987 when he went 18-11? His records those three years were 15-13, 6-14, and 15-18. And then he magically remembered how to win in 1991 and 1992 when he went 18-12 and 21-6? His 21-6 year is statistically quite similar to the years he went 15-13 and 15-18. ERA+ quite close, H/9 about the same, BB/9 a tad lower, and a drop in K/9 that is offset by a drop in HR/9.

Couldn't have anything to do with where his team ranked as far as runs scored right? Nah. Let's look just for fun. His team's AL rank in runs for '87 to '92 (with his W-L in parentheses) was 1 (18-11), 9 (15-13), 14 (6-14), 2 (15-18), 4 (18-12), and 2 (21-6). Amazing how linear that looks. Except for 1990 when he really, really forgot how to win with a 15-18 record despite playing for a team that finished 2nd in the AL in runs.

And I guess Steve Carlton forget how to win in 1973 when he went 13-20? No, he pitched a lot worse. ERA+ went from an amazing 182 to below league average. As for the things he could control, his K/9 went from a tick over 8 to 6.8, his BB/9 went from 2.3 to 3.5, and his HR/9 went from .44 to .89. Those 346 innings from 1972 probably took their toll.

By default, the "pitching to the score" argument concludes a guy's W-L record should remain constant and predictable from year-to-year despite his team's ability to score runs and despite his own peripheral stats such as walks, K's, HR's, and hits allowed (since he would supposedly give up more hits and HR's, surrender less BB's, and have less K's when pitching to the score). But the evidence shows the exact opposite - i.e. that a guy's W-L record is largely the result of those items, not in spite of them.

I don't think "pitching to the score" affects W/L as much as it does ERA and WHIP. The thought has been "I'm up 5 runs. I'm not walking anyone. Here's my fastball. Go ahead and hit it." The idea being that the game is decided and there is no reason to get cute and risk starting a rally by walking batters. That said, I'm not sure I buy this line of thinking either.

As for Morris, even though my rational brain says the statistics don't bear it out, my eyes say he pitched differently late in a 5-0 game than he did in a 1-0 game. I'm not sure the stats are available, but my belief is that he through a much higher % of fastballs in the 5-0 type games.

Maybe he did pitch differently, but any change wouldn't be unique to Jack Morris. And there isn't any evidence that a change in approach based on the score had any meaningful impact on his stats. Again, Posnanski looked at this in excruciating detail for Morris and there just isn't anything there.

Our eyes and memory recall tend to mislead us and result in confirmation bias.

Also, I have a really hard time believing someone who is praised as the ultimate competitor wouldn't try to preserve a shutout or no matter the score. Or give a hitter much leeway to get the better of him. Pitch selection may be impacted some, but I'm pretty sure a guy is still making the best possible pitch and not just laying it in there. I pitched in high school and some in college and I know that I attacked every hitter like the score was 1-0 and was confident in my abilities to pitch the same no matter the score. And if a guy like me with middling talents and no future in the game took that approach, it is likely the guys playing at the highest possible level do as well.

 

[Jays_Cards]

Josh Beckett has been the best pitcher in baseball so far this year. It's really not even close...

 

[scotty21690]

Josh Beckett has been the best pitcher in baseball so far this year. It's really not even close...

CG SHO 1H 0BB 6K :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[bigpapiMA32]

At this point I think it's close between Verlander and Beckett, but there's still a ton of baseball to be played (cough cough, Ubaldo Jimenez).

 

[jjj7880]

Easily Josh Beckett or Verlander.

 

[Jays_Cards]

I know this is not about who would get the Cy now, but about who everyone thinks will win it at the end of the year..As a comparison:

Beckett
14GS 92IP 55H 4HR 30BB 79K 6W 2L .92WHIP.174BAA 1.86ERA

Verlander
15GS 111.2IP 73H 10HR 26BB 105K 8W 3L .89WHIP .185BAA 2.66ERA

 

[burke23]

I know this is not about who would get the Cy now, but about who everyone thinks will win it at the end of the year..As a comparison:

Beckett
14GS 92IP 55H 4HR 30BB 79K 6W 2L .92WHIP.174BAA 1.86ERA

Verlander
15GS 111.2IP 73H 10HR 26BB 105K 8W 3L .89WHIP .185BAA 2.66ERA

Beckett has been great, but Verlander has been as good and in more innings. I think it's Weaver or Verlander this year. They will have the wins, k's, heavy innings, and ERA that voters like to see

 

[Rickzcards]

cole Hamels or Roy halladay

Did you even READ the read title? ::facepalm::

Phillies homers are giving the Yankees homers a run for their money this year. I think it's Verlanders to win this year.

 

[Slette]

Verlander, which pains me as a Twins fan.