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Topnotchsy
Featured Contributor, The best players in history?
- Aug 7, 2008
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I was looking at Pedro Martinez's stats and noticed that in both 2002 and 2003 he lead the AL in winning percentage, ERA, WHIP, hits per 9 innings and K's per 9 innings, and somehow the voters managed to find someone else to win the Cy Young. (Looking at a comparison with Zito and Halladay who won those two year's does not really offer any reason Pedro should not have won.) It occurred to me that there are often seasons where most people would agree the "wrong" player won the award (I would argue that this was true in 2012 as well when Dickey won the NL Cy Young over Kershaw) and in some cases, had the most deserving player been given the award, we'd have a different perspective on things (imagine Pedro had 5 Cy Young's instead of the 3 he won etc.) I thought it would be interesting to have a series of threads that went through the major awards over the years and considered who really deserved the award. I figured we'd start with the Cy Young Award winners since 2000. I'm going to give my list some thought.
Here's a link to the actual winners:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/mvp_cya.shtml
AL
2013 - Max Scherzer (1)
2012 - David Price (1) (Verlander could easily have won as well)
2011 - Justin Verlander (1)
2010 - Felix Hernandez (1)
2009 - Zach Greinke (1)
2008 - Cliff Lee (1) (Halladay was about equally deserving)
2007 - CC Sabathia (Lackey was about even)
2006 - Johan Santana (1)
2005 - Johan Santana (3)
2004 - Johan Santana (1)
2003 - Pedro Martinez (3) (Halladay won. He pitched many more innings but Martinez had an ERA over a full run lower.)
2002 - Pedro Martinez (2) (Zito won... Pedro was better)
2001 - Mike Mussina (5) (Really weak season for AL pitchers.)
2000 - Pedro Martinez (1)
NL
2013 - Clayton Kershaw (1)
2012 - Clayton Kershaw (2)
2011 - Clayton Kershaw (1)
2010 - Roy Halladay (1)
2009 - Tim Lincecum (1) (could hear an argument that Carpenter should have won)
2008 - Tim Lincecum (1) (it's a coin-toss between Lincecum and Johan in my mind)
2007 - Jake Peavy (1)
2006 - Brandon Webb (1)
2005 - Roger Clemens (3) (having only 13 wins kept him from winning, but his ERA was basically a run better than Carpenter who won)
2004 - Randy Johnson (2) (Clemens won this due to W/L, but Johnson was a far superior pitcher)
2003 - Jason Schmidt (2) (Gagne won it. He was less deserving than Schmidt and the 3rd place finisher Mark Prior)
2002 - Randy Johnson (1)
2001 - Randy Johnson (1)
2000 - Randy Johnson (1)
Here's a link to the actual winners:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/mvp_cya.shtml
AL
2013 - Max Scherzer (1)
2012 - David Price (1) (Verlander could easily have won as well)
2011 - Justin Verlander (1)
2010 - Felix Hernandez (1)
2009 - Zach Greinke (1)
2008 - Cliff Lee (1) (Halladay was about equally deserving)
2007 - CC Sabathia (Lackey was about even)
2006 - Johan Santana (1)
2005 - Johan Santana (3)
2004 - Johan Santana (1)
2003 - Pedro Martinez (3) (Halladay won. He pitched many more innings but Martinez had an ERA over a full run lower.)
2002 - Pedro Martinez (2) (Zito won... Pedro was better)
2001 - Mike Mussina (5) (Really weak season for AL pitchers.)
2000 - Pedro Martinez (1)
NL
2013 - Clayton Kershaw (1)
2012 - Clayton Kershaw (2)
2011 - Clayton Kershaw (1)
2010 - Roy Halladay (1)
2009 - Tim Lincecum (1) (could hear an argument that Carpenter should have won)
2008 - Tim Lincecum (1) (it's a coin-toss between Lincecum and Johan in my mind)
2007 - Jake Peavy (1)
2006 - Brandon Webb (1)
2005 - Roger Clemens (3) (having only 13 wins kept him from winning, but his ERA was basically a run better than Carpenter who won)
2004 - Randy Johnson (2) (Clemens won this due to W/L, but Johnson was a far superior pitcher)
2003 - Jason Schmidt (2) (Gagne won it. He was less deserving than Schmidt and the 3rd place finisher Mark Prior)
2002 - Randy Johnson (1)
2001 - Randy Johnson (1)
2000 - Randy Johnson (1)
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