2008 MLB Thread

[ChefChiTown]

I think Lincecum deserved.

But I would have had Johan right behind him.


How is the voting fone anyways? Do they take into consideration of what happened thoughout the season. For exmple. How well the player pitched against division rivals.?

Or is it just soley based on numbers?

The Cy Young award is a prestigious award, but the voting process is very, very flawed. The Baseball Writers Association of America is the group that casts the votes for the award, with 2 "representatives" from each respected team. Meaning, 2 writers "represent" the Colorado Rockies, 2 different writers "represent" the Cleveland Indians, 2 different writers "represent" the Oakland Athletics, etc. The writers only vote for the teams that are in their respective "represented" leagues. For example, the San Diego Padres "representatives" only vote towards the NL Cy Young award. Each writer casts 3 votes; 1st place, 2nd place and 3rd place. All of the votes are tallied and a winner is named.

There is no exact reason as to why certain pitchers get votes and certain pitchers don't. Each writer has their own agenda for voting, so it's impossible to say exactly "why" votes are cast for certain pitchers. One writer might look at stats and stats alone, one writer might look at a pitcher's overall impact for their team, one writer might favor late season performance over early season performance, one writer might favor ERA over wins, etc. This is why the voting system is extremely flawed. Not to mention, it's conducted by sports WRITERS, who, for the most part, don't really understand sports to begin with.

 

[rodfarva]

Everyone should be listening to everything Chef is saying about the Cy Young award here because he is 100% correct on all counts. Not trying to kiss your ass or anything Chef, but I couldn't agree with you more on all of these things. CLEARLY Webb deserved the award, he won 22 games! In this day and age winning that many games would be like winning 30 a couple of decades ago, it just doesn't happen anymore. And Santana? He shouldn't have gotten one single vote. I wish I had something new to say, but Chef has pretty much summed it up already. The voters are all jackasses who are just trying to outsmart each other when they cast their votes. If they knew what they were talking about they wouldn't be writers, they'd be players.

 

[Red001]

wow i'm agreeing with both rodfarva and chef that the cy young voting is hugely flawed. i wonder if letting the last 10 pitchers who won the award being allowed to vote would help?.folks matt holliday is not going to be in oakland long term i expect him to be traded by mid july. 2 reasons the a's love having guys like this to trade and his agent scott boras has called him a franchise player ie 20 million please

 

[rodfarva]

wow i'm agreeing with both rodfarva and chef that the cy young voting is hugely flawed. i wonder if letting the last 10 pitchers who won the award being allowed to vote would help?.folks matt holliday is not going to be in oakland long term i expect him to be traded by mid july. 2 reasons the a's love having guys like this to trade and his agent scott boras has called him a franchise player ie 20 million please

I agree. Holliday will likely be traded for a package of prospects/draft picks before the deadline.

 

[senob44]

Statistical studies have shown that once the ball is in play a pitcher has almost no control over what happens to the ball (besides knuckleballers who for whatever reason seem to have a marginally amount of control over it). If the person is put out after that it has more to do with the teams overall defense and luck. That's why somebody that gets people out by striking them out is more valuable than somebody that does the same thing with his defense all other things being equal.

Yes, but pitchers have EVERY control over where the ball is delivered to the batter and at what speed and what break is on the ball when it is delivered. These are the things that cause batters to hit ground balls or lazy pop-ups or broken bats (depending on the type of pitcher). It is no coincidence that some pitchers tend to get more of these from batters than others.

That being said, the strikeout helps eliminate situations where the pitcher makes "his" pitch, and the batter reacts just as expected, but gets a hit anyway, such as bloop singles, ground balls that slip through a hole, bad hop ground balls, etc.

IMO there has to be a happy medium where you can rate ALL pitchers on their performance by the SAME criterion. Some of you will disagree with me, but I feel that criterion is ERA. To me, there is no greater indication of how well a pitcher is pitching than that. I can't see focusing too much on something like wins because so much of that has to do with how good the offense of your team is. Teams with powerful offenses often have pitchers that rack up the wins, but how is that an indication of how well they pitched? Granted, those pitchers tend to pitch differently when their team has a big lead, possibly inflating their ERA, but I feel the effect is minimal.

If I was a voter, I wouldn't give my vote to the guy who was simply "good enough" to not allow the other team to outscore his team. I would give my vote to the guy who dominated the other teams, regardless of situation, and kept them from scoring runs. I'm not even going to say who I would pick, based on that, but you can reach your conclusions.

 

[Magnet]

Yes, but pitchers have EVERY control over where the ball is delivered to the batter and at what speed and what break is on the ball when it is delivered. These are the things that cause batters to hit ground balls or lazy pop-ups or broken bats (depending on the type of pitcher). It is no coincidence that some pitchers tend to get more of these from batters than others.

That being said, the strikeout helps eliminate situations where the pitcher makes "his" pitch, and the batter reacts just as expected, but gets a hit anyway, such as bloop singles, ground balls that slip through a hole, bad hop ground balls, etc.

IMO there has to be a happy medium where you can rate ALL pitchers on their performance by the SAME criterion. Some of you will disagree with me, but I feel that criterion is ERA. To me, there is no greater indication of how well a pitcher is pitching than that. I can't see focusing too much on something like wins because so much of that has to do with how good the offense of your team is. Teams with powerful offenses often have pitchers that rack up the wins, but how is that an indication of how well they pitched? Granted, those pitchers tend to pitch differently when their team has a big lead, possibly inflating their ERA, but I feel the effect is minimal.

If I was a voter, I wouldn't give my vote to the guy who was simply "good enough" to not allow the other team to outscore his team. I would give my vote to the guy who dominated the other teams, regardless of situation, and kept them from scoring runs. I'm not even going to say who I would pick, based on that, but you can reach your conclusions.

CC supporter.

hey, if i had it my way CC would have been cy young, and Manny would be MVP.

 

[senob44]

CC supporter.

hey, if i had it my way CC would have been cy young, and Manny would be MVP.

Actually no. I think CC pitched better than anyone during the time he was with the Brewers, but I didn't mention I think a full season of success in the league should also be required. Since the awards are given individually within each league, mid-season league-switchers get screwed, but I think it just has to be that way.

For the same reason, though it doesn't apply to any of the leading candidates, I also wouldn't give the award to a player who missed a significant portion of the season due to injury.

 

[ChefChiTown]

Actually no. I think CC pitched better than anyone during the time he was with the Brewers, but I didn't mention I think a full season of success in the league should also be required. Since the awards are given individually within each league, mid-season league-switchers get screwed, but I think it just has to be that way.

For the same reason, though it doesn't apply to any of the leading candidates, I also wouldn't give the award to a player who missed a significant portion of the season due to injury.

I agree. I was watching PTI on ESPN the other day and Mike Wilbon made a good point. He said that if C.C. Sabathia was in the NL for the entire year, the teams and batters that he faced would've had more than 1 or 2 looks at him and would've faired better against him, because they would've seen him more than just once or twice. Nobody in the NL had ever faced C.C. before (with the exception of a very limited number of players) so that gave C.C. a big advantage, as he was literally an unknown pitcher in that scenario. If he would've spent the entire season in the NL, teams and players would've adapted to his pitching style and would've made adjustments to hit him more successfully.

So, since he was only the NL for a short time, I agree that he shouldn't have won or even be considered for the award.

 

[rodfarva]

CC supporter.

hey, if i had it my way CC would have been cy young, and Manny would be MVP.

I disagree on CC, but I DEFINITELY think Manny should be the NL MVP. Sadly, Ryan Howard will probably win because he hit lots of HRs in the last month of the season and the writers have ADD. Manny DEFINITELY had the biggest impact on his respective team and therefore deserves the award.

Also, I don't think Piniella deserved NL Manager of the Year. Torre and Charlie Manuel both deserved it a bit more; I'd have to give Manuel the edge overall.

 

[ChefChiTown]

I disagree on CC, but I DEFINITELY think Manny should be the NL MVP. Sadly, Ryan Howard will probably win because he hit lots of HRs in the last month of the season and the writers have ADD. Manny DEFINITELY had the biggest impact on his respective team and therefore deserves the award.

Also, I don't think Piniella deserved NL Manager of the Year. Torre and Charlie Manuel both deserved it a bit more; I'd have to give Manuel the edge overall.

Ryan Howard will win the NL MVP because the Phillies won the World Series. Just like how Evan Longoria won the AL ROTY...because the Rays made it to the World Series.

 

[zell]

Also, I don't think Piniella deserved NL Manager of the Year. Torre and Charlie Manuel both deserved it a bit more; I'd have to give Manuel the edge overall.

My personal opinion is that if you have a team that's "expected" to go to the World Series and you get swept out of the playoffs for the second straight year,then there is no way that you deserve to win manager of the year.Charlie Manuel should have got it.He won the World Series so that's good enough for me that he was the best manager in baseball this year.

 

[zell]

Ryan Howard will win the NL MVP because the Phillies won the World Series. Just like how Evan Longoria won the AL ROTY...because the Rays made it to the World Series.

Even though the voting was over for ROTY before Longoria even got to the WS,he would have won it anyway because the baseball media has been riding has nuts all year.

 

[ChefChiTown]

Even though the voting was over for ROTY before Longoria even got to the WS,he would have won it anyway because the baseball media has been riding has nuts all year.

He was announced as the winner only a few days ago.

 

[senob44]

He was announced as the winner only a few days ago.

I guess zell was indicating that the voting ends well before the winners are announced? I'm not sure whether this is the case or not, but it would be interesting to know.

On that subject, I feel that most of the awards should be determined based solely on regular season performance, with the exception of Manager of the Year. Just feels like the right way to do things for me.

 

[zell]

I guess zell was indicating that the voting ends well before the winners are announced? I'm not sure whether this is the case or not, but it would be interesting to know.

That's exactly what I'm talking about.I seem to remember the announcers making a point of telling you that the voting for ROTY was officially over before the divisional series was over between the Sox and the Rays.

 

[yaheem]

The awards are voted on after the regular season ends, so post-season performances dont have an impact on the voting. After all they are regular season awards. Postseason is relegated to series MVP's. MLB gotta drag everything out so they stay in the news all year long. Dammit Bud.

 

[Dean Henneberg]

Albert Pujols re-captures NL MVP

 

[bodie54]

Passing along a thank you to senob for hosting a really good thread :hatsoff:


[size=-2]I'm so relieved the Dodgers didn't make it to the world series. If they had I'd have gone broke keeping my word to buy everybody on the thread an Andruw Jones autographed jersey[/size] :1orglaugh

 

[Magnet]

Passing along a thank you to senob for hosting a really good thread :hatsoff:


[size=-2]I'm so relieved the Dodgers didn't make it to the world series. If they had I'd have gone broke keeping my word to buy everybody on the thread an Andruw Jones autographed jersey[/size] :1orglaugh

ooooh...fire starter!

:1orglaugh

 

[ChefChiTown]

DUSTIN PEDROIA is the AL MVP? Are you KIDDING ME?!?!?!?! What in the fuck is going on with this bullshit voting?