From Henry Schulman in today's SF Chronicle:
In the Players Choice awards announced Monday by the Major League Baseball Players Association, Lincecum outpolled Arizona's Brandon Webb and Milwaukee's CC Sabathia for Outstanding Pitcher in the NL. Later Monday, the Sporting News announced that Lincecum won its player polling for NL Pitcher of the Year.
Cy so what? If the guys who actually have to stand in the box and face pitchers vote Mr. Lincecum the best pitcher in the National League, what possible rationale could there be for some old guy on the east coast to look at win totals and decide that a pitcher on some east coast team was "better"? We all know that, because there are various attributes involved, unlike, say, picking the home run leader, that the Cy Young award can be somewhat subjective. However, if you read various newspaper columns around the country written by people who actually get to vote, then you begin to wonder what criteria is really in use, if any. So I have two possible suggestions. One, relegate the Cy Young to a minor mention, call it the old writers pitching award, and make a big deal out of the player's choice awards. Or, let Chris at Bay City Ball, the guys at firejoemorgan.com and Grant at McCovey Chronicles vote. At least they partly pay attention. Congratulations Tim! You deserve it.
2 comments:
This is why we blog: mainstream sports-writers don't deliver the goods. Oh, they can turn a phrase. But they don't have anything to say. It's sports fer chrissakes. It ain't that hard. You'd think these guys could analyze better than they do, considering how much ball they watch and how much writing they do. But they don't. They deliver opinions you can get just as easily on a barstool or in a bleacher seat.
Or a blog.
265 strikeouts, me bhoyos. What a season. I think he's going to take home the big prize.
So 12 of the past 16 winners of the P.C. Outstanding Pitcher award have gone on to win the Cy. Of course one of those 4 was Schmidty in '04, east coast bias strikes again. Lets hope Timmy gets it.
Check out my post from yesterday, if your not too bored with it already.
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