AL CY 2010, predict and/or discuss

There's the "who's the best pitcher" side of it, but also the "why did the voters vote they way they did" side of it.

He gave a reasonably explanation of the former, but what I got out of that piece was more in respect to the latter: Felix had an obviously good enough season that everyone but Murray Chass could see past the W-L. It doesn't mean that everyone but Murray Chass is conceding that W-L is relatively meaningless – only that it is in this instance.

I think that if Clay Buccholz hadn't hurt his hamstring,

A. He would have won the Cy Young.
B. The discussion right now would be about some of the finer points, which might still be in Felix's favor.

The guys with the win totals either weren't close enough in ERA (Sabthia), innings (Price), or both (Lester). If Buchholz makes those extra starts, he has 19 or 20 wins, a nearly identical ERA, and I doubt voters would be going for Felix's innings over Clay's wins.

None of which is sour grapes. I'm not complaining about the end result. But I think that what Posnanski illustrates more than anything is that this might have been an "exception to the rule" situation.

I wonder how it would have gone if Price had hit that magic number for wins? Would that one win make up for 40 innings and half a run of ERA? I'm guessing yes.

Good points and I almost wrote something about Buchholz's innings. We can't know what he would have done with the starts he didn't make, but it's certainly possible he could have made the AL CY a closer race.

I'm sticking to my major point though, and that is that you can pick the CY winner without looking at wins. (And if two pitcher's are tied in any given category, I'd use IP as the tie breaker.)

I agree with that part. I'm just not sure that this year's results necessarily demonstrate that the voters agree with that, even though at first glance it seems like they might.

I agree with that part. I'm just not sure that this year's results necessarily demonstrate that the voters agree with that, even though at first glance it seems like they might.

Probably true.

I was looking at it as an extreme example of the non-value of wins that could turn on that cartoon light bulb over the voters heads.

But it could just as easily be an extreme example that simply allowed the voters to pick the right guy under "exceptional" circumstances.

Time will tell.