Tuesday, November 08, 2005 |
Official: Bartolo Colon Wins 2005 AL Cy Young
Update: As Vishal notes in the comments, Bartolo's hardly the ideal pitcher to receive the award to unless you want to rename it to "Most Wins Award". Colon's third in the AL by VORP (at 51.1) trailing Johan Santana (73.0) and Mark Buehrle (54.2). Buehrle also had a better ERA than Colon, by nearly a half a point, and if, as David Pinto observes, you inspect fielding independent pitching, Colon wasn't even the best pitcher on the team, an honor that goes to the highly improved John Lackey. But the wins, the wins....
The root of the problem is that the BBWAA admits the opinions of hacks such as Bill Plaschke, John Kruk, and Joe Morgan. The object of every thinking fan of the game should therefore be the obliteration of this clique, or if that goal cannot be accomplished, then their reduction to laughingstock status. This latter is already widely accomplished in places like Baseball Prospectus and at BTF, though not in the stands, where "heart" and other such nonsense still gets airplay. So long as such the Plaschkes of the world hand out meaningless trophies based on numbers disconnected from genuine ability, so long will the Cy Young be tarnished. I would send my congratulations to Bartolo, but it's hard to do when you realize the other Santana just got robbed.
Update 2: Bob Timmermann in the comments intimates that none of Plaschke, Kruk, or Morgan are eligible to vote for the Cy Young. I would be interested to find out who, exactly, is in the BBWAA.
Update 3: incredibly, Jayson Stark thinks Santana got jobbed, too. But -- he loses me when he brings up Mariano Rivera as Colon's supposed superior (wake me when his 32.3 VORP outdistances Colon's 51.1 -- those innings do count). Still, Stark's disdain for wins as a metric for evaluating pitchers represents progress.
I don't believe TV guys like Morgan and Kruk are members either.
I see your point Rob. You just need better examples.
: 11/08/2005 01:58:00 PM : 11/08/2005 02:37:00 PMThe problem with that is you'd still have to convince sports writers that wins (both of the pitching and team varieties) aren't the best measure of ability.
Honestly, we all knew Colon would win it two months ago (just as we know that he wasn't the best pitcher in the league). It's not surprising or disappointing. It's just how the award works.
He also has the most losses of all time...
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