Carp-e diem! What you missed if you missed last night

I can understand the view of the fan who, frustrated over another disappointed season by his team, finds no interest in the postseason. And I know what it's like to see your team, which seemed destined -- even a lock -- for the playoffs at the All-Star break, fall short on the final day of the season. But as much as I love college football, I can't let go of baseball. I love October weekends of football-full days and playoff baseball nights. And if you love the national pastime, it doesn't get much better than last night.

The Brewers' walk-off win over the Diamondbacks was remarkable in its own right, but the nightcap -- Cardinals at Phillies, Chris Carpenter vs. Roy Halladay -- was pretty close to perfection for a fan of the game. As a Mets fan, sure, I probably had a greater rooting interest for the Cardinals. But even in a series in which I bear little ill will against either team (the upcoming ALCS between the Tigers and Rangers falls into that category), I tend to develop an affinity for one team over the other during the course of the game or the series.

But anyway: last night. While Arizona and Milwaukee were in the 10th inning at Miller Park, Rafael Furcal stepped to the plate in Philadelphia to start Game 5 of that series and tripled to open the game. A triple is exciting whenever it happens, but the first batter against Halladay, when half the ballpark might be expecting him to flirt with a no-hitter in a must-win game? A thing of beauty, particularly when you realize that the leadoff runner on third doesn't necessarily mean a run against an ace like Halladay. Just look at Game 2, when Furcal led off with a triple and Cliff Lee stranded him there by retiring the next three Cardinals.

Halladay wouldn't be so lucky. The next batter, Skip Schumaker, battled Halladay in a 10-pitch at-bat, culminating in a double to the right-field corner to bring home Furcal. It had the makings of a big inning, but Halladay then bore down to get out of the inning with just the one run scoring. With an ace like Carpenter on the mound for St. Louis, one run might be enough. If you're a Cardinals fan, you hope so, but you want more, just to be safe. While the Phillies lineup might not be the efficient juggernaut it appears to be (it relies more on the three-run homer than manufacturing runs), at home at cozy Citizens Bank Park a home run can change the game in a hurry.

And that's what made this game so great: Every batter the rest of the way was a big one, an important one. Every out Carpenter recorded brought the Cardinals closer to the NLCS; every baserunner the Phillies got -- there were just five -- brought them closer to tying the game on a double or taking the lead on a homer. In a 1-0 game, every pitch matters to the team trailing.

So while I may not be able to watch my favorite team this postseason, after one week I've already been able to see three thrilling winner-take-all games that have had me creeping closer to the edge of my seat with every pitch in the late innings. There hasn't been a day without baseball yet this October, and tonight the ALCS begins with one of the few pitchers better than Halladay this year, Justin Verlander, putting his stuff up against the formidable Texas lineup in its own hitter-friendly home.

I'll be watching.

Looking beyond the Verducci Effect

Tom Verducci has unveiled his red-flagged pitchers to watch this season (now with video!) for the dreaded Year-After Effect -- or the Verducci Effect, as Will Carroll dubbed it.

So watch out, Joba Chamberlain, Josh Johnson, Rick Porcello, Max Scherzer, Felix Hernandez and -- in a perfect storm of workload and managerial risk -- Homer Bailey.

Verducci's yearly analysis of young pitchers' innings increase (hurlers 25 and younger who set a career high in innings by more than 30), developed with help from Rick Peterson when he was the A's pitching coach, has been pretty accurate in forecasting either a drop in production (usually seen in a rising ERA) or, in the worst cases, injury the following season. Two of the most notable examples for the latter are Francisco Liriano and Anibal Sanchez. The disappointing 2009 seasons had by Cole Hamels and Mike Pelfrey support the former. And so Verducci's list of the pitchers to watch affects both fans who don't want to see their teams' hurlers named and fantasy owners, who may add a red flag to their rankings sheets in preparing for draft day.

But rehashing what Verducci has already done wouldn't add to the conversation. Inspired by Pelfrey's joining the club in '09, I was curious to see what happened to the pitchers Verducci singled out in the years after the Year-After Effect. In short: Can we hope for -- or expect -- improvement from Pelfrey in 2010? David Gassko looked at the general numbers a few years at The Hardball Times ago, but I'm curious about specific pitchers.

Through a combination of digging up old Verducci columns in which he listed a particular year's at-risk pitchers and use of Baseball-Reference's Play Index tool, I set out to put together a nearly complete all-time list of a "red-flag roster," going back to those to watch for the 2002 season. But that became cumbersome, so I edited where I felt it necessary and mostly left the prominent names, or at least those who seemed to have the most potential at that time. As Verducci says nearly every year in explaining his theory, the workload is just one factor in this analysis.

Below I've charted the pitchers' seasons that prompted the alarms (the one in which he exceeded his career high in innings by more than 30), the year-after season (the one Verducci warned us about) and his "year-after-after" season, the one immediately following the red-flagged campaign. In an effort to keep the charts manageable, I'm only including innings (rounded down; I'm not bothering with the fractions), ERA and WHIP, unfortunately omitting data like batting average against and BABIP. Most stats are MLB only, though in some cases full minor-league numbers are asterisked. If there's any combo of MLB and minor league figures, that's pointed out in the notes below the charts.

	1998 IP/ERA/WHIP	1999 IP/ERA/WHIP	2000 IP/ERA/WHIP	2001 IP/ERA/WHIP
Omar Daal	162/2.88/1.21	214/3.65/1.24	167/6.14/1.68	185/4.46/1.37
Sidney Ponson	135/5.27/1.47	210/4.71/1.46	222/4.82/1.38	138/4.94/1.43
Kevin Millwood	174/4.08/1.33	228/2.68/1.00	212/4.66/1.29	121/4.31/1.33

Daal was actually 27 years old and in his seventh Major League season in 1999, the year his innings jumped by 52, so he was outside the at-risk age range, yet he still had a precipitous fall -- and never posted an ERA below 3.90 again. Ponson's innings actually went up in his red-flag year, but we've since learned that he has general problems with restraint and conditioning. Millwood led the NL in WHIP and the Majors with just 6.6 hits per nine innings allowed in 2000. He's had the longest (assuming Ponson doesn't try to stick with a last-place club again) and most productive career, but he did take another step back in 2001.

	1999 IP/ERA/WHIP	2000 IP/ERA/WHIP	2001 IP/ERA/WHIP	2002 IP/ERA/WHIP
Albie Lopez	64/4.64/1.41	185/4.13/1.45	205/4.81/1.46	55/4.37/1.51
Mac Suzuki	110/6.79/1.71	188/4.34/1.53	118/5.86/1.65	21/9.00/1.95
Ryan Dempster	147/4.71/1.63	226/3.66/1.36	211/4.94/1.56	209/5.38/1.54

Another trio with just one pitcher still active. Lopez's jump from 1999 to 2000 (when he was 28) was tremendous -- and after his red-flag season of 2001, he pitched just 78 more innings in the Majors, less than his increase from '99-2000. Suzuki was finished after 2002. Dempster led the Majors in walks in his red-flag year, but after a three-year stint as a closer, he became an All-Star again (as he was in his breakout year of 2000).

	2000 IP/ERA/WHIP	2001 IP/ERA/WHIP	2002 IP/ERA/WHIP	2003 IP/ERA/WHIP
Mark Mulder	154/5.44/1.69	229/3.45/1.16	207/3.47/1.14	186/3.13/1.18
Brad Penny	119/4.81/1.50	205/3.69/1.16	129/4.66/1.53	196/4.13/1.28
Chad Durbin	72/8.21/1.85	179/4.93/1.45	8/11.88/2.04	8/7.27/2.42
Joe Mays	176/5.52/1.58	233/3.16/1.15	95/5.38/1.45	130/6.30/1.52
Freddy Garcia	124/3.91/1.42	238/3.05/1.12	223/4.39/1.30	201/4.51/1.33
Mark Buehrle	51/4.21/1.44	221/3.29/1.07	239/3.58/1.24	230/4.14/1.35
Tony Armas	95/4.36/1.31	196/4.03/1.38	164/4.44/1.38	31/2.61/1.07
Chris Carpenter	175/6.26/1.64	215/4.09/1.41	73/5.28/1.58	INJURED
CC Sabathia	146/3.57/1.33*	180/4.39/1.35	210/4.37/1.36	197/3.60/1.30

In his breakout year, Mulder led the AL with 21 wins and paced the Majors with four shutouts. He didn't have much of a dropoff in 2002 or '03 (though he pitched fewer innings). The signs came instead in '04 (225/4.43/1.36), after which the A's traded him to the Cardinals. After a decent '05 (205/3.64/1.38), he's never been the same. Penny saw an improvement in his 2003 numbers -- but none of this considers the Alyssa Effect.

With Durbin's '02 and '03 numbers so low, I checked his minor league numbers and saw that he pitched only eight in 2002 (injured), and 82 in 2003 (working his way back). But the reason I'm not too concerned with minor league numbers after the red-flag year is because I'm only interested in what these pitchers contribute to the big-league club. If they're still active in the Majors, we know they made it back.

Mays' breakout years was the only Major League season in which he posted a sub-4.00 ERA. Garcia went on to have a couple of productive years with the White Sox before his arm troubles began in recent seasons. With the exception of 2005 (3.12) and 2006 (4.99), all of Buehrle's ERAs have been between 3.50 and 4.00 and his WHIPs have been between 1.25 and 1.35 except for '05 (1.18) and '06 (1.47), so that's the kind of pitcher he is. Plus, he's got a no-hitter and perfect game on his resume. Armas' small sample size of 31 innings are key, because his ERA has been higher than 4.80 ever since.

And then we have two Cy Young Award winners. Carpenter missed 2003 after surgery, then went to the Cardinals (and pitching coach/healer Dave Duncan) and won 15, 21 and 15 games (and a Cy Young) before more surgery -- and then nearly won the award again in 2009. Sabathia's 2000 numbers are all from the minor leagues; '01 was his rookie year. He's steadily improved since, winning the Cy Young in '07 and avoiding the catastrophic injuries that several times have been predicted.

	2001 IP/ERA/WHIP	2002 IP/ERA/WHIP	2003 IP/ERA/WHIP	2004 IP/ERA/WHIP
Vicente Padilla	34/4.24/1.41	206/3.28/1.22	208/3.62/1.24	115/4.53/1.34
Roy Oswalt	141/2.73/1.06	233/3.01/1.19	127/2.97/1.14	237/3.49/1.25
Ben Sheets	151/4.76/1.41	216/4.15/1.41	220/4.45/1.25	237/2.70/0.98
Jake Peavy	28/2.57/1.11*	97/4.52/1.42	194/4.11/1.31	166/2.27/1.20

I omitted Runelvys Hernandez from this group because he was one of several Royals in the early part of the decade who was overworked and flamed out. Plus, his entire 2001 season and much of '02, when his innings shot up, were in the minors, and I didn't feel like doing all the math. And Andy Van Hekken was flagged for 2003, but one look at his page there and you'll see why I didn't bother including him.

From 2004-06, Oswalt finished in the top four of Cy Young Award voting and added a third straight All-Star season in '07. Since then, he's seen a bit of a drop-off. Sheets' best season to date came in 2004, when he fanned 264 and led the Majors in K/BB at 8.25. His record was just 12-14 for a Brewers team that went 67-94, which is why I'm not including won-loss records in this analysis. I still wish the Mets had signed him. Peavy's 2001 numbers are from the minors and his 2004 ERA remains a career best, better even than in his '07 Cy Young season.

	2002 IP/ERA/WHIP	2003 IP/ERA/WHIP	2004 IP/ERA/WHIP	2005 IP/ERA/WHIP
Carlos Zambrano	108/3.66/1.45	214/3.11/1.32	209/2.75/1.22	223/3.26/1.15
Dontrelle Willis	157/1.83/0.88*	197/2.97/1.21	197/4.02/1.38	236/2.63/1.13

Zambrano has remained pretty consistent -- right through his consistent, gradual decline the past couple of seasons. But he's apparently rededicated himself heading into 2010. Willis finished second in the NL Cy Young voting in '05 (to Carpenter, a fellow Verducci Effect alum) but has had other problems since.

	2003 IP/ERA/WHIP	2004 IP/ERA/WHIP	2005 IP/ERA/WHIP	2006 IP/ERA/WHIP
Carlos Silva	87/4.43/1.48	203/4.21/1.43	188/3.44/1.17	180/5.94/1.54
Jason Marquis	134/4.03/1.40	201/3.71/1.42	207/4.13/1.33	194/6.02/1.52

Silva's 2003 innings represent his entire year, all of it in the Majors. Seattle has gotten five wins and 18 losses since signing him before 2008. Marquis' first year in St. Louis was 2006, but he turned it around after that, even finding success in Colorado in an All-Star '09.

	2004 IP/ERA/WHIP	2005 IP/ERA/WHIP	2006 IP/ERA/WHIP	2007 IP/ERA/WHIP
Scott Kazmir	134/3.29/1.31	186/3.77/1.46	144/3.24/1.27	206/3.48/1.38
Matt Cain	158/2.67/1.19*	192/3.89/1.22	190/4.15/1.28	200/3.64/1.26
Francisco Liriano	156/3.79/1.42*	191/3.02/1.06	121/2.16/1.00	INJURED
Zach Duke	148/1.46/0.97*	192/2.44/1.21	215/4.47/1.50	107/5.53/1.73
Paul Maholm	60/3.43/1.44*	158/3.02/1.26	176/4.76/1.61	177/5.02/1.42

Kazmir -- there he is again. Would definitely be useful in Citi Field, but he hasn't yet become the Cy Young winner everyone thought he would. The Effect hasn't hurt Cain too much since '06, despite his 15-30 combined record in '07-08, which had a lot to do with terrible run support. The Twins tried to bring along Liriano (whose 2005 innings include the minors) slowly, as they did with Johan Santana, by pitching him out of the bullpen to ease him in. It didn't work. Duke led the Majors with 255 hits allowed in '06 but made strides last year, getting his ERA back down to 4.06 and his WHIP to 1.32. Maholm has also had two decent seasons since, posting ERAs for 3.71 and 4.44 and WHIPs of 1.28 and, less impressive, 1.44.

	2005 IP/ERA/WHIP	2006 IP/ERA/WHIP	2007 IP/ERA/WHIP	2008 IP/ERA/WHIP
Cole Hamels	35/2.31/1.03*	132/4.08/1.25	183/3.39/1.12	227/3.09/1.08
Justin Verlander	130/1.80/0.98	186/3.63/1.33	201/3.66/1.23	201/4.84/1.40
Anibal Sanchez	136/2.85/1.07*	200/2.97/1.23	30/4.80/2.07	51/5.57/1.57
Jered Weaver	76/3.91/1.24*	200/2.39/1.00	161/3.91/1.39	176/4.33/1.29

Hamels' 35 minor-league innings in '05 were all he threw, but his previous career high was 101, so while his jump wasn't as big, it still fit the parameters. He then became a two-time Verducci Effecter with his huge jump in 2008 -- and those numbers don't include his 35 postseason innings. Verlander's '05 numbers are mostly from the minors, and it wasn't until 2009 that he seemed to get back on track. This is the year we'll see if Sanchez (whose '06 numbers include the Minors) can regain his no-hit stuff. Weaver's WHIP in '08 is a good sign. And it went down again (1.24) in '09, along with his ERA (3.75).

This was a big year for red-flagged pitchers. With all these big names, I decided to skip Sean Marshall, Scott Olsen and Jeremy Bonderman, as well as several who haven't really been heard from since, incluing Adam Loewen, who has given up pitching and trying the Rick Ankiel route.

	2006 IP/ERA/WHIP	2007 IP/ERA/WHIP	2008 IP/ERA/WHIP	2009 IP/ERA/WHIP
Ian Kennedy	104/3.81/1.35*	165/1.91/0.99	116/4.27/1.30	23/1.59/1.10
Fausto Carmona	101/5.52/1.53	215/3.06/1.21	120/5.44/1.62	125/6.32/1.76
Ubaldo Jimenez	151/3.80/1.36*	185/5.16/1.51	198/3.99/1.44	218/3.47/1.23
Tom Gorzelanny	61/3.79/1.31	201/3.88/1.40	105/6.66/1.80	47/1.32/5.55
Yovani Gallardo	155/1.86/1.00*	188/3.35/1.18	41/3.07/1.34	185/3.73/1.31

All of Kennedy's numbers include a mix of Majors and minors, and 2006 is actually college and minors -- with only 2 2/3 innings in at short-season Staten Island. So those underwhelming stats are mostly with USC. Any further comeback from his recent injuries will be in Arizona after this offseason's trade. Carmona's '06 has 27 minor-league innings, and so far, his breakout '07 is a fluke.

Jimenez is an interesting case. He also pitched seven innings with the Rockies in '06, but I left those out. His '07 totals don't include the 16 postseason innings he pitched, which put him over the threshold for Verducci's list. And despite the red flag last year of pitching in the World Baseball Classic, he truly had a breakout season at 25. So perhaps this year we'll see a fall.

Gorzelanny has minor league numbers all around -- in '06, '08 and '09 -- that aren't included. He'll be 27 in July, so this is the year we'll know what we'll get from the big lefty -- if we don't already. The Brewers may have caught a break with Gallardo, who injured his knee covering first base in 2008 and had his innings limited that season. He posted decent numbers last year, so we'll see how he progresses this summer. Dustin McGowan was part of this class, too, but surgery knocked out his '09 season, so there are no further numbers for comparison.

Looking over the NL Cy Young results

Argh. OK, so enough of this "didn't have time" crap. Chris Carpenter had but 15 wins this past season, one less than the 16 I said he'd had. Brandon Webb was indeed named the Cy Young Award winner today, after finishing the season with 16 wins, which tied him at the top of the National League.

My pick, Trevor Hoffman, finished second by 26 points, yet received 12 first-place votes to Webb's 15. It was Webb's 7-3 edge on second-place votes -- and, more importantly, his appearance on 29 of the 32 ballots, compared to just 23 of 32 for Hoffman that sealed it. Chris Carpenter also was named on 23 ballots, but only two of them placed him first.

I would love to see the breakdown of votes, similar to the way the Associated Press releases its college football votes each week.

Anyway, when I had the time, I looked at the numbers for Webb and Carpenter more closely. And they were, it turns out, surprisingly close:

	W	L	ERA	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	WHIP
Webb	16	8	3.10	33	5	3	235	216	91	81	50	178	1.13
Carpenter	15	8	3.09	32	5	3	221.2	194	81	76	43	184	1.07
				G	SV	SOp.
Hoffman	0	2	2.14	65	46	51	63	48	16	15	13	50	0.97

I added Hoffman's stats as well, though they're hard to compare, because of his different role. The Padres' closer allowed less than a baserunner per inning (he hit one batter this season), which in his role is more important than allowing just over more than one per inning as a starter, as Carpenter and Webb each did. I'm not saying Webb is a bad choice, because in a year like this, with no clear frontrunner, it's hard to say whose mediocre numbers (in relation to other cy Young winners) are better than the other guys'.

I just think that if I had a vote, I would've cast it for Hoffman, who had a direct part in 46 Padres wins, more than twice as many as Webb's 18 -- counting no-decisions that the Diamondbacks won, since a starting pitcher can have a big impact in close games. That Arizona won only two of Webb's nine no-decisions is interesting (they went 18-15 in games he started), if misleading, because the scores in those seven team losses were 3-2, 5-4, 1-0, 4-3, 11-7, 7-6 and 4-2. And both wins were by one run.

For comparison, the Cardinals went 21-11 in games started by Carpenter, winning 6 of 9 games in which he got a no-decision. The losses were by scores of 3-2, 7-6 and 8-7.

How to put Hoffman into this argument is hard to say, because by the nature of his role, he'll pitch in way more wins for the Padres than in losses. However, looking at his stats, we see the Padres lost all five games in which Hoffman blew the save, plus a sixth game in which he came into a tie game to pitch the 10th and took the loss. In the nine games that featured an appearance by Hoffman but not a win, loss or save for the closer, San Diego went 9-4. So of the 65 games in which Hoffman pitched, the Padres won 55 and lost 10. That puts the Padres' winning percentage in "Hell's Bells" games, we'll call them, at .846. In Webb games, Arizona was .545 and in Carpenter games, the Cardinals were .656.

I'm not sure if those percentages mean anything, as I said, because of the different nature of a starting pitcher's role vs. a reliever's. But there they are.

Quick prediction on NL Cy Young

Didn't have time to get this going sooner, so with less than an hour until the announcement, I'll just throw out the three presumed front-runners for the National League Cy Young Award, along with my prediction. I'm wondering if this will be a slightly different year, considering Hanley Ramirez's narrow Rookie of the Year victory over Ryan Zimmerman. But more on that when I have time.

Chris Carpenter: The reigning Cy Young holder won 16 games, which would be the lowest since the Cubs' Rick Sutcliffe went 16-1 for Chicago in 1984. But that was after he came over in a midseason trade; overall, Sutcliffe went 20-6, though I'm sure the voters were only supposed to consider his NL achievements. As for Carpenter, his Cardinals did win the World Series with the lowest win total (83) in history, so maybe he'll take a similar track to his second Cy Young.

Brandon Webb: The Arizona righty didn't lose any of his first 13 or so starts, but was just so-so over the second half. Appearing to run away with it in the early months, he became just another candidate as the season wore on.

Trevor Hoffman: There are some who say that a win for Hoffman this year -- a year without a 20-game winner or otherwise dominant starter -- would be akin to a lifetime achievement Cy Young, and perhaps a makeup honor for 1998, when Hoffman saved 53 games but lost the award to Tom Glavine. With no stellar starter, I think this just might be the year the Cy Young bell tolls for Hoffman.

Six-for-six on awards picks.

Six for six. That'd be a pretty good day at the plate. It's also not a bad showing in predicting the 2005 Baseball Writers' Association of America awards.

Admittedly, the two toughest to predict will be announced next week: American League Most Valuable Player on Monday and the NL version on Tuesday. But though I was confident in my selections for American and National League Rookies of the Year, I don't think they were slam dunks.

Now, as far as today's announcement of Chris Carpenter as the NL Cy Young winner, I think we see just how much two things matter in the minds of the writers: total wins and team wins. Both Cy Young winners topped 20 wins and pitched for division champions.

As for the Carpenter vs. Dontrelle Willis debate, the Marlins left-hander may have won one more game with an ERA .20 lower than Carpenter's figure, but there were four other significant categories in which Carpenter had clearly better numbers: winning percentage (.808-.688), strikeout-to-walk ratio (4:18-2:93), batting average against (.231-.243) and WHIP (1.06-1.13). As for the last one, say what you want about fantasy baseball stats, but walks plus hits divided by innings pitched is not only a good indication of a pitcher's average inning-by-inning effectiveness, but also a figure that has, more and more, been cited in mainstream baseball reporting.

I just took ESPN.com's poll on the awards and find it interesting that the top three results, at least as of this posting, reflect the actual voting of the BBWAA for AL Cy Young, NY Cy Young and AL Manager. And the NL Manager results only differed in that the writers think more of Tony La Russa's second straight 100-win season and 11-game division runaway than the fans do. They, as I was, were more impressed with Phil Garner's turnaround of the Astros' season (I picked him to be second; he was actually third). SportsNation also gave Frank Robinson heavy props for getting the Nationals off to a fast start, giving him enough votes to rank third, ahead of LaRussa. Or maybe the nation just finds Tony LaRussa annoying.

Even though four of the six awards in the poll have been announced, ESPN continues to run the poll and ask for America's opinion. ("America voted ...") Because the poll is apparently asking the country whom they think should win the award as a fan's opinion rather than a question of how they think the awards will actually turn out, it should remain open for votes. But if there are people out there voting after the fact and selecting the actual winners where that applies, that will obviously skew the results a little bit. But with 37,521 votes cast as of 2:43 p.m. ET (about 2,000 more than were posted 10 minutes earlier), I think the sample size will balance out those votes that are influenced by the announcements already made.

Now we're down to just two. After the MVP annoucements next week, we'll once and for all put the 2005 season behind us and, with the Winter Meetings coming up in early December, start to turn our attention full-bore to 2006.

Handing out the hardware

I didn't make my awards picks until November last year, but my intentions this year were to get them done as early into the postseason, just as the sportswriters who vote on the awards actually do. Granted, the voters have about 44 hours from the end of Sunday's games until the start of the first Division Series games -- or perhaps less time -- to get their votes in.

Last year, I was pretty accurate. Eight-for-eight, though it wasn't too hard. The races weren't all that close, with the exception of NL ROY. I hedged, but went with Jason Bay in the end in the closest voting of all the players' awards, with Khalil Greene getting seven first-place votes and finishing 38 points behind Bay. Only AL Manager of the Year was a closer vote, with Ron Gardenhire getting 11 first-place votes and finishing 10 points behind Buck Showalter; and only Randy Johnson's eight first-place votes in the NL Cy Young race were more than Greene's among second-place players. But Roger Clemens still won the award by 43 points over Johnson.

This year, we've got a few clear winners, but certainly more close races sure to cause debate. Let's get the easy ones out of the way.

AL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
There was a bit of a late-season push for Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano, but he might not even make the top three. It could be a close race among Cano (.297, 78 R, 34 2B, 14 HR, 62 RBI), Tampa Bay's Jonny Gomes (.282, 61 R, 13 2B, 6 3B, 21 HR, 54 RBI) and Chicago's Tadahito Iguchi (.278, 74 R, 25 2B, 6 3B, 15 HR, 71 RBI, 15 SB) -- for second place.

I think A's closer Huston Street (5-1, 1.72 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 23 SV, 72:26 SO:BB ratio, .194 BAA) continues Oakland's hold on AL ROY awards. Street stepped in and performed like a veteran closer -- something that even veteran relievers can have trouble doing. He blew just four saves (all before the All-Star break, and he got the win after one of them) and lost his only game way back on April 20. As the closer, he was out there on his own and came through. This one should be set, but something tells me that because I decided to list these in order of debate and put this one first, it will be the first to prove me wrong.

NL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
The winner of this one didn't even occur to me until a friend told me who his pick was. Then I looked at the numbers, and it became clear. First off, there are no pitchers who can win. Zach Duke's 14 starts (8-2, 1.81 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 58:23 K:BB ratio, .253 BAA) are probably about six short of what could have earned him serious attention. Among the hitters, third baseman Garret Atkins (.287, 61 R, 31 2B, 13 HR, 89 RBI) moved ahead of shortstop Clint Barmes (.289, 55 R, 19 2B, 10 HR, 46 RBI, 6 SB in just 81 G and 350 AB) as the Rockies' potential winner. Washington's Ryan Church (.287, 41 R, 15 2B, 9 HR, 42 RBI) was one of my preseason candidates, but injuries and then Preston Wilson ate into his playing time.

Atlanta's Jeff Francoeur (.300, 41 R, 20 2B, 14 HR, 45 RBI in 257 AB in 70 G, not to mention 13 assists) was getting a lot of press for the award in August and had a solid start to his career, but I think he comes in second. Houston leadoff hitter Willy Taveras (.291, 82 R, 13 2B, 4 3B, 3 HR, 29 RBI, 34 SB) will be up there, but it will be a mid-season callup who will take home the hardware. In just 310 at bats in 88 games, Philadelphia's Ryan Howard hit .288 with 52 R, 17 2B, 2 3B, 22 HR and 63 RBI. He led all rookies with those home runs, 10 of which came in September -- a rookie record for the month -- and brought the Phillies back into the race after losing slugging first baseman Jim Thome for the season.

NL MANAGER OF THE YEAR
It's not like Bobby Cox has won 14 straight division titles with the same team. Maybe those first four or five in the 90s all came with the nucleus of Smoltz-Maddux-Glavine-Chipper-Lopez, but there were often other key cogs that were changed (David Justice, Terry Pendleton, Kenny Lofton, Walt Weiss, etc.). And he certainly hasn't done it with the payrolls of the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets or Dodgers.

So until some team knocks the Braves out of the top spot in the NL East -- or even out of the playoffs -- this award is probably his. And when the Braves are dethroned, that team's manager will probably inherit the hardware. The true test is picking second place, which should go to Phil Garner. Houston was dreadful the first 45 games (15-30) without Lance Berkman for 22 of them and with a still-hobbled, .179-hitting Berkman for the other half of them. But Garner guided the 'Stros back to the playoffs, the first back-to-back wild-card winners in the NL since the 1999-2000 Mets.

Well, that's that. So much for the "easy" ones. Now, in ascending order of debate, as I see them ...

AL MANAGER OF THE YEAR
I think despite Chicago's collapse from a 15-game lead on Aug. 1 to a 1 1/2-game lead in mid-September, Ozzie Guillen still wins it. He got the White Sox off to a fast start and the team never had to look back. They were in control the whole way, and despite some headwinds, forged on to finish the job. Cleveland's Eric Wedge -- whose team made the White Sox faithful sweat -- deserves it too, but there were a lot of people who predicted the Indians would make a run this year with their young nucleus. I can't go back and look at everyone's preseason predictions, but I'd guess there were even a few more pundits in favor of the Indians being competitive than there were calling for the White Sox to unseat the Twins. After 99 wins and being the frontrunner all season, Guillen wins it.

AL CY YOUNG
Well, your ERA leader was Kevin Millwood (2.86), but he went 9-11. Last year's winner, Johan Santana, was second (2.87, plus 0.97 WHIP, 16-7 record, 238:45 K:BB ratio, .210 BAA) followed by Mark Buehrle (3.12, 1.18 WHIP, 16-8, 149:40). At the All-Star break, it was Buehrle's to lose (10-3, 2.58 ERA), and I think he did. We know the voters are stat-heads, and this award isn't for most valuable pitcher (otherwise, Mariano Rivera's got a much stronger case; however, I'm sure some voters look at it as MVP, with the "p" standing for "pitcher"). So after ERA, if we turn to strikeouts, Santana led the league with only Randy Johnson (211) also breaking 200. But with a 3.79 ERA and 17-8 record, his case isn't stronger than Santana's.

Then there are wins, and in leading the league with 21, Bartolo Colon had three more than any other starter (Jon Garland and Cliff Lee). Three more wins over 33 starts is close to winning the 100-meter dash by a full second -- it's a runaway. Colon went 21-8 with a 3.48 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, .254 BAA and 157:43 SO:BB ratio.

NL MVP
For the first time since 1999, it won't be a San Francisco Giant winning this award. Before Barry Bonds and Victor Conte won the award from 2001-2004, Jeff Kent won it. In '99, Chipper Jones' stellar September clinched it for him as the Braves pulled away from the Mets. The same thing could happen, and Chipper could play a part, only September wasn't the month that Andruw Jones may have clinched the award. It was June.

First, let's look at the numbers between Jones and his only competition, Albert Pujols. Since 2001, when Pujols won Rookie of the Year and finished fourth in the MVP voting, he's finished second, second and third (to Bonds and Adrian Beltre) up through last year. With Bonds out of the picture, this looked like Albert's opportunity. The only thing I see keeping it from him this time is that the Cardinals were too good. Certainly better than the Braves. Head-to-head, the numbers look like this:

AVERAGE: Pujols .330-.263
HITS: Pujols 195-154
RUNS: Pujols 129-95
EXTRA-BASE HITS: Pujols 81-77
HOME RUNS: Jones 51-41
RBI: Jones 128-117
OPS: Pujols 1.039-.922

In my heart, I want Pujols to win it. He's been so good for four years and finished second twice to a big-headed freak and his team of trainers and crooks. With the injuries to Larry Walker, Reggie Sanders and especially Scott Rolen, the lineup in St. Louis wasn't as formidable as it was expected to be. This isn't Alex Rodriguez in the Yankees' lineup or David Ortiz in Boston. Take Pujols out of the Cardinals' lineup this year, and I don't know if they do win that division. But the Cardinals also had a strong pitching staff with a Cy Young candidate and built a big lead early in the summer. That wasn't the case in Atlanta, which lost Chipper Jones and three starting pitchers in June -- which also happened to be Andruw Jones' best month (.317, 18 R, 13 HR, 26 RBI, 1.151 OPS) as the Braves made their run. Three starters out, no Chipper, a host of rookies and Andruw carried Atlanta. It kills me to say it, but I think that's what the voters will remember. Andruw wins it.

NL CY YOUNG
Wooo, doggie. This debate has been raging since July, with each of three pitchers considered the front-runner. Two of them led their teams to the playoffs; the other led his to the brink. But how to sort them out? First, the overall stats:

CHRIS CARPENTER, STL: 21-5, 2.83 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, .231 BAA, 4.18 SO:BB
ROGER CLEMENS, HOU: 13-8, 1.87 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, .198 BAA, 2.76 SO:BB
DONTRELLE WILLIS, FLA: 22-10, 2.63 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, .243 BAA, 2.93 SO:BB

But will the voters look at the overall numbers, or remember what happened more recently? Over the last month of the season, they looked like this:

CHRIS CARPENTER, STL: 1-1, 6.91 ERA, 1.60 WHIP, .328 BAA, 3.14 SO:BB in only 28 2/3 innings
ROGER CLEMENS, HOU: 2-2, 4.50 ERA, 1.73 WHIP, .303 BAA, 1.14 SO:BB in 22 innings
DONTRELLE WILLIS, FLA: 3-2, 3.00 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, .244 BAA, 3.00 SO:BB in a league-leading 42 innings

Well, Willis certainly had the best finish to the season, when his team needed him the most. The Astros needed Clemens too, and he faltered, first with a hamstring tweak, then -- and no one can fault him for this -- dealing with the death of his mother (though he pitched that night and pitched superbly). Carpenter had the benefit of pitching with the Cardinals comfortably ahead, and then after they'd clinched as a tune-up for the playoffs.

As good as Clemens' peripheral stats were, I think the writers will go with Carpenter. It's going to be a close one, a tough one, but that's my guess.

AL MVP
It's not just that this is a tight debate, a close race, a heated argument about two sluggers -- it's, yet again, Red Sox and Yankees. The numbers are tight, and those in the Alex Rodriguez camp say the fact that he plays defense puts him over the top, which is fine. It's hard to defend Ortiz's case when all he does is hit and sit on the bench. Again, we'll start with the season stats:

GAMES: A-Rod 162-159
AVERAGE: A-Rod .321-.300
HITS: A-Rod 194-180
RUNS: A-Rod 124-119
EXTRA-BASE HITS: Ortiz 88-78
HR: A-Rod 48-47
RBI: Ortiz 148-130
WALKS (Intentional): Ortiz 102 (9)-91 (8)
STRIKEOUTS: Ortiz 124-139
OPS: A-Rod 1.031-1.001

But let's look at some splits. A-Rod led the AL in at bats with runners in scoring position, with 186; Ortiz had 162. Ortiz hit .352 to A-Rod's .290, getting three more hits (57-54) and four more extra-base hits (22-18) in 24 fewer at bats. Big Papi drove in 92 runs to A-Rod's 77 and walked 40 times while striking out just 23 while A-Rod walked 34 times and whiffed 52.

Paring it down even more, we turn to each player's performance in the late innings of close games. Ortiz came to bat 56 such times to A-Rod's 47, which worked out well for Boston because he came through. He delivered 12 extra-base hits (3 2B, 9 HR) to A-Rod's 6 (4 2B, 2 HR) and 20 RBI to A-Rod's 7. Papi hit .286 to Rodriguez's .255 and had a decided OPS margin of 1.224-.814. Ortiz also evened out his walks and strikeouts (11 each) while Rodriguez fanned twice as often (14) as he tossed the bat and jogged to first (six).

[Some more numbers were just brought to my attention by the aforementioned -- though not named -- friend, Will, who happens to be a Yankee fan: A-Rod's OPS splits with the bases empty/ runners on/ RISP are 1.106/.957/.894. Ortiz's are .993/1.006/1.043. With runners in scoring position and two outs, A-Rod's OPS is .940; Ortiz's 1.226.]

As for self-promotion -- or at least "company" promotion -- Boston's game notes for Sunday's finale pointed out that: 19 of Papi's HR came in the seventh inning or later; he hit 22 HR in his last 50 (then 51, after the finale) games and 16 HR in his last 35 (36); and slugged a club-record 11 in September.

Finally, 20 of Ortiz's 47 home runs either tied the game or gave Boston the lead. That's clutch. That's valuable. Take Ortiz out of Boston's lineup, and it's significantly deflated despite Johnny Damon, Manny Ramirez and Jason Varitek. Lose Rodriguez from the Yankees'? You've still got Derek Jeter, Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada and, to a lesser extent, a resurgent Jason Giambi.

Some will say that A-Rod wasn't the most valuable player on his team (Mariano Rivera was more important) while others will counter with Ortiz's mere 10 games in the field. I think the voters will take into account Rodriguez's fielding -- and perhaps base stealing -- and name him the MVP. But because of the splits, my vote would go to Ortiz. It remains to be seen if the voters looked that deeply into the numbers.

* * *
Not that it will mean anything, but some may find this interesting: The last time three Yankees eclipsed 110 RBI in the same season was 1938 when Joe DiMaggio (140), Bill Dickey (115) and Lou Gehrig (114) did so. Following A-Rod's 130 this year were Sheffield's 123 and Matsui's 116. In 1938, none of those three Yankees won the MVP. Dickey finished second with three first-place votes and 196 points, 109 behind the winner. DiMaggio was sixth in the voting and Gehrig 19th.

The winner in '38? Boston's Jimmie Foxx.