Quick thoughts: 2010 AL Cy Young Award

They nailed it. Felix Hernandez excelled this season in just about all pitching categories except one, the increasingly better-understood (or at least weighted) wins, which is reliant on a bit more than just what the starting pitcher does. Is this the year that will define the line in the sand between the winningest pitcher in the league and the best? Zack Greinke last year may have laid the foundation, but this year could be the vote that establishes precedent going forward. Five years ago, Sabathia may have won simply because he won 21 games. Not so this year.

In his favor, Felix had the worst offense behind him since the designated hitter was implemented. He had the worst run support in the American League (and in all of baseball, for that matter) at just 3.75 runs per game. Delving further, check out the bottom of his 2010 game log: Run sport in games started, showing an even lower 3.07 runs per 27 outs (I'm not sure what ESPN uses for run support average; perhaps per start or game, as I worded it). In 19 of his 34 starts, he was given three runs or fewer, including zero in four of them. Price received 5.30 runs per 27 outs, just nine of three runs or fewer and seven games of eight or more runs (Felix had just one). Sabathia got 5.89 runs of support for every 27 outs, had eight games of three or fewer runs and 10 of eight or more. In other words, Felix pitched as many games with three or fewer runs behind him than Price and Sabathia combined.

Despite the scoring on his side, Felix went ahead and threw 249 2/3 innings, completing six games and pacing the AL in WAR (6.0), ERA (2.27), hits per 9 innings (6.993), innings, starts, batters faced (1,001), and a slew of six sabermetric categories: adjusted pitching runs, adjusted pitching wins, base-out runs saved, win probability added, situational wins saved and base-out runs saved (they're at the bottom of this leaders page). I'm sure there's a metric out there that could estimate Felix's record had he had the run support of Price or Sabathia, and I'd love to see what those numbers are.

I know there are those who want to knock Felix for the unbalanced schedule, because he made 14 starts against AL West foes Anaheim, Oakland and Texas. Well, for one thing, all of those teams were better than Seattle. But he also went 7-4 against the Yankees, Twins, Rangers and Red Sox -- three playoff teams and another formidable contender (he didn't face Tampa Bay). He also went 2-1 against the Reds and Padres, an NL division winner and a contender that went to the final day of the season before being eliminated. That's 9-5 against top competition.

Price went 5-3 against similar opponents (Atlanta, Boston, Minnesota, Texas and the Yankees) and Sabathia was 4-2 against Boston, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay and Texas. In fact, the pitcher among these three who benefited most from fattening up on weak competition was Sabathia -- 12-3 against sub-.500 teams, including 10 of his 21 victories against the Orioles (5-1), Royals (2-0) and Mariners (3-0).

I'm still OK with wins as a stat -- there's a bit of a traditionalist in me -- but they should only be a starting point, perhaps no more than the introduction to the book that is a pitcher's season. What would have really been interesting was if Felix couldn't get that last win in his final start of the season -- by the way, he beat Texas, 3-1, with eight innings of one-run ball -- and finished with a .500 record. I wonder if that would've had an impact on the voting.

Player	CG	SHO	W	L	W-L%	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	ERA	ERA+	BF	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
Hernandez	6	1	13	12	.520	249.2	194	80	63	70	232	2.27	174	1001	.212	.273	.312	.585	65
Price	2	1	19	6	.760	208.2	170	71	63	79	188	2.72	145	861	.221	.296	.340	.637	77
Sabathia	2	0	21	7	.750	237.2	209	92	84	74	197	3.18	134	970	.239	.301	.355	.656	75

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Generated 11/18/2010.

Quick thoughts: 2010 NL Cy Young Award

There's really not much to say about Roy Halladay's unanimous NL Cy Young Award today. He certainly had the numbers. Good for him.

If there was anything that was surprising, maybe it's that it was in fact unanimous. When you look at the numbers Halladay put up along with those of Adam Wainwright and Ubaldo Jimenez, who came in second and third, respectively, they were quite similar.

Player	CG	SHO	W	L	W-L%	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	ERA	HR	BF	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pit	Str
Halladay	9	4	21	10	.677	250.2	231	74	68	30	219	2.44	24	993	.245	.271	.373	.645	3568	2441
Wainwright	5	2	20	11	.645	230.1	186	68	62	56	213	2.42	15	910	.224	.274	.330	.604	3356	2166
Jimenez	4	2	19	8	.704	221.2	164	73	71	92	214	2.88	10	894	.209	.299	.311	.610	3600	2176

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Generated 11/16/2010.

Halladay did have four more complete games than Wainwright and twice as many shutouts as either runner up, and the strikeout difference was negligible. Halladay did pitch 20 more innings than either of the others, which brought his strikeouts up with the others' but also inflated his hits and homers (as did pitching in Citizens Bank Bandbox).

But then look deeper. Where I think Halladay secured the award was in walks -- just 30 in 250 innings, and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 7:1. And maybe a certain game in Florida in May, but I don't think you can put too much weight on one game for a season award, particularly when you look at the pitcher who threw a perfect game just a few weeks before -- yes, it takes talent to throw one, but a lot of it has to do with luck and good fortune. But as a tiebreaker, a final piece to put him over the top, I can buy that.

In fact, Halladay's control may be the most impressive stat of the season. Despite so many similar numbers with Wainwright and Jimenez, and despite throwing 20 and 30 more innings than the other two, Halladay was the best one at keeping runners off base -- the surest way to victory. The others allowed fewer hits, had lower batting averages and slugging percentages against them, but Halladay bested them in on-base percentage. He faced 83 more batters than Wainwright and 99 more than Jimenez, threw 212 more pitches than Waino and 32 more than Ubaldo, but it was Doc who threw more strikes by a huge margin: 2,441 to 2,166 (Wainwright) and 2,176 (Jimenez). In fact, only Jimenez (who led the NL), Ryan Dempster (3,596) and Randy Wolf (3,575) threw more pitches this season, but Halladay threw 170 more strikes than the runner-up (Matt Cain). And only Ted Lilly -- who threw 660 fewer pitches than Halladay -- had a better strike percentage, and by one point at that, 69-68 percent.

So if there's one thing we can be sure about, it's that Halladay didn't win it merely because he led the league in wins or was second in strikeouts. When you look deeper, it's clear just how good he was in 2010, mainly because he kept runners off the bases.

Oh, and those 24 homers Halladay gave up? Nineteen were solo shots ... and the other five were two-run jobs.

Way to go, Marlins

Was there any surprise to the last three awards? No, not really.

American League Manager of the Year. Jim Leyland. Of course. He took a team that lost 119 games three years ago to the postseason. His was the best team in the American League. They made the playoffs, so we can overlook that slight slide at the end of the season that had them arrive there as Wild Card entrants rather than AL Central division winners.

Where would the Phillies have been had they hired Leyland before the 2005 season instead of Charlie Manuel? Philadelphia finished second in the two years under Manuel, compiling 88 and 85 wins and missing the Wild Card by no more than three games in either year. Considering the talent the Phillies already have, you'd have to think they'd have played postseason ball one of those years, if not both. But the Phillies cut Leyland out of consideration rather early, and he surfaced a year later in Detroit.

National League Manager of the Year. Joe Girardi. Everyone knew this was coming. When the Marlins fired Girardi right after the season, it was talked about as firing the NL Manager of the Year. In his first stint as skipper, Girardi took a rookie-laden squad from 20 games under .500 back to the break-even mark by Labor Day and even had his young Fish in the Wild Card hunt until mid-September. How can you overlook that? That the Marlins couldn't get along with Girardi and chose to fire him is the team's fault, and they'll have to live with that when next year's squad doesn't improve. We'll see what happens, but even if the Marlins can't reach 80 wins in 2007, I wouldn't lay the blame on new skipper Freddi Gonzalez.

That the Mets' Willie Randolph was second was also no surprise. Randolph didn't win the award for the same reason Joe Torre's only award came in 1998, when the Yankees established a new American League record with 114 wins (and Lou Pinella got it in 2001 when the Mariners broke that record). Like Torre in '98, Randolph had too many tools at his disposal. The Mets' payroll and their lineup of All-Stars essentially precluded Randolph from collecting the hardware, because he had so many resources. That the Mets demolished the National League and were the best team from start to finish wasn't enough. Had they won 100 -- actually, they probably would've needed to win 105 or 110 -- games, Randolph probably would've taken it. (More wins for the Mets likely would have also meant a better record against the Marlins than the 11-8 the Mets put together, which may have reduced Girardi's star some.)

American League Cy Young. Johan Santana. For the second time in his career, Santana won the award with 100 percent of the vote. Another unanimous winner in a year that wasn't quite as good as his first Cy Young campaign -- but that's splitting hairs. This time, too, his competition wasn't as strong. As best as I can tell after a quick look at the voting totals, Santana is the first pitcher to win each of his first two Cy Young Awards unanimously since the voting went to first-second-third in 1970, rather than just one vote for a pitcher.

Today, we'll get the most up-in-the-air award of the postseason -- or second-most, after NL Rookie of the Year. Will Albert Pujols retain the NL MVP, or will Ryan Howard come away with it? My guess is that the writers stick with Pujols, but I'm not so sure he should get it. Hopefully, I'll have time to break down some numbers before 2 p.m. If not, I'll look into the results after the announcement.

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.

Postseason awards picks

In a few hours, we'll learn the first of this season's award winners, and since I've been lazy and couldn't come up with a real analysis, here's the quick version:

NL MVP
I think Barry Bonds will win, yet again. But I think it should be Adrian Beltre. The simple argument/formula is take the player away from his team, and where would they be? Yes, if you take Bonds off the Giants, they're not good at all. They might be lucky to win 75 games. But the same can be said of Beltre. In 2003, the Dodgers made an unexpected run at the postseason on the strength of their pitching. They couldn't hit for anything. They needed an offensive upgrade, and their only key offseason acquisition was Juan Encarnacion, until Milton Bradley came over at the end of spring training. But the key to the division title was Beltre, a young player whom the Dodgers expected to become a superstar at least three years ago. He's been drafted in so many fantasy leagues with those expectations and been dropped y Memorial Day every year. Not this time. Granted, fantasy is far from reality, but Beltre was the most valuable player this year. I'm convinced that if major league managers had some guts and pitched to him more, he wouldn't have such gaudy numbers. For one, he wouldn't have a .680 on base percentage. His numbers are tainted in so many ways.

NL Cy Young
For the most part, I'm not a fan of the guy, but how can Roger Clemens not win it? Randy Johnson just didn't have the won-loss record, Jason Schmidt faded over the season's final six weeks and Carl Pavano didn't do enough in the final stretch to seal the award. Clemens, on the other hand, looked like his classic, dominating self for much of the season and led the Astros to the postseason. But the best part, from my perspective, is that if he had remained with the Yankees, they almost certainly would have reached the World Series, probably even won it.

NL Rookie of the Year
This one seems like a two-horse race. Those who dig deeper argue for San Diego shortstop Khalil Greene, whose offensive numbers are solid, but far from spectacular. His defense, however, is stellar and he looks like a veteran already. The other half generally falls in the camp of Pirates outfielder Jason Bay, who has the flashier home run and power numbers that Greene lacks. Bay, however, doesn't have the advantage of playing on a contender and has less support overall in his lineup. My vote would be for Bay because he seemed, to me, like the most outstanding rookie; I think his offensive numbers were impressive enough to outrank Greene's defensive contributions, though there is something to be said for a complete, all-around player. I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here. End of story: I'm picking Bay, but I could see Greene getting it easily and I think it will be this year's closest award.

NL Manager of the Year
Bobby Cox. Perhaps for the first time since 1991, most pundits expected someone other than the Braves to win the NL East. I'm sure some of the Braves themselves thought so too. But after the games were played, the same team could be found atop the division. Really though, next year is the year for someone else.

AL MVP
This one will probably be close as well, coming down to Vladimir Guerrero, Gary Sheffield and Manny Ramirez. I'm going with Vlad. While Anaheim got a lot of headlines for all its offseason pickups, the strong-armed right fielder became the heart of the team and performed better than what was expected of him. He was arguably the only Angels pickup to do so. Bartolo Colon was dreadful for a good stretch and while Jose Guillen certainly showed he can hit, his end-of-season benching showed he's also, clearly, a head case. It was Guerrero who performed consistently throughout the season and who picked up the slack for the injured Garret Anderson and Troy Glaus. It's always tough with the Yankees, because when you apply the "if you take him out of the team's lineup" test, they usually have enough to compensate for the loss of any one player. Sheffield certainly did a lot for the Yanks, but even without him, they still had Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada. And for much of the season, their pitching wasn't as bad as it became in the postseason, so they had the arms to make up for a loss at the plate. As for Manny, he falls into the same predicament Sheffield's in: a lineup that's too good.

AL Cy Young
Curt Schilling will be second. Johan Santana had the better numbers overall, and this award is a bit more straightforward. It's not which pitcher was most valuable to his team, it's which pitcher was the best. I'm sure Schilling got the hardware he wanted anyway.

AL Rookie of the Year
I think it goes to Bobby Crosby. The A's let Miguel Tejada leave because they thought Crosby was ready to be a big-league shortstop. Turns out they knew what they were talking about. Whether or not that decision meant the difference between first place and second place is another matter. (I happen to think it wasn't; thinking Arthur Rhodes could be your closer was much worse.)

AL Manager of the Year
Buck Showalter. How good would the Yankees be next year if they traded Rodriguez this winter? Look at the history: the 2000 Mariners with A-Rod were 91-71 and won the wild card. In 2001 they went 116-46, setting the AL record for most wins in a season, and won the division. In 2003, the Rangers (with A-Rod) went 71-91. This year they wre 89-73 and in the AL West race until the final two weeks, even without anything resembling a competitive pitching rotation. Anyway, Showalter pulled off the managing feat of this millenium so far. And be sure to put those World Series bets down on the Rangers the year after Buck leaves. His previous two jobs ended in 1995 with the Yankees and in 2000 with the Diamondbacks.