I love watching MLB Network. It’s all baseball, all the time. The analysts seem a lot smarter than their counterparts on ESPN…until last night, when I was treated to a conversation between Greg Amsinger, Harold Reynolds and Mitch Williams. The three were talking about NL pitching, and the Cy Young award. Amsinger was attempting to make a case for Johnny Cueto being in the conversation, before deciding on Ian Kennedy as his winning. Williams destroyed Amsinger’s Cueto love….and went with Clayton Kershaw as his winner. And finally, Reynolds was the voice of reason, talking about Roy Halladay as the slam dunk winner. My initial thoughts on their talk were “is there really a race here, or are these guys just filling air at 1 AM?”
Cueto was getting love from Amsinger because he’s leading the league in ERA, with a 2.03 mark. That low ERA is hiding some very, very nasty peripherals though. Cueto has only thrown 133 1/3 innings (more than 50 less than Halladay), and in those 133 1/3 innings, he’s struck out just 86 hitters….or, less than Braves reliever Craig Kimbrel and nearly 100 less than Halladay. He’s also walked 43, which is 20 more than Halladay in 50 less innings. There is no way in hell that Johnny Cueto is a Cy Young candidate. He may have a low ERA, but that’s all he’s got. It’s like showing up for an awards ceremony in a nice hat, a raggedy t-shirt, and jeans with holes in them. You may have a nice hat, but you’re not going to win the best dressed award for your entire ensemble.
What about Kennedy? Well, like Cueto, his Cy Young candidacy holds strong on one statistic, in this case, his 16 wins. Now, I’m sure you all know how stupid of a stat pitcher wins are. It’s a stat that’s dependent on the offense and defense the pitcher has behind him, as well as the pitcher’s ability. What I’m not understanding is how Kennedy can be endorsed as a Cy Young candidate when there’s a pitcher (Clayton Kershaw) with just as many wins, more strikeouts, fewer walks, fewer home runs, and a lower ERA. Kershaw encapsules Kennedy’s strongest asset, and is better in every other facet of the game. When that happens, the inferior pitcher should never be mentioned as a legitimate candidate. It’s just silly.
Kershaw is the most justifiable candidate to argue for over Halladay. They’ve thrown the exact same number of innings. Kershaw leads the league with 207 strikeouts, and the pair have nearly identical ERAs (2.51 for Kershaw, 2.56 for Halladay). The area where Halladay sets himself apart is walks. Kershaw has walked twice as many batters as Halladay. That’s not saying that Kershaw’s walk rate is bad, though. It’s solidly in the top third of the league. But that pales in comparison to Halladay’s league leading mark. If you’re going to go ahead and point at the superior strikeout total for Kershaw, you have to realize that Halladay is also in the top ten. It’s not as if he’s horribly dragging behind.
Both Kershaw and Halladay are fine Cy Young candidates. But because of that low walk rate and a much higher ground ball rate, Halladay has the better FIP and xFIP despite Kershaw’s advantage in strkeouts and ERA. Clayton Kershaw is going to win his share of Cy Young awards over his career. But in 2011, it’s Roy Halladay’s award to lose.
