Picking the Winners: Cy Young

Barring a rain out, the World Series ends this week and baseball goes from games to votes. I guess that’s appropriate as election day is tomorrow. So in the spirit of those two events, I thought I’d weigh in on who I think will win this season’s baseball awards.

First, a couple of comments. I’m really bad at this. Mostly I get them wrong, but I’m trying to figure out who a bunch of writers are going to pick. Which is the second point. As a rule the writers don’t have a clue about this kind of thing, so it’s difficult to second guess them. I’m doing the Cy Young first so I’ve got to figure out who the writers will pick based on a handful of observations and a lot of looking at the papers (or internet). One thing I’ve noticed about these guys (and almost all are guys–I suppose there’s a gal in there somewhere) is that they seem to have no concept of the new sabermetric stats. They think WAR is what’s going on in Afghanistan and that WHIP is what you put on pumpkin pie (or alternatively goes with chains). So that means they put an extraordinary emphasis on the traditional stats of Wins, Strikeouts, and ERA. Those aren’t bad stats to use, but they’re not all-inclusive. For that matter, no set is all-inclusive, but it seems to me that the more you look at, the better picture you get.

So here we go:

NL: Roy Halladay. This one I think is easy and I’m fairly confident I got it right.

AL: C. C. Sabathia. This one is a bit more dicey. But because the three triple crown stats were split among three pitchers I think the writers will go with the combination of most wins and leading a team to the playoffs to reward Sabathia with this year’s award.

I’m not saying either is the best choice, but only that these are the choices I think will be made. Agree? Disagree?

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Tags: C.C. Sabathia, Cy Young Award, Roy Halladay