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09/17/2003 Archived Entry: "MLB News: AL Cy Young Candidates"
MLB News by Eric Gartman
With only a few games left in the season its time to consider the yearly honors. In evaluating Cy Young candidates there are two very important factors to keep in mind that the Baseball Writers Association gets wrong every year: 1) ERA is more important than wins. This is because wins are highly dependent on how much run support a pitcher gets, a factor over which he has no control. ERA on the other hand, is all due to the pitcher's ability. 2) Relievers are not as importants as closers. Relievers pitch far fewer innings than starters, and even though the ninth innning of a tight game may be more important than the early innings of a game, it is not enough to make up for the huge differential in innings pitched.
With this in mind, let us examine who should win the Cy Young awards, and who will win. In the AL, the most deserving pitcher at this point is Tim Hudson with his 15-6 record and 2.66 ERA in 227 innings pitched. Plenty of pitchers have more wins, but sport far higher ERA's. Roy Halladay has 21 wins but a 3.18 ERA. He has thrown 252 innings, but that is not enough to make up for Hudson's ERA edge. Similiarly, Esteban Loaiza has 19 wins, but has a 2.87 ERA in fewer innings than Hudson. The ERA title actually belongs to Pedro Martinez, at 2.34. But Pedro has only pitched 176 innings. His record is 13-4, but should be 18-4, as the Sox pen blew five of his leads early this season. Another pitcher whose name has been mentioned is Mike Mussina. Moose is 17-7, but his ERA is 3.18 in only 204 innings. As I see it, Hudson has the edge in ERA over everyone except Pedro, but Pedro's small number of innings pitched is not enough to make up for his low ERA. Halladay and Mussina are not even close, and are only mentioned by voters for their impressive win totals, bolstered by the Jays and Yanks impressive offenses. That leaves Loiaza who pitched well until recently. His ERA and low innings totals should leave Hudson as the obvious choice. But, alas, I suspect that the voters will ignore Hudson and his low win totals in favor of a guy with lots of wins.
