[dynamite140]

I see every year when it comes to the Cy Young Debate in each league, there is almost always a candidate from the AL West and NL West. And finally last year Felix Hernandez won the AL Cy Young with a 2.27 ERA despite having a 13-12 Record and many people argued for him because of him pitching for a horrible team.



In the AL, its either going to be Verlander, Weaver or CC but when you consider everything, there is no doubt Verlander wins the award with his best record and his ERA. Verlander pitches in Detroit where its one of the best hitting parks in baseball. That to me is the greatest consideration for talking about how good of a pitcher is. CC has been the most consistent pitcher the last few years and he has not gotten anything even though he pitches at a hitters ballpark because people love to argue for guys like Felix. Sure Felix has better numbers but the fact that 1/2 of his games are played at Safeco Field should be used tremendously against him. The same with all those pitchers in those pitcher friendly ballparks.


People say Felix went 13-12 because his Mariners don't score runs for him and all that. Well in case you don't know, don't you think the other team isn't going to score many runs for their pitcher either at Safeco Field?Weaver in the AL is having his best year but he pitches in one of the most friendly pitcher parks in the A.L. And most importantly, how many games does he get to pitch against those pathetic Mariners and Athletics. If you put CC or Verlander on the Mariners with 1/2 their games pitching at home, these guys might throw 7 complete games every single year and theres a good chance their ERA will be around a 2. Remember when CC went to the NL and pitched for the Brewers? He went 8-0 in that span before being traded to the Yankees. If he had went to the NL West, his ERA probably would have even went lower



In the N.L, its a race between Roy Halladay and Clayton Kershaw. The other candidates are Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Ian Kennedy. Kershaw will most surely win the award this year because of a couple of reasons. He leads Roy in wins though that may change soon and his ERA is 1st or 2nd in the NL and leads the league in SO. The sole reason why he gets the award is because voters will see Kershaw had such a great year and it is such a disappointment he pitches for those Dodgers who are a losing team whereas Roy pitches for the Phillies. Roy Halladay will not get it because he has won countless Cy youngs already and if there is a pitcher who has a great year similar to a winner like Roy, chances are it will go to that other guy. Sure Kershaw had an extremely good year. But the fact that he plays for the Dodgers and Dodger stadium is one of the most friendly pitching ballparks doesn't help him either and should be used against him a lot. When most of your games are pitching against the Padres, Giants and Dbacks, surely its not very hard to put good numbers on the board for a pitcher. If you check his stats, he struggles against good hitting teams.


Look as much as i say Tim Lincecum is a great pitcher, Giants stadium is a huge tremendous help for him. Yes Timmy does pitch okay away from home but the truth is NL West Pitchers have very little credibility. Why do you think the whole giants staff is so good, the same with the padres? Petco Park and At and T Park. Cole Hamels of the Phillies of a WHIP of under a 1 and that is nearly unheard of in baseball nowadays. Cliff Lee has thrown 6 shut outs in a year, how many pitchers have done that? But the problem is both of them are on the Phillies which pretty much won't give them any chance at Cy Young. Ian Kennedy is having is best year and he pitches for the Dbacks. Not much credit is given to him at all this year but the fact that he pitches at a hitters ballpark pretty much tells it all that he is a viable candidate. And the Phillies offense this year hasn't been that explosive at all and Roy and company still have to play teams like the Braves and the Mets. Yes the Mets suck but their lineup is better than the Giants, Padres, Dodgers. I bet everytime they have to go to pitch in the West Coast against those Giants, Pads and Dodgers, the whole Philly staff probably feels so relieved because they know how bad the other teams hitters are


I created a post a couple of years ago about Jake Peavy being the most overrated pitcher in baseball. He had that Cy Young year where he went like 179-6 with a 2.30 ERA or so and people were saying he is one of the most elite pitchers in baseball. I could not tell whether people were joking or not but truth was many felt he was elite. This guy was nothing but a product of Petco park. Even Chris Young had very good numbers for the Pads as well. Who wouldn't have good numbers when 1/2 the games are pitching at Petco? That 1 game playoff against the Rockies showed his true colors where he got like up for i forgot how many runs at Coors Field. If you had look at his home/away splits, sure his ERA might be a 1.80 at home but his ERA away from Petco was like 3.50. Funny how he didn't want to go New York or Boston and used an excuse because he wanted to hit. Only hitting he is afraid of is the AL hitting. When he got traded to the White Sox, i knew this guy was going to get exposed and surely enough he was and still is. I guessed his ERA was going to be at least a 4.50 and i think his ERA was like a 7.50 after his first 6 games. Then he beat 2 teams during the next stretch. But what is the funny thing here? Two of those wins were against the Kansas City Royals. Petco Park and AT and T park will inflate a pitchers numbers so much where people just got blinded.



Pitchers who are proven to be elite every year are Halladay, CC and Verlander. Every year pitching against real tough competition and pitching in hitters ballparks will always be better than Pitchers like Felix, Lincecum, Kershaw, and Cain.



But sadly, the public feels sorry for these pitchers because their teams are so bad and that is the reason they get the award. Funny how people say if you put Felix on the Yankees or Kershaw on a winning team then they will get more run support and have a better record. But they never mention how theirs ERAs will go up no matter what where their ERA would be much higher than a guy like CC or Halladay. AL and NL West Pitchers pretty much are not proven at all.



Any decent pitcher will pitch like an elite pitching stats when 1/2 their games are either at Petco, Safeco or
AT and T park

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Long post...some good arguments in there too...some of which I agree with and others that I could debate you on. In debating Hernandez as a potential candidate, which is more of a reference to his last year's accolade, I think it's important to recognize that you have to score more than a run or two to win enough games to put up W/L records that some of these other pitchers have. Though he pitches in Safeco, the Mariners are a horrible offensive team wherever they play for the most part. Almost any team that enters into Safeco is going to have better offensive production than the Mariners. I think it's telling that a pitcher with that low of an ERA, who is barely .500, would have the 20 wins if he were pitching for a decent offensive hitting ball club. If you switch Verlander and Hernandez, don't you think that Verlander's ERA might be a tad better, but his W to Loss ratio wouldn't be near what it is currently? If Hernandez were to win 18/19 games with last year's roster, or even this year's roster, which I think is offensively better, it would be huge!!!

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Just a side note, last year Felix's ERA on the road was 2.46 and he pitches two more games outside of Safeco, than in it. Yes, his ERA was lower in Safeco (2.06), but with an ERA of only 2.06 over 16 games at home, he was only notches 8 wins. That speaks volumes of how bad the Mariners are and how any pitcher in his shoes and throwing a career year, probably wouldn't have done any better.

[dynamite140]

Yes that is true. But if you put CC on the Mariners, there is a very good chance his numbers will be at worst similar to Felix's numbers. The thing is Felix had a great year last year and this year his numbers gotten worst. He won't have numbers like 2010 every year. But a guy like CC or Roy definitely would.


If he had numbers like that every year, then yea he is real good but when his ERA this year is similar to CC when he doesn't have an outstanding year, that pretty much shows he isn't elite. You take any above average pitcher like Oswalt, Gallardo, Hanson and have them pitch for the Mariners, they surely will put similar numbers to Felix in Seattle

[dabomguy11]

I have to believe that even you don't believe all they hyperbole you threw in that long post of yours. People do not say that Felix gets no run support because he pitches in Safeco, they say it because the Mariner's offense is truly horrendous. True, Safeco is a pitcher's park, but Cy Young voters can only base their decisions on what kind of numbers/season a pitcher actually put up, not on what kind of stats they "should" have had if they had pitched in a neutral park. For Kershaw, 6 of his 28 starts have been against the Pads and the Giants, who, even I'll admit, are not very good offensive teams. However, the Diamondbacks are a pretty decent offensive team this year. Either way, it means that Kershaw has made 22 starts against teams not the Pads and the Giants, and he's been pretty damn good in those starts as well. I have a feeling that voters do not "feel sorry" for a pitcher that plays on a subpar team, and thus, gives them the award out of sympathy. I hope that even you don't believe rubbish like that.

[dabomguy11]

Also, a pitcher's career shouldn't play a role in who gets selected as the Cy Young award winner. If you think about it, the pitcher's stats for that year should be what voters look at, not if they have consistently put up solid numbers through out their career. While a pitcher's career should be looked at before calling someone an elite pitcher, the Cy Young award is based on a single year's stats, and that year's stats only.

[High3rEl3m3nt]

Yes that is true. But if you put CC on the Mariners, there is a very good chance his numbers will be at worst similar to Felix's numbers. The thing is Felix had a great year last year and this year his numbers gotten worst. He won't have numbers like 2010 every year. But a guy like CC or Roy definitely would.


If he had numbers like that every year, then yea he is real good but when his ERA this year is similar to CC when he doesn't have an outstanding year, that pretty much shows he isn't elite. You take any above average pitcher like Oswalt, Gallardo, Hanson and have them pitch for the Mariners, they surely will put similar numbers to Felix in Seattle

My only thing with your point is that I don't think many pitchers can keep it together...knowing that their limiting the opposing team to 2-3 runs is not going to be enough to get their team the W. Look at Lincecum earlier this week. He gave up a couple of runs and you could see his frustration with not having any run support. Roy went to the Phillies to win, CC went to the Yanks to win...Felix has stayed a M through thick and thin, knowing that the M's don't have much of a chance with the Angels and Rangers having superb teams.

[dynamite140]

If Felix goes to pitch for the Yankees or Red Sox, yes he will have more wins, thats a fact. However, i would not be surprised if his ERA goes up to a 4. The thing is if he goes there, he would probably average 15 wins and have something like 10 losses a year. When he has to consistently pitch against the AL East teams and rarely pitch against the NL West, his ERA will skyrocket no matter what.


Obviously Felix is much better than a guy like Peavy. You cannot hit any worst than those NL West Teams. But still, having 1/2 your games pitched at Safeco is such a huge advantage and inflates numbers to their advantage.

[crustyme]

damn, i thought my phone turned in to a kindle there for a min!

i think it's ridiculous to group all west pitchers in to the same group especially since cy young candidate ian kennedy pitches in a launching pad in arizona. not to mention the west also has 2 of the most notorious launching pads in colorado and texas.

west might be down a little in terms of offensive output but lets not forget that the 2 best teams in the world series last season were the rangers and giants, both from the west. not to mention the dodgers had an explosive offense 2-3 years ago when they made back to back nlcs appearances. rockies nearly won the world series few years ago with their bats and padres nearly won the division last season before a late collapse. so west isn't exactly chopped liver.

i dont know why people keep mentioning hamels in the cy young race because he will not win just because he's not better than halladay or lee. whip under 1.00 doesn't necessarily mean automatic cy young winner because there's been about 8 pitchers with whip under 1.00 over the past 10 seasons that did not win.

halladay and lee should get lots of votes but end up splitting the votes which should eliminate both of them. i think kennedy has a good chance at winning but only if he can lead the league in wins and lowers his era under 3 since voters seem enamoured with low era.

[HoulihansTX]

Detroit is a pitchers park....

[dynamite140]

Well i meant to not include the Rangers and Dbacks/Rockies of course. Ranger Stadium is the best hitters ballpark in the AL and Coors is the best hitters ballpark in the NL. I basically said AL West and NL West Pitchers in my title because the majority of these pitchers who have good stats but have inflated numbers should not get much credit as pitchers pitching with such a great advantage at home 1/2 the time. And when you think about the NL West, when a Giants pitcher pitches at home, he has a huge advantage. Then take the other times he goes and pitches away at Petco Park or Dodger Stadium, they are going to usually have great numbers in the majority of their starts until they have to go east and play the phillies and braves.



Texas Rangers and Colorado/Arizona are exceptions. Pretty funny how the best pitchers parks as in Petco Park, AT and T and Safeco are all in the West and the best hitters parks are 1. Coors and 2. Ranger Stadum.



If a pitcher from Texas has a 15-7 year with a 3.00 ERA, that to me is better than a pitcher who pitches for the Giants who goes 17-6 with a 2.50 ERA.