Cliff Lee and the Phils Staff - CY Race

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Watching the Phillies play last night, Lee was a stud, again. ESPN showed a nice little tidbit on Lee this year. Auguast was teh second month in which Lee was 5-0 with an ERA under 1.00. that is a pretty awesome feat in itself. Especially considering Bob Gibson in 1968(MVP year, 1.12 ERA) and Walter Johnson in 1913(his best year, 36-7 1.14 ERA) are the only other pitchers to ever do this. Lee had a lackluster May, was great in June, dipped in July and great again in August. With this trend and the big lead the Phils currently have in the NL, hopefully Lee will ahve a dip in September and pick it up again in October, just in time for the playoffs.

Funny thing about last nights game was Lee was pitching a shutout and was pulled with 2 out in the 9th by Manuel. Lee didn't seem pissed, which I commend him for. Many pitchers want that shutout. Lee seems to be a team player last night.

Looking at the Phils staff, other than the Joe Blanton project of 6 starts with a 5.50 ERA to start the season, the worst ERA is Oswalt of 3.79. And that's with chronic back trouble. Nice! Kendrick hs been steady in spot starts and Worley has been a nice surprise. But Halladay and Hamels are both pitching strong. Hamels actually has the best WHIP of the staff. Halladay the most wins and best ERA.

With Kershaw pitching in the mix as the lone dodger stud, I think the Phils starters just hurt each other in the Cy Young race. All 3 have pitched awesome at tims. Halladay the most steady of the bunch. But I think Lee would be the most deserving because of his streaks of greatness this year.

 

I definitely think Lee will perform well in the Cy Young voting, although as you say, there might be some splitting of the vote that would allow Kershaw to get in. Not that he isn't deserving. The Dodgers are terrible this year, and many players - including pitchers - would have packed it in months ago.

At least there's Cy Young conversation in the NL. In the AL, they should just give it to Verlander now.

 

I personally think Verlander is the AL MVP as well. IT's hard to pcik out a player form the Sox when 4 of them are having excellent years. Bautista doesn't hit HRs in big spots often, though he is having a great year. and Granderson is having a career year. I personally think his Runs Scored is a much more telling stat than BA or OBP. Tough call though in the AL on the MVP race. The NL as well. Though I like Kemp, regardless of LAs record, though they have been playign excellent in the last 50 some games.

 

Verlander could well be the AL MVP. The thing going against him is that the Baseball Writers Association are not immune to what a lot of fans think as well - that a starting pitcher only plays in 20% or so of a team's games and thus isn't as deserving of the award as an everyday player. (I personally don't agree with this. First, if you look at all of Detroit's pitchers not named Verlander, they are a .500 team. They likely are not a playoff team without him. Secondly, while a starting pitcher only plays once every five days, he is much more heavily involved in the games he plays than an everyday player. There are many innings where an everyday player doesn't bat, and many innings where no balls are hit to him in the field. So there's a lot of plays in a game that an every day player has no impact on whatsoever. A starting pitcher is involved in every play - every pitch to be precise - of a game when his team is on the field.)

Having said all that there are just some writers who won't put the pitcher on the top spot of their MVP ballots, or in rarer - and more egregious - instances leave pitchers off their ballots completely. This most famously happened to Pedro Matrinez in 1999. He finished 2nd in votes to Ivan (Pugh) Rodrigez, but two writers left him off their ballots entirely. He needed one vote of 4th place or higher from either of them to win the award.

I'm completely against Bautista winning the award, simply because he plays for a team that might finish .500 if they're lucky, is in 4th place in their division, and will likely finish about 20 games behind the Yankees and Red Sox. Yeah, you're the MVP because instead of finishing with 80 wins and 20 games back, you'd have finished with 70 wins and 30 games back if you weren't on the team. Whatevs. IMO, the only way you can give the award to someone from a team that doesn't at least COMPETE for a playoff spot is if they had an incredible year and no one else is in their ballpark (pun intended) in terms of their season totals. Bautista doesn't qualify.

The Red Sox are going to split their votes. Granderson is having a career year, but I think he has an excellent chance. The only knock against him is that his team is stacked. The Yankees played stretches of the season without A-Rod and Jeter. You can argue that other than CC and Rivera, the Yankees are a playoff team irrespective of who they lost for a month or two. And I suppose that a similar argument can be made for the Red Sox. And that brings us back to Verlander again...