Orange County Register

Here’s another guy who takes his BBWAA award voting seriously. In fact, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch sounded almost as anguished about the Cy Young vote as Henry Schulman did. Maybe these guys should take a week off.

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Those of us who were presented with cut-and-dried ballots, like N.L. MVP (duh) are not envious of the Cy Young panel. But Goold, like me, thinks Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals was a sliver-thin choice over both teammate Chris Carpenter and the Giants’ Tim Lincecum, who eventually won.

Goold meticulously spells out his case. I would add this:

– As Schulman pointed out, strikeouts should not be a major factor in the voting. The Cardinals’ strategy is to pitch to contact, keep the pitch count down and go as many innings as you can. Since the Cardinals also have a very good defense, that’s a feasible strategy and Carpenter, for one, should not have been penalized for it.

– What didn’t make sense was the fact that Wainwright had more

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first-place votes than anyone but had only five second-place votes, which is basically why he finished third. Only once before has the leading vote-getter failed to win the Cy Young. That was when Tom Glavine edged Trevor Hoffman in 1998. That shouldn’t have happened either.

– Both the AL and NL voting indicates that more and more writers are following the sabremetricians’ lead in scorning a pitcher’s victory total. Zack Greinke won 16 games for Kansas City and Lincecum 15. Granted, the Royals weren’t a very good team and the Giants weren’t a very good offensive team, but Wainwright should not have been penalized for winning 19. Wins are not the predominant stat but they do mean something. As Nolan Ryan said, a starter’s job is to stay out there longer than the other guy, no matter what it takes. What’s most impressive is that the Cardinals won 23 times when Wainwright started.

– Wainwright, like Seattle’s Felix Hernandez, led his league in innings pitched. That would be a more appreciated stat if it were called “outs recorded,” which is exactly what it is. It is also tremendously difficult to lead a league in IP’s when Tony La Russa, the man who has no rollover minutes left on his dugout-to-bullpen phone, is your manager.

– Wainwright got more run support than Lincecum or Carpenter and thus lost vote support that way. As Goold points out, Wainwright did not bask in runs the whole year. Besides, why is that a negative? Teams play more confidently, defensively and offensively, when they have faith in their starting pitcher. The Giants scored 4.06 runs a game ordinarily but 4.57 when Lincecum pitched. The Cardinals scored 4.57 runs overall, 5.52 for Wainwright. Wainwright got two or fewer runs eight times, Lincecum 11.

–  In 1973 the Philadelphia Phillies were 59-97, which means they were so bad that baseball didn’t even bother making them make up six games. And Steve Carlton went 27-10. The Phillies were 29-10 when he started (meaning they were 30-87 otherwise). They averaged 3.22 runs that year, but got it up to 3.83 in his starts and  scored eight or more runs for Carlton seven times. Of course, it helped that Carlton pitched 341 innings with 30 — yep, 30 — complete games. And he did win the Cy Young.

Again, all three pitchers were unquestionably worthy and it’s great for the game that Lincecum won, because baseball needs more box-office magnetism. What I take from it is the diligence of most baseball writers when it comes to these awards, primarily because they realize that the BBWAA brand carries historic significance. When people refer to Cy Young awards in the future, these are the ones they mean.

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