NL Cy Young Award Winner 2004

[Crash Course]

Who will it be? Who should it be? Why?

[Crash Course]

No guesses?

[Crash Course]

It's Clemens: http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/news/mlb_news.jsp?ymd=20041109&content_id=911865&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp

[Crash Course]

Ben Sheets was robbed.

[KCBOOMER]

RJ, Sheets, and Zambrano were all better this year followed by three man cluster (Clemens, Schmidt, Peavey). Not the first time the writers have went with the best pitcher on a team that won something.

[nyy26wc]

There is no doubt that Clemens deserved it.

You just have to understand what this award, or any award in existence on this planet, does. It doesn't measure quality. It measures who the voters choose to vote for.

And by that standard, no person in the history of mankind ever deserved the 2004 NL award more than Clemens.

[captain_napalm]

I can see the "he came out of retirement and won the CYA" angle in tomorrow's NY Daily News tomorrow

[mainsr]

There is no doubt that Clemens deserved it.

What am I missing here? This strikes me as a bad decision. Not Clemens in '01 or Sosa in '98 or Juan Gonzalez whenever bad, but bad. It seems pretty clear to me that the best pitcher in the NL finished No. 2.

[nyy26wc]

What am I missing here? This strikes me as a bad decision. Not Clemens in '01 or Sosa in '98 or Juan Gonzalez whenever bad, but bad. It seems pretty clear to me that the best pitcher in the NL finished No. 2.

You missed the whole point of my post.

Of course, it's a bad decision. But, only if awards measured quality. They don't do that.

Based on quality, Johnson was the best pitcher in the league. But, quality is not what is measured award voting. What is measured there is the question of who do the voters choose to vote for. And since that's the standard, Clemens clearly deserves to be labeled the guy who voters chose to vote for.

[hopbitters]

The problem is that the awards are persistent. People will look back 20 years from now and see Roger Clemens as the Cy Young award winner and assume that he was the best pitcher in the NL in 2004. If they gave him a little trinket and a pat on the back and that was the end of it, these things would have much less of a detrimental effect on my blood pressure, but they are recorded and respected by the casual public. The voters have a responsibility to know more than the average fan, to put aside their personal biases, do the research, and choose the best candidate. It's the same as the HoF. They present themselves as a measure of quality. You know they're not accurate and you can judge for yourself, but most people don't.

P.S. You need to update your signature, Lee. You don't want people thinking the SBE only goes to 2003 :)

[Throwback]

Yeah, I consider this a travesty. I think not enough is made about Peavy even by those who acknowledge how goofy it was that Clemens won. He should have, in my opinion, come out 2nd at worst, even with his relatively few innings, because his ERA warranted it. Clemens was the #5 starting pitcher in the league this year, period. This is only slightly better than 2001 when he was the 6th. Not a huge surprise considering the NL Cy Young has only gone to the most deserving candidate 6 of the last 10 years, although this may have been the most egregious error in that span. The AL has been slightly better at 7/10. The voters should be baseball savvy, don't you think? Odd that they consistently value the practically valueless stat of "wins" above all else.
Oh, and Steve, thanks for inviting me to the Player's Lounge. Much appreciated.