November 11, 2004
Smooth Win
Johan Santana capped off a great season today with the AL Cy Young Award. In an award I thought might be close between Santana and Schilling, Santana took all the first place votes. As good as Schilling was, Johan's superior ERA and K numbers put him over the top. Congratulations, Johan!
These two pitchers are much closer than the award voting indicates. Schilling had better walk numbers, and both allowed about the same number of HR. However, win shares gives a clear advantage to Santana, 27 to 22. Could it be that AL voters are more sophisticated than their NL counterparts?
Posted by David Pinto at
03:22 PM
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Well, if you go through the sabermetrically-oriented organizations in the game, the vast majority of them would seem to be in the AL - maybe smarter organizations breed smarter sportswriters!
(That definitely hasn't been the case with the Yankees, though...)
I think the consensus is that the AL voters have made more idiosyncratice choices in the last ten years in MVP voting than their NL counterparts have. I don't think I'd contend that AL voters have tended to be more sophisticated.
It was odd that 24 of the 28 ballots were identical. That's an uncanny consensus.
In the past, have there been other unanimous winners such as this? If so, who?
I'd say that if the Rocket had thrown his support behind Randy Johnson, then the NL voting would have been similar to the AL. No AL writers wanted to risk being wrong according to Curt Schilling; they could care less about who the public or sabermetricians think should win.
> Could it be that AL voters are more sophisticated than their NL counterparts?
Naaaahh... They just got it right by chance. Some times that happens, you know...