November 10, 2005
Cy Carpenter
Chris Carpenter takes home the National League Cy Young award for 2005. It was a close vote, with Carpenter edging Dontrelle Willis despite a better ERA by Willis and one more win. It looks like the NL voters applied the "Team winning the division makes you a better pitcher" test.
Of course, Roger Clemens deserved this award more than the one he received last season. Andy Pettitte was also an arguably better choice than either Carpenter or Willis. Pettitte didn't win 20, but he had an excellent winning percentage (17-9 record) and a great ERA 2.39. Plus, his team made the playoffs.
One factor that hurt Clemens (and rightfully so) was his durability in games. Roger seldom went more than seven innings while Carpenter and Willis posted seven complete games each. It's not a bad vote, not nearly as bad as the AL. It's just not clear to me the logic the voters used in selecting Carpenter over Willis.
Update: In looking at the voting and thinking about this some more, I'm surprised there were no ballots that did not include Carpenter or Willis. I could easily see a writer submitting Clemens, Pettitte, Willis or Pettitte, Clemens, Carpenter. Not even the Houston writers saw that they had two Cy Young candidates. I guess there's not that much diversity of thought among beat writers.
Congratulations to Carpenter on the honor!
Posted by David Pinto at
02:12 PM
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The only reason I can give for Carpenter over Willis is strikeouts.
But you're right that either Pettitte or Clemens would have been better - just looking at ERA+, both of them eclipse Carpenter and Willis (Pettitte has a 174, Clemens a 221). I bet Clemens' late season struggles really lost him votes.
Carpenter earned his hardware.
A little more run support in the first half for Clemens, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
My WAG is that 18 wins for Roger - easily achievable if the team had scored a tiny bit more in his April-July starts - would have been the tipping-point that guaranteed another award. He got the Cy last year with 18 wins and an ERA more than a full run higher.
And twenty wins for Clemens, again easily achievable with a few more runs in the first half, would have made the award a lock.
Looking over Clemens' no-decisions is almost painful. He had six where he allowed no runs, two where he allowed one run, and three where he allowed two runs.
A smidgen of run support and reasonable bullpen work could have easily pulled seven wins out of those starts. A 20-8 1.87 season - or even 18-8 - takes home the Cy with no problems.
Call it karma -- using the same criteria to support Clemens this year (and I agree, he's wholly deserving), you'd have to take it away from him last year and give it to Randy Johnson.
how can complete games be a reasonable criteria for a pitcher in the national league? in clemens' case, there's no way he can get complete games if his offense scores no runs. he'll always be pinch-hit for in the late innings regardless of how well he's pitching.
One thing about Clemens that's interesting, is that his FIP is much worse than his real ERA. By about a run.
Plus, while wins is largely team dependent, it also depends on how long a pitcher stays in the game. If you are in the game 6-7 innings, you are less likely to win a game then someone who pitches 8 or more.
Clemens was generally in games less than Carpenter or Willis. (Or Oswalt/Petite). Which is IMHO a large part he won fewer games.
If you're in the game for seven or more innings and allow no runs or one run, you should win with any kind of decent run support and non-horrible bullpen. Even in PETCO you should win starts like that.
Clemens had seven games like that when he got no-decisions. He had three straight in April alone.
The Astros did improve offensively in the second half, though they rarely scored much of anything for Roger.
Everybody knows that wins have an enormous influence on the Cy Young voting. This year proves it again.
At least Carpenter had a really outstanding year, as opposed to a very good one, like Colon. I like Brian's point that this season is the Karmic response to Clemens winning last year, when it was Johnson whose W/L record was so badly treated by his team's ability to score runs. I also like to think that Willis should have gotten some credit for the value he brings with his bat...Willis had a great season, too.
I guess there's not that much diversity of thought among beat writers.
I edited that a bit for you, David, if you don't mind (all in good fun, of course)! :)
Except the comments don't support HTML. Oops. Try this:
I guess there's not that much thought among beat writers.
This makes up for his win in '01, when Freddy Garcia was clearly the better pitcher.
I thought Clemens' 01 win was payback for being hosed by Bob Welch in 1990. The writers may just be tired of giving him the thing.
What's odd is, Carpenter also had a crummy September.