Who Should Get the National League Cy Young Award?

Friday - November 20, 2009 | gambling | comment balloon

2009 in baseball was definitely the year of the pitcher. While it looks like Zack Greinke should definitely win the Cy Young award in the American League, things are much closer in the National League, leaving many to speculate about a very interesting race.

Who should win it in the National League? If I were to read off the numbers of pitchers like Adam Wainwright and Jair Jurrjens, you might say that they should win it without a doubt. However, there was a ton of great pitching this season so the award will most likely go to one of two pitchers who outperformed them both.

At the end of the day though, the best pitching was hands down performed by Tim Lincecum, the young hurler with the San Francisco Giants, and Chris Carpenter, the veteran ace pitcher in St. Louis who came back from a two year hiatus that saw him sidelined with injury.

However, there’s a lot more to what both of these aces accomplished than just some incredible stats. Sometimes, intangible factors like these may factor into determining who’s more worthy of an award. That may very well have to be the case this year.

Tim Lincecum brought the San Francisco Giants back into contention. A steady presence at starting pitcher through the entire season, his numbers were incredible. His low ERA was 2.48 was amongst the best in baseball, and he led all pitchers with 261 strikeouts.

On the other hand, Chris Carpenter’s story may be more interesting, and his numbers equally impressive. Carpenter sat out almost all of 2007 and 2008 due to injury. Now in his mid 30s, no one expected he’d be as dominant as he was in 2009. He had the best ERA in the National League at 2.24, and won 17 games while losing only four.

At the end of the day, this race could truly go either way. Carpenter had the better ERA and WHIP, but Lincecum’s strikeouts were insane. Carpenter does have the better story to tell, so my prediction would be that he wins.

Read more articles by this author about things like fixing mobile home roofs and DIY roof leak fixes.

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