Damn you, Griffey, for making the audience wait to see this table of critically important information.
| Rk | Player | Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zack Greinke | Kansas City Royals | 28 | 1 | - | 143 |
| 2 | Felix Hernandez | Seattle Mariners | - | 17 | 6 | 57 |
| 3 | Justin Verlander | Detroit Tigers | - | 8 | 9 | 33 |
| 4 | Roy Halladay | Toronto Blue Jays | 1 | 2 | 11 | 22 |
| 5 | C.C. Sabathia | New York Yankees | - | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 6 | Jon Lester | Boston Red Sox | - | - | 1 | 1 |
Looks about right. The top six arms in ERA, and the top six arms in FIP. I'm not certain that Felix deserved second over Verlander and Halladay, each of whom threw just as many innings with comparable results, but it's not second place that matters here. A real shame that Greinke's contract expires before Dayton Moore's does. A real shame.
Over 915 plate appearances, Greinke held opponents to a .269 wOBA. Zack Greinke vs. the Major Leagues was like an average pitcher vs. Robb Quinlan.
1 recs | 50 comments
A deserved blowout.
Teej - November 11, 2009
Can whoever voted for Lester be stripped of their blogging privileges?
Please??? I feel like this is all the evidence you’d need.
SethGrandpa - November 11, 2009
Lester's tRA* was better than Verlander, Halladay and Sabathia's
stupidquestions - November 11, 2009
I have no idea why you would use tRA* as a measure of value
vivaelpujols - November 11, 2009
Just saying it might have been a basis for whoever voted him third
obviously he falls short in IP and WAR.
stupidquestions - November 11, 2009
And I should emphasize you're right that tRA* isn't a value measure
but it is a raw performance measure, and maybe someone decided to weight their vote toward that for whatever reason. Plus, what Matthew said.
stupidquestions - November 11, 2009
No, tRA is the raw performance metric
I don’t have a problem with that. tRA* is tRA regressed to league average. I’m not sure if it’s done by components or not, and that may make a difference for stuff like HR/FB, but I don’t see why you should regress performance when talking about awards.
vivaelpujols - November 11, 2009
Points taken.
The regression is done by components (such as HR/FB), but I can definitely see your point about raw vs. regressed performance in award voting and I would agree with it.
stupidquestions - November 11, 2009
It's done by components
Graham MacAree - November 11, 2009
Lester was top 5 in tRA, FIP, tRA*, pRAA and WAR
Matthew - November 11, 2009
I'm not impressed
abender20 - November 11, 2009
Call me when he cures cancer.
abender20 - November 11, 2009
You'd think that medical degree would be less valuable at that time.
Kirsten Schlewitz - November 12, 2009
How's his tickling?
Lanky - November 11, 2009
I suppose I look at it this way...
If I had to bank on one pitcher to win one game this season, no way I consider Lester.
SethGrandpa - November 11, 2009
That's definitely not what the Cy Young is for
vivaelpujols - November 12, 2009
He was on one ballot, in the #3 position. Seems perfectly reasonable.
marc w - November 12, 2009
Mr. Greinke deserved it. I'm happy for him.
Felix will have a couple of these in his back pocket before his career is over.
royalcurve - November 11, 2009
I don't think SBN actually sends them anything to put in their back pocket, sadly.
Lanky - November 11, 2009
CC got rid of the periods, silly.
Phil Hatzenbuehler - November 11, 2009
It doesn't seem like it should be up to Mr. Sabathia.
As long as C.C. is short for something else, it needs periods.
Lanky - November 11, 2009
You're just posting like mad.
Kirk - November 11, 2009 via mobile
Very bored. I'm not here often, but when I am, I go whole-hog.
Lanky - November 11, 2009
But he goes by "CC", which is his nickname, not his initials.
Phil Hatzenbuehler - November 11, 2009
Well, it's a nickname of his initials.
If he wants to throw some vowels in there and make it a word, I’d allow it. Otherwise, he’s stuck with the periods.
Lanky - November 11, 2009
He legally changed his name to CC.
It isn’t a nickname or initials. It’s his legal name.
rickpo - November 11, 2009
If that's the case, he's got my seal of approval.
As far as I know, from doing a quick news search, that isn’t the case.
I think I’ve wasted more than enough energy on this. Sorry, everyone.
Lanky - November 12, 2009
No, he didn't.
Teej - November 12, 2009
Hmmm.
this:
From here on out, Carsten Charles Sabathia is just “CC” Sabathia — not “C.C.”
After holding a news conference Monday to announce they’d made a trade to acquire the reigning AL Cy Young award winner from Cleveland, a member of the Brewers public relations staff advised media members that Sabathia prefers to have his initials written without periods. “Oh, really?” Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said. It was not immediately known why Sabathia wanted it that way.
<a href=“http:// ”http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Answer-Man-CC-Sabathia-talks-imaginary-friends-?urn=mlb" target="_blank">http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Answer-Man-CC-Sabathia-talks-imaginary-friends-?urn=mlb,97668" target="new">or
Q: When you came over from Cleveland, it gave you an opportunity to clear up the matter of your dots, your periods, in “CC,” …. and you have this exasperated look on your face right now.
CC: I had no clue what was going on with that. I never said that I never liked dots. They asked me when I wrote my name, how do I spell it, and I said I spell it “Carsten.” I never write “CC”. I don’t really care about the dots anyway. It’s just something that kind of got made-up when I came here. I never stated anything about the dots in my name. J.J., you like the dots in your name?
(Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome from a couple of lockers over, Brewers shortstop J.J. Hardy)
J.J. Hardy: It doesn’t make a difference. You know, I have ‘em, but it doesn’t make a difference.
CC: See? Doesn’t make a difference.
msb - November 12, 2009
dammit. the time you don't hit [preview] ....
msb - November 12, 2009
I knew this guy in the army, his name was JO Riggins.
When he filled out the paperwork to join up, he was afraid they’d get it wrong, so he spelled it out very carefully for the recruiters. J(only) B(only) Riggins. He spent the rest of his military career as Jonly Bonly Riggins.
Kermit. - November 12, 2009
If that's not a male hooker, I don't know what is.
abender20 - November 12, 2009
Based on that comment, I'm going to trust that you have a pretty good idea what a male hooker is.
Now I know who to ask. I can’t tell you how many awkward conversations I could have avoided if I’d known this sooner.
Lanky - November 13, 2009
I stole that story from a comedy bit
It just works better in the first person, abender’s hooker proclivities are… his thing.
Kermit. - November 13, 2009
Correction:
Our thing.
Lanky - November 13, 2009
I'll never forget the first time I found myself saying "I honestly thought that was a woman".
That was a red letter day, for sure
Kermit. - November 13, 2009
Yeah, a red A.
abender20 - November 13, 2009
I hear you.
“But her hands were so soft!”
Lanky - November 13, 2009
I was going to make a Harry S. Truman joke
But in his case, it actually didn’t stand for anything.
appleshampoo - November 11, 2009 via mobile
Same with Ulysses S. Grant.
But in that case that wasn’t even his name. He was Hiram Ulysses Grant. Where the S came from I have no idea.
Llewdor - November 12, 2009
Now I understand why he doesn't have one terrible start a month anymore.
joof - November 12, 2009
Uh
44FAN - November 11, 2009
Flagged for not spinning.
Eyebrows - November 11, 2009
He's cute
I like him
Jeff Sullivan - November 11, 2009
Somewhere, Reggie Willits is sobbing quietly into his pillow.
Eyebrows - November 11, 2009
That's a pretty standard evening in the Willits household
abender20 - November 11, 2009
Six voters didn't rank Felix among the top three?
Posh.
katal - November 11, 2009
Hard to get worked up over that with both Halladay and Verlander in the mix and deserving.
abender20 - November 11, 2009
lame
Robert - November 11, 2009
Those top 4 were all tremendous.
Good year for pitching.
Llewdor - November 12, 2009
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