Cy Robbed - Josh Beckett Loses Cy Young to Sabathia

Josh Beckett was unable to bag the big one this time around. (kevinfowleroutdoors.com Photo)

Well, looks like the baseball writers got the AL Cy Young Award wrong this year as Josh Beckett lost out to Indians ace C.C. Sabathia. Sabathia scored a total of 119 points to Beckett's 86, while Josh only received eight first place votes. Now I'm not knocking the good regular season that C.C. had, however I honestly believe that Beckett was the better pitcher in 2007.

The one thing that you keep hearing and reading about Sabathia is that he pitched more innings then Beckett did, however that's not nessessarily something that's completely in Beckett's control. Sabathia threw for a total of 241 innings, which sure is a lot of innings, however how smart exactly was it of the Indians front office and management to make this young pitcher shoulder such a large work load during the regular season? Sabathia's arm may have been out of juice when the playoffs rolled around (it sure looked like it), while Beckett and his 200.2 innings looked like just enough to get the Red Sox wins they needed, while keeping Josh fresh and ready for the playoffs. The point I'm trying to makes here is in two parts:

• Just because you pitch more innings, it doesn't necessarily mean you're a better pitcher.
• The number of innings a pitcher throws isn't necessarily in his control, it can be an organizational decision, or you could have more faith in you bullpen.

Sabathia and Carmona were both in the top ten in innings pitched this year, and they both were great, however we'll see what the result of all those innings pitched is in 2008, and 2009. I just hope Wedge isn't pulling a Dusty Baker by over-pitching his young studs and ruining their arms like Dusty did with the Cubs.

So that's my argument with innings pitched, which for sure is important for an ace to put up, and will reflect the rest of a players stats by giving them the opportunity to lower their ERA more, rack up more strikeouts, etc. but lets take a look at some other numbers. Sabathia had an ERA of 3.21 to Beckett's 3.27 which is slightly better then Josh's however you have to look at where they were pitching, and to whom they were pitching to.

The AL East, Beckett's division, scored a total of 4,126 runs in 2007 which averages out to 5.09 runs per game. The AL Central, Sabathia's division, scored a total of 3,815 which averages out to 4.71 runs per game. Now that may not look like a big difference at first glance, however those extra 311 runs the AL East scored has to be taken into account, and you have to remember that's a total of 0.38 more runs PER GAME. So if you were to assume that Beckett pitched in the better offensive division, then you'd assume it'd be harder to have a low ERA as well as accumulate strikeouts because the opposition (for last year at least) was hitting at a higher level in the East then in the Central.

So if you're looking at the total number of strikeouts of two really good pitchers of course the pitcher with those "valuable" extra innings pitched is going to have more in total, and Sabathia did. C.C. struck out an impressive 209 batters last year while Beckett struck out an equally impressive 194. But here's where you see Beckett start to pull away, when you look at his K's per 9 innings pitched it's far superior to Sabathia. Beckett's K/9 ratio was 8.70, almost a batter per inning pitched, to Sabathia's 7.81 which is almost a whole batter less then Beckett.

Opponents in the weaker hitting AL Central hit .259 off of C.C. while batters Beckett faced in the tougher division, only had a BA of .245, some .015 points lower which is a fairly significant difference. The one important area in my eyes that C.C. excelled in was with his K/BB ratio which was 5.65 to Beckett's 4.85. Both are pretty amazing and were career highs for each pitcher, however C.C.'s was significantly better, which means he had a little better control then Beckett did, however Beckett still posted the third best K/BB mark when all is said and done (with at least 200 IP).

I do want to stress that C.C. had an amazing year on the hill, however I'm trying to debunk all the "experts" out there who act like Beckett only pitched well in the playoffs. You don't win 20 games by all luck (there is some there though) and when you start to dive into the numbers from the regular season it doesn't just show you Beckett had a good year, but it shows you he had a great year, and the best year in the American League. I think the playoffs just exposed the tired, overworked, and weaker willed Indian pitchers. I don't think Beckett should be penalized because his workload was managed wonderfully so he was at peak form in the playoffs, or even for the fact that he got more run support. Talking about his run support is preposterous and has nothing to do with his PITCHING. The only thing it affects is a players wins, and that's barely been a focal point in the conversation here.

So what's the moral of the story? Beckett was not only the better pitcher in the playoffs, but he was the better pitcher in the regular season too. I'm sure his World Series ring, ALCS MVP, and his All-Star Game start and victory (which gave the Red Sox home field advantage in the World Series...pretty valuable huh?) is enough for Beckett to have in 2007. Still though, he should have a Cy Young award next to everything else, it's obvious, and if every G.M. in baseball could have one pitcher today, it'd be Beckett (maybe with a few Johan's thrown in there). So Congrats Josh for being the best pitcher alive in the year 2007.

Comments

[truth]

40 more innings; that's the difference, and why Sabathia earned his Cy Young.

His manager might want to contemplate whether those 40 extra regular season innings lead to his playoff collapse. I'm old enough that I remember Billy Martin ruining that fabulous 1980 A's pitching staff by pitching dozens of complete games.

It was the right decision. Beckett earned his postseason hardware.

[Derek Hixon]

You should also be old enough to realize that modern day bullpen's weren't around back then and pitchers NEEDED to pitch that many more innings. Pitchers pitching 300+ innings per season is almost non-existent now and has been on the decline for the past 3 decades. We now have long relievers, set-up men, and closers in the game, that if a manager is correctly using his club, allows him to use the best pitcher in the best scenario.

IP is an old baseball stat that isn't as important as what you're doing in those IP.

People have such tunnel vision with IP it's actually quite infuriating. There's more then just that, and if you look at the whole picture it's a really close race, and if IP is what tipped the scale it's pretty sad that the baseball writers don't truly understand the game they get paid to report on.

[Chuck]

I think the whole problem with Sox fans and Beckett not winning is that this is announced after the post season. Voting is done prior to the post season starting. So it greatly leans you towards Beckett after witnessing what he did compared to what Sabathia did in the post season. Thing is, you basically have to ignore the entire post season (and any and all impressions left from performances)in order to make a fair evaluation. Not being a Sox fan, I still thought Beckett should have won. But I was reading a story 2 days ago that showed who the "ESPN experts" picked and 15 picked Sabathia (including Gammons, Kurtjen and other Sox loyalists)and Becket only got 4 nods and Lackey got 1.

So for some reason, outside of New England, the entire country on a whole thought Sabathia should have won, and pretty much by a landslide. And not just in this "Experts" poll, but also in several other polls that I was reading. I guess it's just perspective and needing to get outside of the Sox influence in order to make a fair evaluation. I don't know, I thought Beckett was better on the whole, but I am under the New England influence living here.

Of course any Sox fan is going to say their player deserved it more than another. And that's what fans are supposed to do. Although I think you are really stretching it trying to compare division averages and runs scored on a whole instead of taking the pitchers opposing stats. The way you showed it is basically insignificant to compare what a division did against the rest of MLB, instead of strictly that pitcher. Some pitchers will only face a division opponent 1 time in 18 meetings (and sometimes not even if they miss a start or two) due to the way the rotation works out, whereas that same pitcher may face the worst team in the league say 4-5 times in those 18 games, so your division breakdown is pretty meaningless.

As for run support, it does matter. It can tack on 5 or more wins a year. That 3-2 no decision or 1-0 loss turns into a win. Or vice versa, that 7-6 game turns into a loss. Just ask Mussina about being robbed a few years ago when his stats were superior in almost every category except wins but Clemens won the Cy Young based upon like 5 more wins even though Clemens received like 2+ more runs per game in support.

[Derek Hixon]

I agree with the whole New England thing and am the first to admit I'm going to be WAY more biased towards Beckett, however I disagree with the division part.

Beckett started 30 times in 2007 and 14 of those times was against the East. Of Sabathia's 34 starts 18 of those were in the Central (with 4 against the Royals, heh heh). So that's certainly a factor that should be considered.

As far as wins go, I don't think that's a stat voters should be swayed on because wins are something pitchers have no control over. Heck, there's even been no hitters thrown where the pitcher has lost. Wins (much like ERA) is an outdated stat that really doesn't reflect anything a pitcher does. I think it's crap when a pitcher wins something for the "most wins" when anyone who knows baseball knows that doesn't mean he's the best pitcher.

If these awards do anything they make it fun to look back on the season and crunch numbers.

[Chuck]

So you make fun of Sabathia facing the Royals 4 times? The Royals finished with a 69-93 record whereas Tampa finished with a 66-96 record and Orioles finished with a 69-93 record. How many times did Beckett face the Rays and Orioles this past season? See...this was my point. I am not saying that the stats are useless, I am saying the way you represented the stats are meaningless. Show me what these teams did against him. So Beckett faced the East 30 times. That leaves 132 games against other pitchers to make their stats better. I think you are using to broad of a stat to try to prove your point.

Yes, I know that the Central had the 3 worst hitting teams in the AL, but how did they hit against the Central? How many times did he face the Tigers? They were the 2nd best hitting team in the AL and 3rd in MLB? I mean only half (or slightly less than half) are played against your own division. Anywhere from 72-78 games I believe are in your own division. So that means saying the East has better stats, when they played 80+ games outside their division, accumulating stats, yet more than half come from outside the division. Who's to say these better stats aren't because they played 80 games against weaker divisions?

Ok, I don't know what my point is anymore. I'm sick and my head hurts....so I can't really focus or get what my original point was lol. But these stats will continue to be used until you become president of the writers association and can sway people to look at other perspectives. it's just hte way baseball is. I mean WHIP/OPS/OBP was hardly looked at until like 10 years ago. Things will evolve eventually, baseball is traditionalist and slow.

I personally thought Beckett should have won, he didn't. But it wasn't like he was robbed. Sabathia's stats are right there with him that it isn't glaring or a no brainer. Give Beckett the 3 starts he missed to injury and his innings are up by 24-30, etc., etc.

[Derek Hixon]

Hah hah, that comment was awesome Chuck. I hate when I catch myself try to make up a point but then just feel myself trailing off.

First I agree with you, it's not like C.C. wasn't deserving of the award, he had a sick year. My Cy Robbed was more of a "Hearld-esque" headline to draw attention.

What this "debate" may help me with is to maybe start to try and figure out (for the 2007 season at least) what the effect of a pitchers division can have on his stats.

I'll have to obviously figure out base criteria but it could be pretty fun. Let me know if you want in! :-)