we're linking to Dan Coughlin articles now?

If we're handing out pretend trophies, can I give at least half of those 6 Cy Youngs to Satchel Paige?

He outworked everyone in 1951 but finished fifth in innings pitched?

I'm kinda partial to Ray Brown more than Paige....also Victor Starffin.

I'm kinda partial to Ray Brown more than Paige....also Victor Starffin.

Ray Brown was great, no doubt.

Walter Johnson would have won HOW many Cys? Maybe 8 just in the 1910s decade alone?!

The obvious question, of course, is how many Cy Youngs Cy Young would have won. I have to think someone has figured this out already.

Yeah, but how many MVPs would Pujols have won?

Going through my old book (using BBBWWWAAA standards 1901 on)...I had..

AL:

10- Walter Johnson
6 - Lefty Grove
6 - Bob Feller

NL:

7 - Christy Mathewson
6 - Grover Alexander

Haven't RTFA, but Bob Feller received more support in MVP voting than any other AL pitcher four three times - 1939, 1940, 1941, and 1947. So I'm guessing he would've won four three Cy Young Awards.

Edited because of Joe Page.

He outworked everyone in 1951 but finished fifth in innings pitched?

Possibly. Where did he finish in pitches pitched?

Bill Deane gave out hypothetical awards which were printed in Total Baseball. He gives Feller the award 3 times, in 1939-1941. 1946 went to Newhouser, 1947 to Joe Page, and 1951 to Ned Garver.

Possibly. Where did he finish in pitches pitched?

He was 5th in batters faced, and ninth in Ks (!?) and walks (!?!?), so there's no way he threw the most pitches.

The obvious question, of course, is how many Cy Youngs Cy Young would have won. I have to think someone has figured this out already.

Cy Young would have won 6 Al Spaldings.

Too bad the idea was not adopted a few decades earlier. Bob Feller would need an extra wing on his Gates Mills house to display all his trophies.

Feller, who turned 90 on Nov. 3, would have won six Cy Young Awards, the same as Roger Clemens, except that Feller didn’t do it on steroids, as some think Clemens did. I’ve heard Feller declare that his performance-enhancing drug was milk. Feller’s picture also was seen on “Wheaties” boxes.

So I’m going to present him the six Cy Young Awards he should have received. Since I’m the only one voting, it’s unanimous.

...To be honest, against today’s powerful batting orders, I don’t think Feller could throw a complete game. He probably wouldn’t last seven innings. But that’s not bad for a guy 90 years old.

If anybody wants to order six replicas of the Cy Young Award, I’ll cover the presentation.

These are almost Toby Keith lyrics.

The obvious question, of course, is how many Cy Youngs Cy Young would have won. I have to think someone has figured this out already.

There was an article on some blog or Beyond The Boxscore or a similar site that talked about this. IIRC, he wouldn't have won many and was more of a career guy than a peak guy.

There was an article on some blog or Beyond The Boxscore or a similar site that talked about this. IIRC, he wouldn't have won many and was more of a career guy than a peak guy.

He had six Top 10 MVP finishes, 6 times leading the league in wins, 5 times leading in innings pitched, and 7 times in Ks. Even now, with a whole lot more advanced statistics being available, those sort of stats will win you the Cy Young more often than not - whether or not you're actually the best pitcher.

You'll have to microfiche up the popular pitching story late in each season to figure out which guy the media would spin into the award. Picking the best pitcher is a fools errand.

He had six Top 10 MVP finishes, 6 times leading the league in wins, 5 times leading in innings pitched, and 7 times in Ks. Even now, with a whole lot more advanced statistics being available, those sort of stats will win you the Cy Young more often than not - whether or not you're actually the best pitcher.

GGC was talking about Cy Young, not Bob Feller.

Feller likely would have won in 1939-1941. Newhouser probably would have won in 1946, and Page in 1947. 1951 would have been interesting. Garver did finish second in the MVP vote, true, but I suspect that the MVP votes that went to Yogi Berra would have gone to Allie Reynolds (who was third in the MVP) in a "best pitcher" competition.

-- MWE

EDIT: The fact that the writers, in voting for a postseason All-Star team, voted Reynolds ahead of Garver also suggests that Reynolds would have won in 1951.

GGC was talking about Cy Young, not Bob Feller.

Dammit. I just completely missed on that one, didn't I.

That's okay, Ryan. I was trying to find the article but no luck yet.

Feller, who turned 90 on Nov. 3, would have won six Cy Young Awards, the same as Roger Clemens, except that Feller didn’t do it on steroids, as some think Clemens did.

Juice or no juice, Clemens won seven Cy Youngs.

BLB:

Feller was ALWAYS the story. Even pitching in faraway Cleveland you couldn't be a baseball fan of the 30's/40's and NOT know what was happening with Feller.

And he was always the baseline. If a guy threw hard it was in terms of "Feller-like fastball". He was part of the baseball lexicon.......

Feller was ALWAYS the story. Even pitching in faraway Cleveland you couldn't be a baseball fan of the 30's/40's and NOT know what was happening with Feller.

And he was always the baseline. If a guy threw hard it was in terms of "Feller-like fastball". He was part of the baseball lexicon.......

He wasn't merely the baseline in terms of speed. He was the baseline for pitchers, period. He's the only pitcher from his era who was voted into the HoF by the writers.

As for those Cy Youngs. In 1946 Newhouser won two more games than Feller and had better rate stats. But the Tigers also won 24 more games that year than the Indians, and Feller not only logged 75 more innings, but he established a new season strikeout record. You can argue that Newhouser was still the "better" pitcher, but Feller would have almost certainly won that Cy Young Award.

In 1947 Feller won 20 games and logged over twice as many innings as Page. In this case it's entirely possible that the uniqueness of Page's value as a combination long and short relief man would have swayed the voters, but those 20 games and Feller's reputation would have likely carried the day.

Finally, in 1951 you had a case where one pitcher (Reynolds) was demonstrably the most "valuable" pitcher, based on the fact that he had a lot of added value in those 14 emergency relief performances. Not since the days of Lefty Grove has there ever been as versatile a pitcher as Reynolds, and this was widely acknowledged at the time. Plus, Reynolds pitched two no-hitters that year, one of them a 1-0 duel against Feller, who'd thrown a no-hitter of his own just a few weeks earlier. The second one was on the pennant clinching day against the Red Sox, and to finish it off he had to "retire" Ted Williams twice in his final at bat.

But though Reynolds won 17 games, he had two 20-game winning teammates, Vic Raschi and Eddie Lopat. Strictly speaking, Lopat was marginally better than Reynolds that year, though Reynolds was still considered the Ace of the staff.

You also had Ned Garver, who won 20 games for the last place Browns, the first pitcher ever to have done that. Another feat that was given huge amounts of publicity and acclaim.

Against all that, Feller went 22 and 8 and might well have been a sentimental choice, with the story line that he'd "learned how to become a pitcher after losing his fast ball." It would have been a very tight four way race, although Reynolds would have deserved it.

You can argue that Newhouser was still the "better" pitcher, but Feller would have almost certainly won that Cy Young Award.

Newhouser got more support in MVP voting.

Newhouser dominated. He won his 20th game in Detroit's 96th contest. No one has ever been on a pace like in all the years since. I don't think anyone had been on that strong a pace since Pete Alexander & Walter Johnson.

He won his 20th game in his 22nd start. I think he was 20-2 at that point. Early season brilliance leaves a greater mark than season ending stats indicate - just as happened to Roger Clemens - he won a Cy Young after fading from his 20-1 start.

Dan Coughlin is one heck of a nice guy, and his credentials as a sports reporter are that...well...everybody likes him and he watches a lot of sports. Context is everything when discussing a Coughlin piece.

Aha! Here's Eric Seidman article that I was referring to. He thinks that Cy would've won 4 Cys, which is great, but Johnson, the Big Six, Grove and Alexander would have one more. FWIW, he thinks that Feller would've won 4.

This probably explains why Feller turned out to be such a bitter grizzled old guy.

Thanks GGC. Man, Ed Walsh was good!

I bought a bio of Big Ed earlier this year. I still haven't got around to reading it, but I will when I start to get some more free time.

Check out Bill Hutchison. He may be the best pitcher no one ever heard of.

Repoz agrees with the estimate of 6 Cy Youngs, so without going to his B-ref page and checking out the yearly competition, that's good enough for me.

But giving him those retroactive awards does little to make up for the greatest injustice in the history of baseball, the treatment of a significant portion of our greatest players before Jackie Robinson came around to make things right.

I'm talking of course, about the lack of a Rookie of the Year award before Robinson broke the Rookie barrier. Not only did these rookies have to haul luggage for the vets on and off those trains, and face the threat of being sent all the way back down to class D ball, if they over came these obstacles to put up a great year there was no trophy for them.

That was good, AROM.

Well, who would have won the most ROYs?

Roger Connor might have won the 1880 NL ROY and the 1890 Players' League ROY.

Bob Feller 4 (1939-40, 1946-47)

Using the BBBWWWAAWAA standard...I don't see how you can't give the 1941 Cy Young award to Feller.

Led league in Win s with 25, K's with 260 and 4th in ERA.

I gave Cy Young a Cy Young award for the five seasons he led the league in wins, plus one more because of his legendaricity. That sounds about right for the statistical metrics that were used 110 years ago.

Could somebody win 2 rookie of the year awards? Imagine someone like Jacoby Ellsbury 2007, but even better, in a down year for rookies. Some guy just is so utterly dominant for the last month and a half that he gets the award, but finishes with only 129 AB, so he's eligible for the next year's award.

Even better, said player is traded in his 2nd rookie year, and puts up split seasons that have a huge impact on pennant races, like Ramirez & Sabathia this year. He wins his 2nd Rookie of the Year award for the NL, and one day later wins his 3rd for the AL.

Could somebody win 2 rookie of the year awards? Imagine someone like Jacoby Ellsbury 2007, but even better, in a down year for rookies. Some guy just is so utterly dominant for the last month and a half that he gets the award, but finishes with only 129 AB, so he's eligible for the next year's award.

Willie McCovey might have if he'd had come in under the cut off. Hell, he got MVP votes his rookie season despite playing only 50 or so games.

Could somebody win 2 rookie of the year awards? Imagine someone like Jacoby Ellsbury 2007, but even better, in a down year for rookies. Some guy just is so utterly dominant for the last month and a half that he gets the award, but finishes with only 129 AB, so he's eligible for the next year's award.

I suspect the BBWAA would rule a guy ineligible after winning the first.

Even better, said player is traded in his 2nd rookie year, and puts up split seasons that have a huge impact on pennant races, like Ramirez & Sabathia this year. He wins his 2nd Rookie of the Year award for the NL, and one day later wins his 3rd for the AL.

I like this, but salary was a huge factor in those trades. If a rookie was having one of those seasons, he'd be giving you too much bang for the buck to trade unless you're Peter Angelos.

Todd Worrell won the 1986 Rookie of the Year after closing for the Cardinals in the World Series the year before. He didn't have much of a chance against to win it in 1985, though, when the class included Vince Coleman and his 110 steals plus 20-game-winner Tom Browning.