Baseball Primer’s 2002 AL Cy Young Award

Our picks.

This year, the Baseball Primer Cy Young Award voting was expanded to match the MVP voting procedure.  Each voter included ten pitchers on the ballot, and points were given based on the 14-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 scheme the MVP award uses.  As a result, 25 pitchers were mentioned in the voting, instead of the five that we would have had under the traditional voting scheme.

The first place votes were split among three pitchers, with Pedro Mart?nez receiving just over half—enough to get him the award but not by a large margin.  To interpret the results, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each of the top candidates (those named on every ballot):

Pedro Mart?nez

Pedro was incredibly dominant this year.  He led the league in ERA (2.25) and strikeouts (239) by a wide margin, which was probably enough to get him the nod.  From a defense-independent standpoint, he was even further from the competition.  His strikeout rate was best in the league among full-time starters, and his walk rate was better than any of the other major candidates.  The only problem he had was only pitching 199-1/3 innings, but most voters felt that his phenomenal pitching made up for that fact.  To match Derek Lowe’s ERA in the number of innings Lowe pitched, Mart?nez would have needed to post a 5.75 ERA in his last 20-1/3 innings.  To match Zito, it would have taken a 6.00 ERA in 30 innings.

Derek Lowe

Lowe’s surprising season included a 2.57 ERA over 219-2/3 innings, despite the fact that he only struck out 129 batters.  He did it by walking only 48 batters and allowing only 12 home runs—low totals compared to other Cy Young candidates like Barry Zito (78 BB, 24 HR), Mark Buehrle (61 BB, 25 HR), and Tim Hudson (62 BB, 19 HR).  Lowe demonstrated that a pitcher can be very successful without striking out many batters if walks and home runs are also minimized.  While his edge over teammate Mart?nez in innings pitched earned him first place votes from some voters, more felt that Lowe belonged in second place, and that’s where he ended up.

Barry Zito

While Barry Zito was named on all 16 ballots, that’s where the unanimity ended for him.  He was placed as high as first and as low as sixth, and appeared in every spot in between.  A plurality put him in the number three spot, and that’s where he appears in the final tally.

Zito had strong showings in strikeouts, ERA, and innings pitched, and he led the league in wins.  However, he also gave up more walks and home runs than any other candidate who finished in the top six.  While Zito’s peripherals weren’t quite as good as the other candidates, it’s hard to argue with his results, especially considering that he faced competition that was a little tougher than AL East pitchers faced.

Roy Halladay

Roy Halladay had a fantastic season that went largely unnoticed.  He maintained a 2.93 ERA while leading the league in innings pitched with 293-1/3, and his peripherals were fantastic.  He only gave up ten home runs and he struck out 168 while walking 62.  Probably only Pedro’s true outcome stats were better.  That was enough to earn Halladay a fourth place finish in our voting.

Tim Hudson

There’s nothing Tim Hudson didn’t do well.  An ERA under three, 238-1/3 innings, 152 strikeouts, and good walk and home run rates.  A relatively unimpressive record of 15-9 probably kept him from being mentioned more as a candidate, but what really ended up costing him in our voting was that he wasn’t better than everyone else at anything.  Still, Hudson was an all-around great pitcher, and won the number five spot.

A few other good pitchers didn’t quite make every voter’s cut; Jarrod Washburn had a little higher ERA than the best candidates (3.14) and only pitched 206 innings, and Mark Buehrle had a 3.57 ERA and only struck out 134.

So Pedro Mart?nez wins Baseball Primer’s American League Cy Young Award in a close vote.

Here are our AL Cy Young picks:

Name             1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  Blts  Pts
Pedro Mart?nez   9   3   4   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   16   185
Derek Lowe       4   8   4   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   16   160
Barry Zito       3   3   6   2   1   1   0   0   0   0   16   142
Roy Halladay     0   2   1   5   5   3   0   0   0   0   16   106
Tim Hudson       0   0   0   4   7   2   1   2   0   0   16    90
Jarrod Washburn  0   0   1   5   0   2   5   1   1   0   15    78
Mark Buehrle     0   0   0   0   0   4   6   1   0   0   11    47
Jamie Moyer      0   0   0   0   1   3   1   3   1   1   10    37
Mark Mulder      0   0   0   0   1   0   3   4   1   0    9    32
Tim Wakefield    0   0   0   0   0   0   0   2   5   1    8    17
Joel Pi?eiro     0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   2   3    5     7
Bartolo Colon    0   0   0   0   1   0   0   0   0   1    2     7
Rodrigo L?pez    0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1   3    4     5
Paul Byrd        0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   2   1    3     5
J.C. Romero      0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1   1   0    2     5
Troy Percival    0   0   0   0   0   1   0   0   0   0    1     5
Eddie Guardado   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1   1    2     3
Mike Mussina     0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1   0   0    1     3
Jeff Weaver      0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1   0   0    1     3
Arthur Rhodes    0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1   0    1     2
Billy Koch       0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1    1     1
Ram?n Ortiz      0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1    1     1
Mark Redman      0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1    1     1
Johan Santana    0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1    1     1
Ben Weber        0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   1    1     1