Cy Young

I watched a bit of Baseball Tonight last night. I do it for the humor. John Kruk, Jeff Brantley and the other loudmouths on that show are a real comedic treat.

A couple of nights ago Kruk was shouting at Harold Reynolds about ARod. Kruk was right on then by saying trading Arod would be very stupid.

But last night was a gem. He gave his top 5 Cy Young Candidates in the league. They were, in no particular order. Halladay, Santana, Verlander, Beckett & Schilling.

Halladay is an ok pick, but he is 5th in the league in ERA, but basically tied with Santana. Verlander is a great pick since he is 2nd in the league in ERA and has been starting all season long, unlike Liriano. Schilling should not even be mentioned in the top 5. He is 10th in the league in ERA. Kazmir, Lackey and Liriano are much better choices than Schilling.

The most ridiculous and unbelievable pick is Beckett. He has 13 wins so he is the best pitcher, right? Wrong. When are these people going to figure out the obvious? A pitcher cannot control how many runs are scored for him. Beckett is getting a lot of run support. He is not pitching well. He is 33rd in the league in ERA, thirty-effing-third!!!
Do you think Radke deserves to be in the top 5 for Cy Young voting? Why not, his ERA is actually better than Beckett’s. Did you hear me? Radke is pitching better than Beckett, yes, Radke.

Beckett does lead the league in homeruns allowed. He is in the top 10 in run support, getting 6.8 runs per start. His DIPS is 5.38 so his luck will probably not keep up, so hopefully the Cy Young talk about him will eventually stop.

The favorites should be Liriano & Santana. They are getting wins and have very low ERAs and are 1-2 in DIPS so they are actually pitching to their ability. Verlander will probably drop off. His DIPS is 4.10. I would put Kazmir, Halladay and Bonderman in the hunt. All have very good stats and very good DIPS. Bonderman has the 3rd best DIPS in the league.

Also, Harold Reynolds was fired. Not because of his inability to understand what is important in baseball like the rest of the ESPN crew but he was fired for sexual harassment.