Wednesday, 10 October 2007

Thursday Debate: Who should be the AL Cy Young?

For the second straight Thursday Debate, let's focus on the AL Cy Young race, because there are lots of good candidates here. Much like the NL MVP race, any number of guys could reasonably win.

As mentioned a week or so ago, I like CC Sabathia to win the AL Cy Young Award. In my mind, with his peripheral numbers and league-leading amount of innings pitched, he is the best choice for this award.

But there are certainly a lot of other viable candidates. A brief rundown of them:

John Lackey - Led the league in ERA. Also had 179 K against only 52 BB.

Fausto Carmona - 2nd in the AL in ERA. Was GREAT at inducing groundballs. Sort of like a younger Chien Ming-Wang with more upside.

Johan Santana - Had a down year (relatively speaking) but still had nearly a 5:1 K:BB ratio.

Josh Beckett - Led the AL in DIPS among starters. Like Santana, a great K:BB rate.

Dan Haren - Was the leading candidate at the Break, and still had a fine year even though he tailed off a little bit. Third in the AL in ERA.

Erik Bedard - Might have been my Cy Young choice had he not gotten hurt towards the end of the year. Ridiculous K/9 rate.

Vote with your conscience.

Who should be the AL Cy Young?
CC Sabathia
Johan Santana
Fausto Carmona
Josh Beckett
Erik Bedard
Dan Haren
John Lackey
Other