Is Josh Beckett the Cy Young?
I will say at least this, if Josh Beckett wants to be the Cy Young winner this year, he should probably win tonight. And that will be no small task as the Sox are in Tampa to take on Scott Kazmir and the Devil Rays who dominated in his last start against us.
The reason he needs the 20 wins is that so far, nobody else is there yet. Since Beckett does not lead the AL in any other category, this, in my opinion, is the key to the Cy Young race. Sure, wins are more a function of the team you are on rather than your actual performance, but there is still something to be said for hitting 20. Relief pitchers blow games, offenses sometimes don’t score, but really, what the wins number tells us is that you are pitching well enough, consistently enough, to be continuously keeping your team in the game and giving them a chance to win. If you are pitching deeper into games, you are giving you team a better chance.
Beckett is also among the league leaders in all of the other pitching categories, however does not lead any of them. This can be dangerous when it comes to the Cy Young voting since it will probably be a close race. C. C. Sabathia, also known as land monster, leads the league in innings in spite of having “only” 18 wins so far. Innings are incredibly important for your team. You need to get a fixed number of innings out of your pitching staff, so if you have a guy who is going to absorb 220+ vs. 188 (Beckett is only 19th going in to tonight’s game), that is a huge difference.
The ERA leader is also from Cleveland in Fausto Carmona. Of course, ERA is a key stat as well, though it doesn’t necessarily mean everything (Dan Haren is second and he has been very hittable lately). Beckett can potentially push his ERA down to probably about 3rd or 4th best, which may affect the voting.
Strikeouts are a measure of efficiency for a pitcher as well, and an area where Josh Beckett excels. But, again, there are 7 pitchers with more strikeouts than Josh Beckett, several of whom won’t even be considered for the Cy Young like James Shields Scott Kazmir and Javier Vasquez. Again, this is going to make the voting much more difficult since there is no clear cut winner.
And because there is nobody really standing out, but rather about 5 guys who easily deserve the Cy Young vote, you have to look at wins. If Beckett wins tonight, he gets a huge leg up in the voting by being the first to 20. All things being equal, or at least close to equal, the guy with more wins gets it.
Of course, I am a Red Sox fan and a huge Josh Beckett fan, so I think he should win. But I do see the points other people make about the ERA, Ks, and overall value to their teams. If I were voting, I would vote this way. Actual voters pick 10 people for all awards, but I am going to stick with the top 5 Cy Young candidates, in order.
- Josh Beckett, Red Sox, 188.2-19-3.20-180
- CC Sabathia, Indians, 234-18-3.19-205
- Fausto Carmona, Indians, 202-17-3.07-126
- John Lackey, Angels, 210-17-3.13-170
- Johan Santana, Twins, 209-15-3.14-220
Stumble it!