The new Cy Young
By Micah McVicker | Staff Writer
We are 24 days into September. Yet, in the American League Cy Young, the award for the league’s best pitcher, has already been decided:
Your winner? Clifton Phifer Lee.
Twenty-two wins, against a measly two loses. Lee was the first pitcher in the majors to reach the 20-win plateau, this season, with three of four more scheduled starts.
On top of that, the Cleveland Indians, as a team, have 74 wins. When a team has one starting pitcher that has totaled more than one quarter of a team’s total wins, how could anyone vote against him?
The total number of people that could have predicted this type of production from Lee could possibly be counted on one hand. This, after the tumultuous season Lee endured in 2007. Lee was in the minors last season, demoted July 28, 2007 and later recalled on Sept. 2.
The Indians were ravaged by injuries this season to Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez, players who accounted for a combined 49 home runs and 214 runs batted in during the 2007 campaign. The rotation has endured injuries to Jake Westbrook and Fausto Carmona too.
Lee has been a bright spot for this ball club in a season coming off a playoff appearance in the American League Championship Series last year.
He is the first Indians pitcher to reach 20 wins in a season since Gaylord Perry in 1974.
He ranks second in the American League with 210 innings pitched, trailing only Roy Halladay by 14 and 2/3 innings pitched. Lee has pitched those innings while leading the American League in earned run average with a 2.36 clip and 157 strikeouts.
He is second in the American League in complete games with four, trailing only Roy Halladay, who doubles his total.General Manager Mark Shapiro traded away the team’s ace, Carsten Charles (CC) Sabathia, to the Milwaukee Brewers.
This, in time, will turn out to be a very savvy and intelligent move, as prospects outfielder Matt LaPorta, pitchers Zach Jackson, Rob Bryson and a player to be named.
Shapiro has added more pieces for the future while trading an ace that the Indians could not possibly resign, seeing as how CC’s asking price will be too rich for Cleveland to have resigned this winter.
There are those that will claim that Angels’ closer Francisco Rodriguez is more deserving of this award.
Allow me to denounce such arguments.
K-Rod’s historic season, breaking Bobby Thigpen’s 17-year-old record of 57 saves in a season, as inspiring as it may be, does not match the achievements of what Lee has done thus far this season. K-Rod has pitched 64 and 1/3 innings, a full 145 and 2/3 innings less than Lee.
Rodriguez has never had to convert a save over a span of more than one inning.
He has a 2.38 ERA, .02 higher than Lee.
There have only been nine relievers since the award’s inception in 1956.
Eric Gagne was the most recent, winning the award in 2003.
Only three relievers in both leagues have won the award since 1989, a trend that should continue. When a pitcher accumulates 22 of a team’s 73 (TK) wins, that’s dominance.
Daisuke Matsuzaka for Cy Young?
Forget it!
Boston is 28 games over. Five-hundred, with more quality in their rotation (read: Jon Lester, Dice-K, & Josh Beckett) than Cleveland.
The Red Sox have a far more potent and consistent offense, scoring 70 more runs, with Dustin Pedroia and the should-be American League Most Valuable Player, Kevin Youkilis.
Injuries to David Ortiz and Mike Lowell have hindered the Red Sox, but the team plugs Youkilis into the hot corner, first base, or designated hitter and has remained consistent.
Lee won American League Pitcher of the Month for August 2008.
That honor itself should pale in comparison to the more significant Cy Young award when the votes are cast.
Voters, allow me to save some of your time: Vote Lee for American League Cy Young. There is no more deserving, or dominant pitcher in the American League.
Bank on it!
