Friday, November 19, 2010

Hail to the King, Felix beats CC Sabathia


This was a good week for the monarchy. Prince William gets engaged and King Felix wins the American League Cy Young award.

By a decisive margin, Felix Hernandez beat out David Price and CC Sabathia for the honor of being named the best pitcher in the American League in 2010. It’s an impressive feat considering he played for an inferior Seattle Mariners team and his 13 wins were well below CC’s 21 victories and Price’s 19.

It's also a victory for the stat geeks as Hernandez dominated most of the major pitching categories, except wins of course. While I fully appreciate the skill it takes to pitch to a 2.27 ERA in the American League, I can't help but wonder how many fewer runs Sabathia and Price would have given up had they not been pitching regularly for or against the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays.

I doubt Sabathia is broken up about this loss. He already has a Cy Young award and a championship ring. CC is probably more upset about losing to a Texas Rangers team that went down in five games in the World Series than losing the Cy Young award to a talented youngster.

But personally, I agree with Roy "Doc” Halladay, who upon winning his second Cy Young award a few days ago, remarked that wins matter. His implication, of course, was that the high victory totals for Price and Sabathia should carry more weight than the sparkling stats of Hernandez. I would have no problem if CC had lost to Price, who helped propel the Rays to the AL East division title. But losing to Hernandez is galling because it diminishes the importance of actually winning games compared to compiling nice stats.

But I guess it's a moot point now. Long live the monarchy!

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