The reason for this heading, is because four out of the past five AL CY Young winners have come from the AL Central.
2008- Cliff Lee (Indians)
2007- C.C. Sabathia (Indians)
2006- Johan Santana (Twins)
2004- Johan Santana (Twins)
Now, yes, if we want to go into my own flawed causality logic we should say the winner should come from either the Indians or the Twins, and therefore Liriano should win it.
But in the beginning of the year I predicted who would be the best from each division (I DID say the winner of my MVP from the AL West would be Ian Kinsler and he's proving me right so far...) But anyway, my Cy Young from the AL Central I said would be Fransisco Liriano. I wish I had done runners-up like I had planned to because then I would have out Greinke there. Despite whatever Fangraphs and DME and what anyone else says, I still contend that Liriano will still have a monster season (barring injury) just because whenever he's pitched he's always put up great numbers. Therefore I do think, at the end of the year when all is said and done, the two best pitchers from the AL Central will still be Liriano and Greinke. And because recent history suggests that the actual AL Cy Young will come from the Central, one of these two guys will win it this year. Plus, who else will win it?
So, who you got?
I say Greinke wins it because he's got better control of his 4 pitch mix (3.09 K/bb career) than Lirano's filthier 3 pitch mix.
ReplyDeleteLiriano's can't locate his slider, which is a big problem since it's his nastiest pitch. His SL usage has gone down from 37-38% in 2006 to just over 26% this and last year
Other guys who can win the AL Cy young (if they stay healthy):
ReplyDeleteo Erik Bedard -- he's back to his 2007 form now that he's not injured
o Roy Halladay -- The Doc's consistently in control and keeps the ball down on the ground better than any one else in the AL (2.24 GB/FB)
o Josh Beckett -- because he's on my fantasy team -- just kidding, it's because he's got the best control of any pitcher not named greinke and should get out of his bad outings slump sooner than later
scott kazmir, ahhhahahahahah
ReplyDeleteI actually love Roy Halladay but every single year he always seems to be amazing but there's one player that seems to be a but more amazing (see Cliff Lee last year). But still just a phenom and seemingly underrated and not talked about player.
ReplyDeleteBeckett isn't doing as well as you predicted him to be and I think he'll be good and solid but not Cy Young worthy
Erik Bedard had a great defense and had shown to be great but he needs to prove something to me first
Obviously all these players realistically have a shot right now but I still say it the winner will be either Liriano or Greinke. Despite my tounge-in-cheek analysis I do seriously believe the final conclusion
Why will Lirano be better than beckett? they're both struggling, but beckett has better periphs
ReplyDeleteI saw that that's true just because of history. Beckett has had some great years and he's had some average to below average years as well. Despite peripherals, Beckett has shown that sometimes he's just not good.
ReplyDeleteWhile granted it hasn't really happened consistently to Liriano, he still has shown me that he can finish strong. Plus the Twins as a team seem to stat off slow in recent years but once interleague play comes along, they turn it on and end up having a really good season. And when Liriano is on, he's just fucking amazing.
Now I'm not guaranteeing that Liriano will be better than Beckett and you may be right but it's just that Beckett has shown to me that sometimes he just wont have good numbers.
But let's be honest here, the season's only a month old. What happens this month really has no bearing on the final outcome of the end of the year votes. Injuries can and probably will happen and you never know just who really will get hot.
This article was really more tongue-in-cheek and joking than anything else.