For the ESPN segment “That’s Debateable” Jayson Stark chatted with fans about the Cy Young race in the National League. Ultimately, Stark concludes that TIm Lincecum should win the award, but he also heard some comments from fans making the case that Johan Santana should be up there in the discussion.
At the beginning of the chat, Stark made the case for who he thought were the top three candidates: Brandon Webb, C.C. Sabathia and Lincecum – without discussing Santana.
When asked about Santana, Stark replied:
You know, I was hoping someone would bring up Santana. Not sure anyone has noticed this, but he leads the entire sport in quality starts (with 23, one more than Lincecum). He has five blown saves, as many as Lincecum, and five CUS, one fewer than Lincecum. But in overall run support, he and Lincecum are very close. Santana is at 4.87 a game (64th in the big leagues), and Lincecum is at 4.81, right behind him at 68th.
If you are curious, CUS stands for Criminally Unsupported Starts and is a term coined by Jayson Stark. According to Stark, a CUS is a start where a pitcher goes at least six innings while his team fails to score him more than one run while he is in the game.
I think the Cy Young race can never be decided in September, only because pitchers can break down or go on epic tears. If you asked me two weeks ago, Brandon Webb was the clear choice, but since then he has had two starts where he has allowed six runs and failed to make it five innings.
This year in particular the Cy Young race is interesting, because there will probably be this unique scenario will C.C. Sabathia will win neither the AL Cy Young nor the NL Cy Young but would probably be the MLB Cy Young if such an award existed. What he has done in Milwaukee has been incredible, but I think it would be wrong to give the NL Cy Young to a player who has been in the league for half of the season.
As Stark pointed out, Johan hasn’t had the run support that other pitchers have had, similar to Tim Lincecum – who Stark chose as his current choice for the award.
One factor that I think should be taken in, is that Lincecum pitches in a much weaker division than Johan with considerably worse offenses.
Mets divisional opponents have scored 75 more runs than the Giants divisional opponents.
Pete Lappin (3)
