Our Vote for the NL Cy Young Award Goes To…

Chris Carpenter

Well, I’m back from Hawaii and ready for Game Four, baby!!  Wolf has been solid all year, and hopefully the Dodger bats will finally come through for the guy.

In thinking about stand-out pitchers from this season, I thought I’d weigh in with my picks for the 2009 NL Cy Young Award.  The competition has been hot and heavy this year with numerous candidates worthy of discussion, including Chris Carpenter, Jorge De La Rosa, Tim Lincecum, Javier Vazquez and Adam Wainwright (to name a few), but here are my top three picks:

Third Place: Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants)

The reigning NL Cy Young Award Winner, Tim Lincecum, put together another worthy season for the San Francisco Giants with a 15-7 record, a 2.48 ERA, a 1.04 WHIP  along with a league-leading 261 Ks.  Numbers wise, I just felt Lincecum didn’t quite stack up with the competition in Carpenter and Wainwright, despite having four complete games, two shutouts and allowing just 1o homer runs all year.  Nothing against Lincecum, but he just came in third in my book.

Second Place: Adam Wainwright (St. Louis Cardinals)

The bottom lie is that wins count, and nobody was better than Adam Wainwright in wins with 19 this year, and he pretty much was near the top of the NL wins category all year long.  Wainwright  also led the league in innings pitched with 233, averaging an impressive 6.8 innings per start.  The negatives on Wainwright include having just one complete game, and a WHIP of 1.21, placing him in second place to that of fellow St. Louis starter Chris Carpenter.  His 2.63 ERA also trailed Carpenter’s, and while he did have the edge on strikeouts (212 vs. 144), I don’t value these as much when thinking about the Cy Young Award, so am going to have to rank Wainwright a close second.

First Place: Chris Carpenter (St. Louis Cardinals)

And that leaves Chris Carpenter at the top of the heap.  He finished second in wins with 17, along with an incredible 2.24 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP.  Like Wainwright, Carpenter averaged 6.8 innings per start.  He also had three complete games, one shutout and was the ace of the team.  Carnpenter was the man La Russa turned to when he needed a big win, and he delivered.  Congratulations Chris, you get our vote for the 2009 NL Cy Young Award.

Now wouldn’t it be nice if the Dodgers had a true ace on their staff?  TJ Simers over at the LA Times has some interesting thoughts on the matter in today’s paper, noting that the last Dodger to win the Cy Young Award was 21 years ago when Orel “Bulldog” Hershiser won it in 1988.