AL Cy Young Race: Too Close to Call

16-6, 3.29 ERA, 166 2/3 IP, 158 K's.

Beckett has not only been ace like, but he's been the leader of the staff since schill starting blowing (and he pitched a fine game yesterday)...

2. Sick K/BB ratio of 5.68: True. 3. He's 4th in strikeouts: True, but he's 11th in K/9. 4. If Indians had been scoring runs for him he'd have 18 or 19 wins: Sabathia's Run Support is 5.67, which is higher than Santana (5.17), Bedard (4.60), and Haren (5.44). 5. He's beaten Santana head to head twice: So? That's a rather meaningless stat. It's not like a one-on-one game of basketball. There are too many variable to make that meaningful.

I also think K/9 is the other most useful stat, because it shows pretty well how much of a pitcher's success was his own and how much was the defense. Sabathia has not done as well as Bedard or Santana in this respect, and he only marginally beats out the other candidates.

So, RA + K/9 = most of what you need to know about picking the Cy Young. Other stuff like head-to-head and "would have had 18 or 19 wins by now" aren't meaningful. Leading the league in innings and K/BB are useful, but not enough for Sabathia to overcome his other shortcomings.

Erik Bedard has a 1.088 WHIP

Dan Haren has a 1.106 WHIP

Josh Beckett has a 1.164 WHIP

Kelvim Escobar has a 1.169 WHIP

CC Sabathia has a 1.172 WHIP

Fausto Carmona has a 1.221 WHIP

John Lackey has a 1.268 WHIP

JJ Putz has a 0.683 WHIP, but he should have a lower WHIP since he's a closer.

WHIP, in my opinion, is one of, if not the, most important stat when looking at a pitcher. K's sometimes won't matter because he may not be a strikeout pitcher. W/L column? I think we all know that's overrated. ERA? You have to look at how many runs that were unearned as well.

1. Imagine if the bases are empty and there are two outs. The batter then reaches on an error. Since this would have been the third out, anything after this doesn't count toward a pitcher's ERA. So, if the next nine batters all hit home runs, the pitcher's ERA for the inning is 0.00.

2. Now, say the third batter of that inning grounds out. Then, the next inning rolls around and the pitcher gives up nine consecutive HRs. His ERA for the inning is 81.00. The only difference in the two scenarios is that one fielding error, but this accounts for a 9 run difference between ERA and RA.

You can come up with a million scenarios that demonstrate the flaws in statistics. But in the long run, I think the statistic of ERA is good for SPs because it measures the runs a starter allows on his own, not aided by defensive miscues. Of course, when a pitcher gets an error and that error leads to a run, it's somehow an unearned run, even though it was the pitcher's error.

On the other hand, Pitcher B pitches with a FAST defense. His defenders ALWAYS get to the ball, but they sometimes make throwing errors. Pitcher B will have a lower ERA than RA.

What if these are the stats for...

Pitcher A: 3.75 ERA / 3.75 RA

Pitcher B: 3.75 ERA / 4.00 RA

If you use ERA, these two look equal, but we know Pitcher A had the worse defense, while Pitcher B was helped out by his defense. Using RA, you can see how Pitcher A was actually the better pitcher.