Give him the Cy Young--Again
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by user Jgov05
He deserves to win a second straight Cy Young award. He's been one of the MLB's best pitchers all season, and is on an unequaled streak of dominace lately. Do you know who this mystery pitcher is? No, it's not Johan Santana. It's Chris Carpenter of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Carpenter just completed another win to improve to 14-6 on the season. It was a complete game shutout, his second in a row and third in his last five starts. The other two? Just 8-inning quality starts.
Carpenter is first in the National League in both ERA and WHIP, and ranks among the best in wins and innings pitched despite an early stint on the disabled list.
His dominance has helped the Cards to what should be their third consecutive NL Central title. In fact, they couldn't have done it without him. Carpenter is one of just three St. Louis starters that have pitched in more than 20 games this season. Mediocre Jeff Suppan (4.25 ERA, 1.48 WHIP) and inconsistent Jason Marquis (5.66, 1.45) are the other two. Supposed ace Mark Mulder has been on the DL most of the year and has been rocked when he's been pitching. So Carpenter's been the only consistent force among the entire Cards pitching staff; no starter or releiver on the team has an ERA better than his 2.84.
So Chris Carpenter has clearly been dominant and the best pitcher on his team. But does he deserve a Cy Young is a year slightly worse than his 21-5, four shutout 2005 campaign that gave him his first Cy? Absolutely.
This has been a down year for NL pitchers in general after last year, when Roger Clemens and Dontrelle Willis each deserved strong consideration for pitching's top award. The only other contenders would be starters Brandon Webb of the D-Backs and Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs, in addition to closers Trevor Hoffman of the Padres and Billy Wagner of the Mets.
Cross off Zambrano, he's been too inconsistent and plays for the horrid Cubs. He's also issued the most walks in the league with over 100. Also, while Wagner's been great, he hasn't done anything significant enough to merit consideration, and in fact has had many better seasons in his career.
Now it's down to Carpenter, Hoffman, and Webb. Hoffman is the least likely of the three to win it. While he's been overude for an award for a while and could pass Lee Smith's all time saves record this year, closers rarely win the Cy unless they do something truly special. Eric Gagne's saves streak in 2003 and Dennis Eckersley's marvelous year in 1992 are two examples. Hoffman hasn't been brilliant enough to win the Cy.
This should be a two-man race between with Webb and Carpenter in the running. They've both had very similar seasons statistically, but I'd still give the edge to C-Carp. Webb's successes came mainly at the beginning of the year, and he has slowed down the second half (though his last start, a one-hitter, was marvelous). Carpenter has been succeeding better lately, is on a 5 game win streak, and plays for the better team. The voters know him, and they obviously like him.
Give him the Cy Young for a second straight season.
Date
Mon 09/11/06, 6:51 pm EST
