weird that Girardi prevented CC from a chance at a 1 hit CGSO. leadoff batter of second Athletics 2nd Curtis Granderson in center CC Sabathia pitching: Mark Ellis : Ball, Ellis singled to right. Matt Carson : Ball, Strike swinging, Foul, Ball, Ball, Carson reached on fielder's choice to shortstop, Ellis out at second. Jeff Larish : Ball, Strike looking, Ball, Larish reached on fielder's choice to third, Carson out at second. Landon Powell : Powell flied out to left. End of Inning (0 Runs, 1 Hit, 0 Errors)
Yup. Plus, CC's thrown a ton of innings, there's no need to push him in a game that we have wrapped up. And I agree with the posts speculating that CC is going to win the Cy Young. Felix Hernandez deserves it, but CC will win--voters are still obsessed with wins over all other stats.
Something to keep in mind with the CC vs. Felix debate: Hernandez has a whole 4 wins in his own division, the horrible AL West. Two of those are against Oakland. CC has 8 wins against AL East teams (admittedly half of those are against Baltimore.) Mark Feinsand was discussing it yesterday. CC shouldn't be penalized for being on a good team any more than Felix should be for being on an awful one. CC beats better teams. Sure, Felix's #s are better, but against who? Sabathia deserves the Cy Young. Hernandez doesn't not deserve it, but CC deserves it more. As far as wins mattering, they should when you manage to do it at least 20 times. I don't care whose lineup you have to support you, you don't win 20 games with your bats. I applaud the pulling of Sabathia yesterday. Once the game was clearly out of reach there was no reason to truck him out there for one more inning. The guy is a tank, but there's no reason to abuse that. The CGSO is a dead remnant of a different era. If it were a no-hitter/perfect game situation, then fine. Otherwise, save that inning in his arm for next month.
Felix is obviously an excellent pitcher, but if CC gets 20-22 wins and Felix finishes with 11-13, there will be no chance of felix getting the Cy.
I really don't think you can blame Felix for not having a ton of wins; he's gone at least 7 innings giving up 3 runs or less and picked up the ND or a loss 11 times this season. 11. On pretty much any other team in the league, Hernandez has somewhere around 18 wins. As for the rest of his stats, they're just better than CC's. He's thrown more innings, his ERA is a full run lower, his WHIP is .10 lower, and he's struck out 40 more batters. Sabathia is a true ace having a fantastic season, and I'll be thrilled when he wins the Cy Young. But King Felix really does deserve it.
You're ignoring the simple fact that CC pitches more games against far superior competition. That's what pushes CC over Felix. It's not wins, per se, but who he has to beat to get those wins. Is it more impressive to beat the Rays, Sox and Jays or the Rangers, As, and Angels? And again, where CC has 8 wins inside his own division (the clearly superior one) Felix has 4. CC has been the better pitcher this year and this is a clear example of why fantasy baseball statistics don't tell the entire story. Yes, Hernandez has wonderful numbers and if he were pitching for the Yankees with those same stats no one would even be talking about CC. He's not. He's pitching for Seattle in the AL West. If Felix were pitching in the AL East this year his numbers would not be as good.
But, as I pointed out, Felix has consistently shut down those inferior opponents. How can you blame him for losing games in his division when he's losing 2-1? As for the question of how he'd fare in the AL East, just check out his numbers against the division: vs. Baltimore: 2 GS, 1-0, 16.0 IP, 14 hits, 1 ER, 13 K vs. Boston: 1 GS, 1-0, 7.1 IP, 4 hits, 1 ER, 9 K vs. New York: 3 GS, 3-0, 26 IP, 16 hits, 1 ER, 31 K Something tells me he'd be doing just fine here. I'm not making a case for the guy using "fantasy statistics." By any metric that the pitcher can control, Hernandez has been almost unhittable this season. It just sucks for him that the Mariners decided to build their offense around Ken Griffey Jr. and Chone Figgins.
I'm not going to spend all day arguing with you man. I'm not taking anything away from Hernandez. Any other year I'd say he deserved it. However, CC has been dominant in a division that contains the Rays, Sox and Jays whereas Felix has been dominant in a division containing the Rangers, As and Angels. Switch their respective teams and CC puts up at least Felix's numbers. More than likely better ones. That's my point. And that's why CC wins the Cy Young. I'll say this much: if Hernandez wins the award and it's not a landslide but a close vote, I won't have a single problem with it. Again, it's not that he doesn't deserve it, but Sabathia deserves it more.
No he doesn't. I love CC. Felix is a more dominant pitcher. Look at what he's done against the AL East. He destroys everyone. Wins are a shitty shat to use here.
Felix Hernandez has had a better season than CC. If you think it's because he pitches in the AL West, feel free to look at his numbers against the Yankees. Hell no. Switch their respective teams and Felix would have easily better numbers than CC. Felix has dominated the AL East and if he got Yankees-type run support, he'd have even more wins than CC has right now. There is no argument for CC here. He pitches in a stronger division? Yeah, but if you compare apples to apples (compare Felix against CC in how they've fared against different teams), Felix wins. The only place he doesn't win? W/L record, which is heavily influenced by run support. Seattle has no offense.
Hernandez has faced neither the Jays or the Rays. If he were pitching in the east, with more appearances against all of those teams, he'd be hit more. We can argue that all day long, except I'm really tired of talking about it. As I said, if he wins a close vote I won't complain. He doesn't deserve it over CC though. And now I'm done talking about it.
If you didn't want to argue about it, then why comment in the first place? The Yankees have the best offense in baseball by far and Felix has owned them. CC never has to face the Yankees at all. Yes, he does. By the way, against the AL East (the strongest division), Felix is 5-0 with an ERA under 1 this year. So much for the division argument.
