2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
Despite No Run Support All Season, Roger Clemens Is Still The NL's Best
Who Will Win This Year's NL Cy Young Award?
John Fleming
Issue date: 9/20/05 Section: Sports
There is a lot of anticipation with the end of the baseball season coming up. Not only are both league playoff races coming down to the wire, but also the awards for MVP and the Cy Young. The NL Cy Young award is especially intriguing. Chris Carpenter, Roger Clemens and Dontrelle Willis are the three legitimate contenders, with Carpenter the early favorite. Each of these players has put up numbers that in any other season would almost lock them for the pitcher's top award. Those three pitchers are among the league leaders in most categories. Carpenter and Willis are tied for league lead in wins, Carpenter is leading the NL in strikeouts and Clemens has by far the lowest ERA in all of baseball. There are a lot of categories that go into deciding the award. Wins are the one that jumps out at most fans. With Clemens having only 12 wins, as opposed to Carpenter and Willis' 21, how is the Rocket a contender? Clemens' win-loss record is not going to win him his eighth Cy Young, it is every other statistic that will. For the common fan, it would make sense that the pitcher with the most wins gets the award, but the committee has to look deeper.
What Clemens has done this season is simply remarkable. At 43, Clemens has been the most dominant pitcher in MLB, and that is what the Cy Young is all about. It is not just about wins and strikeouts, its about night in and night out being the best pitcher in your league, which Clemens has been. Not only is he having a great year, it may be one of the best of his Hall of Fame career. Clemens leads the league with a 1.77 ERA. 1.77 - is flat out absurd, it is the lowest of his 21-year career. Carpenter and Willis both have ERAs at least a half a run more - 2.31 and 2.49 respectively. Since Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA in 1968, there have only been three pitchers who have had a lower ERA than Clemens has this year - Dwight Gooden's 1.53 in 1985, Greg Maddux's in 1995 and Pedro Martinez's 1.74 in 2000. Oh, and by the way, Clemens has been even better on the road, with a chance to shatter Gibson's road ERA mark - 0.52 to 0.81. A pitcher's ERA is a better gauge of how he is pitching than his win-loss total. One of the reasons why ERA is so important is because the pitcher has no control over how many runs his team will score on a given night. That has held especially true for the Astros this season.
What Clemens has done this season is simply remarkable. At 43, Clemens has been the most dominant pitcher in MLB, and that is what the Cy Young is all about. It is not just about wins and strikeouts, its about night in and night out being the best pitcher in your league, which Clemens has been. Not only is he having a great year, it may be one of the best of his Hall of Fame career. Clemens leads the league with a 1.77 ERA. 1.77 - is flat out absurd, it is the lowest of his 21-year career. Carpenter and Willis both have ERAs at least a half a run more - 2.31 and 2.49 respectively. Since Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA in 1968, there have only been three pitchers who have had a lower ERA than Clemens has this year - Dwight Gooden's 1.53 in 1985, Greg Maddux's in 1995 and Pedro Martinez's 1.74 in 2000. Oh, and by the way, Clemens has been even better on the road, with a chance to shatter Gibson's road ERA mark - 0.52 to 0.81. A pitcher's ERA is a better gauge of how he is pitching than his win-loss total. One of the reasons why ERA is so important is because the pitcher has no control over how many runs his team will score on a given night. That has held especially true for the Astros this season.