Clay Buchholz Named AL Pitcher Of The Month… Cy Young Next?
Clay Buchholz has been named the American League pitcher of the month for August. He went 4-0 with a 1.03 ERA in 6 August starts, going at least 7 innings in all but one of those outings.
His 2.21 ERA now leads all of Major League baseball, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which that wouldn’t be enough to earn the AL Cy Young award. So, is more prestigious hardware is in Buchholz’s future…?
If you put a gun to my head, I’d say that C.C. Sabathia will win the 2010 AL Cy Young. Would he deserve the honor? Well, that’s an entirely separate issue.
In 3 of the last 4 seasons, the American League leader in ERA has taken home the Cy Young award. Johan Santana posted a 2.77 with the Twins in 2006, Cliff Lee had a 2.54 for the Indians in 2008, and Zack Greinke finished with a microscopic 2.16 last year with the Royals.
Ironically, the only outlier in those 4 years was Sabathia, whose 3.21 ERA ranked 5th among AL starters in his 2007 Cy Young season for the Indians. That year, John Lackey (how far he has fallen) led the AL in ERA and finished with the same amount of wins as Sabathia (19).
So what was the deciding factor? Innings, and Sabathia eats them up like double cheeseburgers.
The giant lefty pitched a whopping 241 in 2007, 11 more than any other American League starter. This year, he’s already thrown 194.2 with a month left in the season and trails only Felix Hernandez in that category (unfortunately, King Felix has the worst offense in baseball behind him and his 10-10 record is painful proof).
That’s where the case for Buchholz is significantly weakened. The 25-year-old missed a month of the season with a strained hamstring and has only pitched 146.2 innings. He’s still won 15 games, but when compared to a more durable pitcher with 18 victories, the league-leading ERA may not be enough this year.
Granted, it’s a much larger sample size, but Sabathia’s 3.14 ERA is almost a full run higher than that of Buchholz. So which trend will reign supreme in 2010? Will it be dominance or durability?
In my mind, the Cy Young is all about the former trait, and if Buchholz finishes the year strong, he deserves the hardware. He’s been the most dominant pitcher in the American League this year, and that’s the true spirit of the award.
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