Congratulations to the Mariners Felix Hernandez for being awarded the Cy Young Award in the American League fro 2010. As far as I know, he didn't actively campaign for the award, so I can't blame him for what I think is a travesty of justice.
Yes, I know he's a good pitcher.
Yes, I know he played for a lousy team that gave him abysmal run support.
And, yes, I know he lead the league in ERA.
I also know that CC Sabathia won 21 games for the Yankees and David Price won 19 games for the Rays, and last time I looked, the ultimate payoff for teams, i.e., Playoffs and World Series, is based on how many games you win.
While I am a proud member of SABR, I believe that this award is a triumph of SABRmetrics run amok, wherein a bunch of geeks can haughtily state that "wins are really the worst way to measure a pitcher's performance" (really? if that was the case, then I think Ross Ohlendorf should have pulled down a few votes), and then come up with all of their esoteric alphabet soup of stats, to proclaim who we are all too stupid to see is REALLY the best pitcher in baseball.
And, by the way, playing for a lousy team doesn't preclude a pitcher from accumulating Cy Young Award-worthy numbers. I refer you to Steve Carlton and the 1972 Phillies. Look it up.
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