In what I view as a surprising outcome, Tim Lincecum has won the National League Cy Young Award, becoming the first repeat winner since Randy Johnson won from 1999-2002. The reason I call this a "shock" is that the scribes actually got this award right as well. That's now 6/6! Lincecum was the best pitcher in the National League this year, but I thought it was close to certain that the sportswriters would go with Adam Wainwright because of the shiny object known as wins. The Cy Young race this year was actually one of the closest in the history of the award:
Lincecum received 11 first-place votes, 12 seconds and nine thirds for 100 points in balloting released Thursday by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter was next with 94 points and teammate Adam Wainwright finished third with 90 despite getting the most first-place votes with 12.
What seems to have happened is that Wainwright and Carpenter split a bunch of votes, allowing the most deserving player (Lincecum) to win. (Lincecum's 15 wins gave him the fewest number of wins ever for a Cy Young Award winner in a season that wasn't shortened by a work stoppage, so it's great that the scribes were looking at how he actually pitched instead of blindly focusing on things that are tied so closely to the run support of his teammates.) I approve!
4 days ago
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