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As the regular season wraps up, many teams and their fans are looking to October and, they hope, a World Series win. For other teams and their fans, they are looking to the offseason, hoping to make a few trades or free agent acquisitions to bounce them back into contention.

In some situations, these trades end up paying huge dividends, and not always for the party that was looking to get the major piece. At the same time, once in a while there’s a great free agent pickup at a bargain that launches a team into the playoffs and a World Series ring.

Starting with the 1999-2000 offseason through this past one, this slideshow notes the 20 best steals of the past decade. Some may have slipped by me, as there’s nowhere to easily find these unless one has an institutional memory of these things.

The years listed in the slides is the offseason that it took place in. i.e. a trade from November 2000 to March 2001 will be listed as 2000.

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Not many pitchers with a 12-12 record would ever make a compelling case to win a Cy Young Award. But Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners not only has a legitimate case, he is the most deserving to win in the American League.

Forget the 12-12 record for now. Hernandez’s numbers are tremendous. His 2.31 earned run average is currently second in major league baseball by a single point and is nearly a full run lower than CC Sabathia, who has eight more wins and is also one of the favorites for the Cy Young.

His 227 strikeouts are also second in baseball. He is tied with Roy Halladay with the most innings pitched with 241.2. He also leads baseball in quality starts and start percentage. 

Hernandez also pitches for a team with the second fewest wins in baseball as the Mariners currently sit 28 games out of first place at 59-96.

In his 12 losses, he has received a grand total of seven runs of support. The Mariners have scored won or fewer runs in 10 of 33 starts, and two or fewer runs 15 times and have not scored a run in seven of his last 13 starts.

And finally, and not surprisingly, he has the fewest run support in the American League with 3.09 runs per start. And while Sabathia pitches for the best offense in baseball, Hernandez pitches for the worst.

His support neutral win-loss of 21-12 is the best in MLB. Now would Sabathia have nearly as good of a record that he does if he pitched for the Mariners? 

Absolutely not.

The bottom line is that wins are not the only statistic to judge a pitcher by. And if you take away King Felix’s win-loss record, he would be a shoo-in to win the AL Cy Young. But he should be one anyways.

If Felix Hernandez does not win the American League Cy Young, it will be an absolute shame. 

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Can we really look through the historical legacy of Major League Baseball and say that out of all of the great arms that have stymied hitters for the past century that Cy Young was the greatest of them all? I, personally, don’t think so. That is completely up to debate, as is almost all things baseball, and especially the Cy Young award and how it has evolved into the most prestigious pitching award given away in the Major Leagues.

Cy Young had the most wins of any pitcher to have ever played professional baseball in the United States of America. That total would reach a gargantuan, never to be duplicated nor approached, 511. Cy Young also had the most losses of any pitcher to have ever played professional baseball in the United States of America. However, as this year’s Cy Young award is heating up to a serious debate, deservedly so, let’s look at this a little bit further. 

The pitcher with lowest career ERA in baseball’s history is Ed Walsh who posted a ridiculous 1.82 career average. To his discredit, he only won 195 games over his 14 seasons – 13 of those played with the White Sox. Addie Joss is second with a 1.88 career ERA that he posted over 9 seasons playing in Cleveland. He only won 160 games. 

Now if we were to take this debate a bit further and look at only those pitchers that won 300 plus games and looked at their statistical careers in comparison to that of Cy Young’s, we might consider changing the name of the award. 

The top 3 positions in wins are Cy Young, Walter Johnson (417), Pete Alexander (373) and Christy Mathewson (373). Before I go further, I am in no way trying to diminish what Cy Young did as a pitcher because it is truly a remarkable thing, and … I’m biased toward guys who played for Cleveland, anyway. (wink, wink). 

However, if we look into this a bit, we find that Cy Young had a career 2.63 ERA. Great by any standard that you can produce because that’s still giving up less than 3 runs per game and even some of our contemporary greats were not as brilliant. For instance, Greg Madduxs’ career ERA is 3.16; Roger Clemens, 3.12; Tom Glavine, 3.54; Randy Johnson, 3.29. Each of these men, as you know, one over 300 games. So, Cy Young’s 2.63 career earned run average is still statistically superior than most. 

But, his career ERA is not statistically superior to either Walter Johnson (2.17), Christy Mathewson (2.13), or Pete Alexander (2.54). How about career walk/hits per innings pitched? Cy Young posted a career WHIP of 1.13, higher than Johnson (1.06), Mathewson (1.06) and Alexander (1.12). 

Strikeouts? Walter leads all four of these gentlemen with a very respectable 3509, with Cy Young a distant second with 2803. I say a “distant second” because Cy Young pitched 149 more games than Johnson. 

Another stat that I think is pretty telling is that Walter Johnson also holds the record for the most career shutouts with 110, directly ahead of Alexander (90), Mathewson (79) and Young (76). Conversely, Walter had the lowest winning percentage of the four (.599), while Mathewson had the highest (.665)

King Felix Hernandez deserves the Cy Young award solely on what he was able to do with limited run support on a Seattle Mariners team that was supposed to be much better than they showed this year. However, let’s be clear. Using the criteria that I stated above, the Cy Young award is clearly about winning. Because outside of innings pitched, batters faced, games started and complete games … Cy Young was statistically inferior to the other aforementioned greats. 

We could go throughout history and find many times when pitchers had statistically superior years to pitchers and lost because they did not have as many wins. However, if it is called the  Cy Young award then it is clearly about winning because that was the area of his superiority. 

This is why CC Sabathia deserves the award. But, not only does he deserve the award because he has the most wins, and good statistics, but he has clearly been the ace and anchor of a pitching staff that has been suspect most of the year in New York. Furthermore, he has pitched in high pressure games in a tight pennant race the entire season, whereas Seattle has just been … well … playing. 

It does not need to be pointed out that Felix leads in all other categories besides runs, but, the fact remains … he plays for a really bad team that has not scored runs and it would seem ridiculous to give the award to a guy who may win 13-14 games, instead of a guy who may end up with 21-22 wins, that has pitched well all season. 

Also, moving onto the National League, why is Adam Wainwright considered a dark horse candidate to Roy Halladay, when they both have 20 wins, plus very close statistics. Do I sense a little Roy Halladay favoritism? Let’s take a look. 

Wainwright’s statistics: 20-11, 2.42 ERA, 230 innings, 1.05 WHIP, 230 strikeouts, .224 BAA, 5 complete games and 2 shutouts.

Roy Halladay? 20-10, 2.53 ERA, 241.2 innings, 1.07 WHIP, 213 strikeouts, .250 BAA, 8 complete games and 3 shutouts. 

I’d say that they are pretty even, but Roy has the one-up on Wainwright in the fact that he threw one of 2 perfect games this season. 

Why is all of this important? CC had the most wins in the American League last season, as did Wainwright in the National League. Not only did they have the most wins, they went to the post-season and had solid statistical seasons. But, they lost out to two guys who had better numbers, and less wins (Greinke had 16, while Lincecum had 15). 

I like statistics as much as the next guy. I can look at www.baseball-reference.com all day long and get lost in looking at the history of the game and the men that made it great.

But, the fact still remains when it comes to the Cy Young award; it’s about winning … plain and simple.

It is not the Christy Mathewson award, although you could argue for it. It is not the Walter Johnson award, although I would be the guy arguing for that. It is the Cy Young Award, named after the pitcher with the most wins in baseball’s lustrous history.

It would be a shame for a 20+ game winner to lose to a guy with less than 15 wins because he had better numbers. 

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As the 2010 Major League Baseball regular season begins to wind down, it is time to start to think about candidates for the annual awards.

After years of hitters dominating the league, this season has been all about the resurgence of the pitcher.  That is why this year’s NL Cy Young race is filled with a lot of pitchers who have had great individual seasons.

Here are the top five candidates for the 2010 NL Cy Young award.

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With the 2010 baseball season nearly coming to a close, it’s time to take a look at the National League Cy Young candidates.

The 2010 season has been called “the Year of the Pitcher,” and it all started when Ubaldo Jimenez threw a no-hitter for the Rockies against the Braves on April 17th. Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay then threw perfect games against the Rays and Marlins respectively, and after that came Armando Galaragga’s infamous non-perfect game, where Jim Joyce blew the call on the grounder for the final out. Edwin Jackson then threw a no-hitter against the Rays for the Diamondbacks, and finally, Matt Garza gave the Rays a taste of a no-hitter for themselves when he no-hit the Tigers.

With so much illustrious pitching this year, this is clearly a very tight race, and probably is a tough decision for the voters. The winner of the award will probably come down to whose team makes the playoffs and where their team ends up in the standings.

Sadly, Tim Lincecum, winner of the last two Cy Young awards, doesn’t have a chance this year. His 3.60 ERA currently ranks 24th in the league.

However, being a pitcher’s year, there are naturally plenty beside Lincecum in the NL worthy of winning the esteemed Cy Young award, ranging from energetic rising stars like Mat Latos to wily veterans like Roy Halladay. But the top contenders at this point have to be Halladay of the Phillies, Latos of the Padres, Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals, Josh Johnson of the Marlins, Tim Hudson of the Braves, and Ubaldo Jimenez of the Rockies.

Mat Latos, in only his 2nd major league season, leads the whole MLB in ERA and WHIP, (2.21 and 0.96) along with 14 wins.

Roy Halladay, who’s just about always in Cy Young conversations, hasn’t disappointed the Phillies. The “Doctor” has piled up 18 wins so far, with a respectable 2.44 ERA, and leading the league in strikeouts with 201.

Like ‘Doc’, Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright has 18 wins, with a nice 2.38 ERA, and is right up there in strikeouts with 191.

Ubaldo Jimenez, also with 18 wins, started the season off with a bang, posting a 2.20 ERA in the first half. While he has cooled off recently. He still has a great 2.79 ERA.

Josh Johnson, a young ace for the Marlins, is having a remarkable year. He has a 2.30 ERA, and should be right up there for the award discussions.

And last but not least, Tim Hudson. The sinker-ball pitcher has had a tremendous year for the Atlanta Braves, sporting a 2.41 ERA, and 15 wins.

All of these gentlemen are worthy of the Cy Young award. If I had to pick a front-runner, I’d pick Mat Latos. The sophomore, as mentioned before still leads the league in ERA and WHIP, while racking up 14 victories. If the Padres can hold on to their division lead, or at least make the playoffs, I’m sure Latos will win it.

Without the spectacular pitching of the young ace, I don’t think the San Diego Padres would have made it even near this far.

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If the season ended today, the St. Louis Cardinals would fall short of a playoff berth.  This failure could be epic, it could be historic, and it could be something we never witness again.

However, the failure to make the playoffs might not be the only thing that happens to the Cardinals, they could have a Triple Crown winner, MVP, Rookie of the Year, and Cy Young Award winner on their team.  No other team has ever had a collection of talent like that during one season.  Albert Pujols, Adam Wainwright, and Jaime Garcia could very well become the first.

Imagine for a moment how epic of a failure this could be?

One could argue this would be the greatest triumph in baseball history. 

Pujols would have the greatest season in baseball history since some guy named McGwire broke Roger Maris’s home run record—and missed the playoffs, I might add.  Pujols would win the first Triple Crown in over 40 years and would jump into second place all time with four MVP wins.  This type of season is all you can ask of your best player, it is a dream for a marketing department, and he’ll be sitting on the couch eating Cheetos in October.  

Adam Wainwright would win his first Cy Young Award.  Jaime Garcia would win the Rookie of the Year in a season that produced perhaps the best batch of baseball players in a generation.

Despite all of the success, the Cardinals will lose the division to the Cincinnati Reds and fail to manage even a Wild Card berth.

Snapping back to reality, there is still a lot of baseball left to be played.  The Cardinals could still make the playoffs, and even if they do not, it is doubtful that baseball writers would give all of these awards to a team that does not make the playoffs.  And of course, Joey Votto, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Jason Heyward will ultimately have something to say about this.

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There are many arguments as to why a pitcher deserves to win both the Cy Young award and the MVP award, but perhaps the most important issue revolves around what a pitcher brings to a ball club.

What I mean by that is if you had to put a franchise tag on one individual on a baseball team, a majority of the time (if not all the time), that nods goes towards a starting pitcher.

There’s a reason for that, but we’ll get to that later.

Today, we’ll be debating whether or not the St. Louis Cardinals most dominant pitcher—Adam Wainwright—deserves both awards.

And with the only offensive candidates appearing to be Joey Votto, Carlos Gonzalez, or Cardinals teammate Albert Pujols, this year may be the season for a pitcher to bring home both the Cy Young and MVP hardware.

But will it be Wainwright, a pitcher who has the possibility of taking home both the wins and ERA crowns in the National League, and will it happen in 2010?

Let’s discuss five reasons why he deserves both awards come season’s end…

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With the playoff races heating up, and everything starting to take shape, I am here to put in my opinion on who will win each MLB division, who will win each pennant, and who will win the Fall Classic.

The only division in the MLB right now with possibly a clear outlook is the AL West, but anything can happen.

I’ll keep it short and sweet, so here we go.

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In the pre-season it was Roy Halladay.  For the first three months of the year it was Ubaldo Jimenez.  Josh Johnson took over for a little while, but as of now there can be no doubt.

The St. Louis Cardinals‘ Adam Wainwright is now your front-runner for the National League Cy Young Award.

Remember just under two months ago, when Jimenez won his 14th start of the season to run his record to 13-1 with a 1.15 ERA?

We were talking about Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA and Denny McLain’s 31 wins and it looked like Ubaldo might be able to match both of those marks.

Nine starts later, Ubaldo has gone 4-2 with a 5.17 ERA in 54.0 innings pitched and his Cy Young hopes are all but over.

Johnson got off to a rough start to the season and had a 4.09 ERA after four starts, but he threw it into cruise control in May and his ERA has been under 2.00 since June 10th.

Johnson went a spectacular 13 starts without allowing more than two earned runs and allowing two runs only once. 

On July 17th he was 10-3 with a 1.62 ERA and looked to be in the driver’s seat for the Cy Young.

Unfortunately for Johnson, he hasn’t won a game in four starts, and wins still count in the Cy Young race, as much as they probably shouldn’t.  Not to mention the fact that his ERA has “ballooned” (I use the word loosely) to 1.97.  

Get this: he has allowed more earned runs in his last three starts (10) than he had in his previous 13 starts combined.  

Halladay got off to a great start to the season, and is still having a great season. Despite a hard-luck season which has been devoid of run-support, Halladay has a respectable 14-8 record and a league-leading 168 strikeouts.

He also leads the league with eight complete games, three shutouts, 185 innings pitched and 735 batters faced.

More importantly, Halladay has given up only 22 walks this season and leads the NL in both walks allowed per nine innings (1.1) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (an astonishing 7.64).

Nevertheless, Halladay’s 2.34 ERA, while great, isn’t elite by “Year of the Pitcher” standards, and his 8.2 hits allowed per nine innings and 14 home runs allowed overall are both kind of mundane.

At this point, neither Ubaldo, Johnson, nor Halladay is putting it all together the way Wainwright is:

 – On June 17th Ubaldo was 13-1 while Wainwright was 9-4; both pitchers now have 17 wins;

 – On June 24th, Johnson had a 1.80 ERA and Wainwright had a 2.47 ERA; Johnson now leads 1.97 to 1.99;

 – While Halladay leads the NL in strikeouts, Wainwright is neck-and-neck with Halladay in K/9IP (8.2 vs. 8.1) and despite Halladay’s paucity of bases on balls Wainwright actually has a far better WHIP (1.032 vs. 0.970) which leads the league.

And finally, in a “What have you done for me lately?” league, Wainwright is the hottest pitcher in the NL right now, having gone 7-1 with a 1.14 ERA in his last nine starts.

Compare that to Jimenez (above), Johnson (3-2, 2.14) and Halladay (6-2, 2.19), and a picture of a pitcher pitching above an incredible class emerges.

Now, Wainwright is not without marks against him.  

Chiefly, the complaint against Wainwright is that he is a hometown hero.  

This is true: he has gone a remarkable 11-0 with a 1.22 ERA in St. Louis this season, while only going 6-6 with a 2.76 ERA away from home.

There are two responses to this, however.  

First, take the numbers as they are: those home numbers are not just “better at home”; they are unbelievable.  Plus, it isn’t as though a 2.76 ERA on the road is bad.

And second, Wainwright isn’t the only hometown hero in this group. Compare:

Wainwright: home (11-0, 1.22) road (6-6, 2.76)

Johnson: home (7-2, 1.48) road (3-2, 2.81)

Halladay: home (9-4, 1.95) road (5-4, 2.91)

Ubaldo: home (8-0, 3.06) road (9-3, 2.16)

Frankly, Wainwright is better on the road than both Halladay and Johnson, so the fact that he is great at home doesn’t exactly hold water.

As between Wainwright and Ubaldo, well, obviously there is no comparison between pitching home games at Coors Field and pitching anywhere else in the National League.

Nevertheless, as Ubaldo returned to earth in July and August, he has done so both at home and on the road.  

Ubaldo’s bad starts have included allowed six runs in Colorado, four runs in San Diego, seven runs in Colorado, six runs in Florida, and six runs in Philadelphia.

It would be disingenuous to assume that Ubaldo is only pitching poorly at home in 2010, just as it would be disingenuous to assume that Wainwright’s 2010 season has been purely a product of his home field.

So there you have it: on Friday, August 13, 2010, the National League officially has its fourth Cy Young Award front-runner of the season.

Will the lead change hands one more time before the season ends?  

Will Ubaldo, Josh Johnson, or Roy Halladay be able to wrestle the lead back from Wainwright?  

Will a new front-runner emerge from the pack?

Stay tuned.

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com.

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After years of power hitting and home runs, pitching has finally won out in the MLB this season.  There has been five no-hitters this year and numerous other close calls.  So who has been the best pitcher this season in the MLB?

Here is a list of the top five pitchers in the MLB this year.

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