Monday, March 29, 2004
Premature elimination
Posted by Vinay KumarThe THT writers have been discussing award predictions for 2004 recently, and Matthew Namee noted that one of our consensus picks was at risk: "The latest word on Prior is that he could be out for a month, which would just about kill his Cy Young chances."
It's a good thing Matthew used the qualifier "just about." Because otherwise I'd have to bring up everybody's favorite broadcaster and his 1984 NL Cy to demonstrate that precedent still gives Prior a shot.
I considered Prior's injury while making my own picks; I think it brings him down from "overwhelming favorite" to "favorite". It's very likely that one of Wood or Beckett or Johnson or Schmidt or Oswalt or a darkhorse like Peavy or Morris or Zambrano has a big year and wins it. But I don't think any of those guys individually has a better shot than Prior. Is the chance of Prior utterly dominating for 5 months really less than the chance of Wood maintaining his control for 30+ starts (or, similarly, Oswalt, Johnson and Schmidt their health)?