Ron gets some Shyster-love… not that there’s anything wrong with it.

Craig, just to clarify, I never said Carpenter should have won. But for both of those guys to leave him off of their ballots? It’s worth questioning.

I don’t know enough about Carroll. I’ve read his stuff and like most of it. But considering Law’s anti-Cardinal bias, you definitely have to wonder about how he voted.

Keith Law, like Rob Neyer, gets accused of personal bias against all 30 teams on a regular basis. It’s pretty funny, since they’re as objective as they come.

I think it’s clear that there IS only one right way to pick a winner here: pick the guy you think, based on some sort of reasonable thought process, is the best pitcher. If you picked Carpenter because you were impressed by his ERA or picked Vazquez #2 because you were impressed by his FIP, good for you. If you picked Wainwright because he was credited with a few extra “wins” or Verlander because you write for a Michigan newspaper, you fail.

If one side starts saying that the way other voted is “un-American,” then one could easily mistake this for a debate by the US Senate.

@Ron

The only reason traditional or sabermetric statistics exist is because they have been counted or calculated for the purpose of drawing quantitative conclusions about player performance.  Basing one’s votes for performance awards on one set of statistics compared to another is simply saying that you thing those stats a better meters of performance.  You can reject the sabermatricians’ premise that their stats are better, but there isn’t any particular hypocrisy in using what you feel is the best tool to do a particular job.  To that extent, every vote belies a personal bias.

Regarding Keith Law’s bias, it seems you are suffering from a little confirmation bias.

Given that there are only three positions on the Cy Young ballot, I don’t see how this could be construed as an attempt to block Carpenter from winning the Cy.  This isn’t the MVP that has what, 10 places on the ballot?

I never comment here but read everyday.  I figure now is as good a time as any to jump in.

Ron, you mention that voting purely based on “sabermetric stats” isn’t any different the voting purely based on “traditional stats”.  Except that it absolutely is.  All of the information that goes into “traditional” stats also goes into “sabermetric” stats.  It’s just that those sabermetric stats take that information even further and try to figure out the “why” behind the information.  Rather than simply relying on the earned runs in ERA, FIP tries to determine how much of the ERA was a result of the way the pitcher actually performed and how much was the fault of his defense and luck.  “WAR” or “VORP” or any other value-assigning statistic incorporates everything that would contribute to your more traditional “win” stat, except that it strips away everything the pitcher doesn’t have control over and goes to show exactly how much he actually contributed to the “win”. 

That is why traditional stats aren’t cited by sabermetricians.  Instead of relying simply on what traditional stats say, they have an interest in finding out the “why” and the “how”.

I just listened to a Keith Law interview he did with a St. Louis radio station, and I have to say that Law comes off not so great. He sounds very arrogant and makes himself sound like he is above everyone else.

I know he works at ESPN and worked in a front officer (not very successfully, but in a front office non-the-less). But he doesnt even listen to anyone elses opinion.

FIP is a good stat, and it shows true talent of pitchers, but it has its limitations and he seems to look at as a end all be all. Striking out someone is good but you win games by keeping the other team from scoring runs and that stat has nothing to do with it.

here is the link, its from the Fast Lane show and is in the audio archive on the front page:
ESPNstlouis.com

I’d say Greg nailed it. If the ballot had five men on it, you’d see Carpenter there, instead of the “off the ballot entirely” bullshit that’s going on.

Ted- Law was being attacked on that radio show. One host told him his analysis was bad. Another host said that he wasted his time by watching baseball because his vote was bogus. Why wouldn’t he defend himself? That’s all he was doing. To me, the hosts of the show come off worse because they were interupting Law, and puting words in his mouth.