Can someone point out to me where I said:

sabergeek,
living in mom’s basement,
conspiracy theory,
Carpenter deserved to win,
or that I was anti-sabermetric?

If so, I will apologize to each and every person who wants me to. But since I didn’t say any of that, it won’t be possible.

If Keith Law can insult the old school writers for voting for someone for Cy Young because of the number of wins he had, then he can certainly be questioned himself for not voting for Carpenter due to his innings pitched. And the Vasquez vote just reninforces my opinion all the more.

As for Will Carroll, as I said, I read his stuff and I like it, but I can’t see someone as knowledgeable as him not putting Carpenter on the ballot. Was Haren a make-up vote from last year?

All stats are subjective, and no single stat/formula has ever been proven to be the definite benchmark of good or bad. They are good reference points, but that is all. So how does anyone justify voting for a guy based on (any) stats and then leave a guy off the ballot who had pretty much idential stats except for innings pitched and strikeouts? 

It boggles the mind.

“To dock Carpenter because of innings pitched? Does that mean Joe Mauer will should not be the MVP because he missed the first month of the season? Just wondering.”

I think it’s worth considering, but it’s also worth considering that Joe Mauer was so astonishingly good from the catcher’s position to more than balance that out. You’re comparing Mauer to a bunch of guys who play less hard positions, often less well than he does catcher (Jeter is probably the only other candidate that plays a tough position, right?, and let’s not get into his defense). Carpenter is being compared to a bunch of guys with basically the exact same job as him. And he does or does not look as good as they do, depending on your analysis.

“Two voters, Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus and Keith Law of ESPN.com, did not include Carpenter on their ballots.” Nice. Leave the best pitcher in the NL off of your ballots to insure the saber-metric favorite wins. The BBWAA guys might not be the best at voting, but the saber friendly guys don’t have the right to accuse them of manipulating the vote anymore.

Ron, re-read this quotation.  It’s clearly implied that the “saber friendly guys” both left Carpenter off their ballots to “ensure the saber-metric favorite wins.”  Suggesting that two or more people secretly plotted to manipulate the vote, is pretty much the definition of “conspiracy.”

And to write that they both left “the best pitcher in the NL” off the ballots may not literally say, “Chris Carpenter should have won the NL Cy Young,” but there’s no other way to interpret that statement.  Was Chris Carpenter not the pitcher you were referring to here?  Would adding Chris Carpenter to each of these ballots had given the award to someone else more deserving?  Please enlighten me on this point.

Again, you’re confirming your own bias here.  You don’t like Law, and you’re making stuff up about Carroll (“Was Haren a make up vote for last year?”)  I encourage you to actually read the explanations that each of these writers offered before judging them on ignorant rationale like “anti-Cardinal bias.”

Of course you can question the validity of docking Carpenter for his lack of innings pitched.  No statistic is worth using unless it’s defensible.  I hope you come up with a reason why your assessment is more valid though, because simply asserting that your evaluation is self-evidently correct doesn’t really fly around here.

@civilwarmike

Of course Joe should be docked for the month of time he missed.  But here’s where Carpenter and Mauer differ.  When Joe returned, he was so much more productive than other American Leaguers that his overall value for the season still makes him the best player in the AL.  With Carpenter, even though he was terrific, the time and innings he missed are just enough to make him less valuable to his team over the course of the season than Lincecum (and potentially Wainwright, Vazquez, and Haren, but I don’t want to make that argument).  Everything that players do and do not do count (or should count) in the analysis; one factor does not automatically disqualifies a player from consideration.

Again, for all of those of you who can’t read, or refuse to:

I never said Carpenter should have/deserved to win. I said I thought he was the best pitcher of the year. Just becuse someone is the best doesn’t mean they will win the award. It happens all the time that the best player doesn’ win the award.

What I said was, how do you justify leaving the best pitcher (my opinion) in the league OFF OF THE BALLOT. I didn’t say first. I didn’t say second. I didn’t say third. I said the ballot.

If you want to disagree with me, or insult me, or tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s fine. I don’t care.

But why don’t you try actually commenting on what I said, and not what you want to read.

@ Ron

It’s easy to leave the best player off the ballot when and if that player was not one of the three most valuable pitchers in the league (I’m not necessarily making that argument about Carpenter).  Value does not necessarily equal most skilled (or best).  For instance, CC Sabathia was probably the best pitcher in the NL last season.  However, in terms of the value he contributed to his team over the course of the year, he was nowhere near the top three in the league.

What I said was, how do you justify leaving the best pitcher (my opinion) in the league OFF OF THE BALLOT. I didn’t say first. I didn’t say second. I didn’t say third. I said the ballot.

It’s easy, both Carroll and Law thought, and gave explanations why, he wasn’t in the top 3.  Others have said it, but I’ll reinforce just in case, there are only three positions on the ballot.  If you could create a time machine and pluck ‘99 pedro, ‘00 pedro, and let’s say ‘09 Greinke and have them repeat their performance in the NL this year, would you still complain the Carpenter was, “left off the ballot”. 

If the ballot went to 5, Klaw said he’d have included him.  It didn’t, so he was left off.  This isn’t a Ricky Bobby situation, “if you aren’t first, you are last”.

@ Matt

MJ, thank you for finally bringing up statistics in a debate about individual awards. Reading the first 20 or so comments was kind of painful. They were so damn normative.

Sarcasm?  Forgive me as my sarcasm detector is broken from reading the idiotic comments on Klaw’s ballot explanation on espn.com.

“What I said was, how do you justify leaving the best pitcher (my opinion) in the league OFF OF THE BALLOT. I didn’t say first. I didn’t say second. I didn’t say third. I said the ballot.”

Again, if you read the published explanations from both writers, you would know exactly how they justified leaving Carpenter off the ballot.  They both though two other guys were better.  You obviously disagree, but I still haven’t seen why you think Carpenter was better.

Oh wait, there was something there about how I must have a lot to learn about baseball.  Thanks for the criticism, I had been under the impression that I knew everything already.

Something to think about:

Keith Law worked for JP Ricciardi up in Toronto from 2002-2006 and he was instrumental in convincing JP to remove Carpenter from the Blue Jays 40-man roster.
So of course Law didn’t vote for Carpenter, doing so could have possibly helped Carpenter win the Cy Young ... which would have made Keith’s & JP’s 2002 decision look even worse.
Do you really think Law would vote for the same guy that he convinced JP Ricciardi to dump?

This idiot is making the same claim all over the internet.  He made the same comment on my blog (http://the0common0man.blogspot.com/2009/11/keith-law-is-smarter-than-youget-over.html), on this random Cards page (http://moondogsports.com/2009/11/19/keith-law-left-chris-carpenter-off-his-cy-young-ballot-wtf/), and now here.  Dude, Carpenter also would have been a free agent after 2003 (when he wouldn’t have even pitched for the Jays), so there was no reason for the Jays to hold on to him in 2003 when there was no guarantee they would have in in 2004.