Brock and Salk Day
Dave · September 30, 2010 at 9:48 am · Filed Under
Mariners
My new post is up over at Brock and Salk’s blog, and it deals with why, in the end, the Cy Young award doesn’t really matter.
Also, I’ll be on with ESPN 710 with the boys at 11:30.
Comments
Dave, nice article, but perhaps I’m misunderstanding something.
Does anyone remember who won the AL MVP in 2001? I do. Does it make a difference to me that it was one of my favorite players? Yes it does. Awards don’t matter as much as making the playoffs or winning a World Series or even watching Felix have another awesome year, but they are part of the enjoyment fans get from the game.
I won’t get upset if Felix doesn’t win, but it would bring me some pleasure as a fan if he does, so I would say it matters to me.
Dave’s stated that no one outside of Boston or Oakland really remember it. You can apply that to Seattle for 2001. Sure, some fan base out there knows who the AL MVP in 1976 was, but I wouldn’t without looking it up.
He’s not, as far as I can tell, crapping on the award. He’s just pointing out that at the end of the day, you shouldn’t and probably won’t personally appreciate Felix’s season any more or any less based on what 28 writers think.
Felix is probably the only person on the planet who should care as much as he does.
Dave, what if Felix ends up as a bubble hall of fame candidate? Winning the Cy Young looks a lot better than a second place finish.
It matters to me as well. In the end, I feel the only real “value” of these awards is what is percieved by the fans and writers. And all the fans I talk to are interested and many writers and commentators are debating the issue. By my own metrics, it would seem to matter immensely. But this is only my perspective of the situation.
Wouldn’t the M’s capitalize on a Felix Cy Young Award* in their promotions for the 2011 season?
*I was going to abbreviate that “CYA”, but the double meaning of that changed my mind.
Of course they will. They
probablywon’t even wait for 2011 to start flogging Felix Cy Young merchandise. But you can be sure there will be a “CY Felix” bobblehead next year, at the very least.But that doesn’t make it “matter” more, to anyone except ownership (as they look at their merch profits).
Actually, I think the only folks for whom it might “matter” as much as it does to Felix is all those other talented pitchers coming up through the systems of doormat teams — the prospects drafted by the Pirates, Orioles, Nationals, etc. A Felix CY win tells them they can be recognized for their own contributions at the highest level even when the team they’re playing on doesn’t pull its weight.
If individual awards ‘don’t really matter’ why would Cliff Lee have negotiated bonuses into his contract for winning the Cy Young? Cliff Lee earned a .25M bonus for winning the Cy Young in 2008, and a 1M boost in salary in his 2010 option. We as the public may not see the benefits of winning these awards, but the players and, the franchises do. I think Cliff Lee is probably pretty happy with the extra 1.25M in his pocket for an award that “doesn’t really matter.”
The fact that we’re arguing that certain specific individuals to whom the Cy Young award matters rather supports than contradicts Dave’s position, which is that to the mass of fans five or ten years down the road, the marginal difference between “That King Felix, he was an awesome pitcher, and the Cy Young voters totally hosed him in 2010″ and “That King Felix, he was an awesome pitcher, and he has the Cy Young to ‘prove’ it” is immeasurably small.
Wow, that was a long sentence.
It’s small and trivial, only in the sense that all of baseball is small and trivial. Yes, it doesn’t matter, to the exact same extent that baseball doesn’t matter. All of the importance that people put into all of this is a choice.
In the baseball fan world, people generally choose to regard the CYA as pretty important. Don’t really see how that will change.
So i shouldn’t watch Felix Hernandez pitch on Sunday because ultimately it doesn’t matter? Should I consider all the Mariner games I watched this year time wasted because they didn’t matter either?
Extending your analogy further, does anyone remember the 2004 World Series? How about the 1998 World Series? What about the 1994 World Series? I’m guessing the average reader of Brock and Salk’s blog isn’t going to know off the top of their head who won those series. They won’t even remember that there wasn’t a 1994 World Series to begin with. They will however remember the seasons that Ken Griffey Jr and Ichiro won the MVP…………so why take away Felix Hernandez potential Cy Young Award season from them?
Dave’s post is probably true. The funny thing to me is that USSM (or even the B&S) blogs are the worst places to make that case for Felix. Of course everyone here cares whether or not he wins it. If his post was located on some houston astros blog, it would get nothing but ‘hear, hear’ comments.
side note: I hadn’t previously realized that “Brock & Salk” abbreviate to “B&S”. That wasn’t an editorial, but it did make me snicker once I typed it.
I understand the premise — that whether he wins the Award or not doesn’t take anything away from or add to his terrific season. But I think it’s a strawman argument that it doesn’t matter because people don’t remember. First people do remember, Dawson’s MVP in 1987 (?, I remember he won and the Cubs sucked and he didn’t deserve it but am not 100% on the year) helped him get in the Hall of Fame.
Second, I’m pretty sure winning the World Series matters and while I consider myself a pretty serious baseball fan I can’t for certain remember who won the World Series the past decade — in part because of the Mariners’ (and Cubs, my other team) failures during the season or collapses in the post season, I’ve checked out in late October.
Off the top of my head (and I hope people get a good laugh out of this), I know the Yankees beat the Mariners in 2001, the Mariners dream season, to go to the World Series. 2002, no clue. 2003, the Marlins won but I can reason out the year and date because I flew home from the Bartman game and saw the first home my wife and I purchased and I know we bought the house in 2003. 2004 was the Red Sox, right? 2005 the other Sox ended their streak. 2006, 2007? The Red Sox won again sometime, sweeping the Cardinals 4-0. The Yankees must have won one, no? 2008 was the year the Cubs were good and my wife and I watched them get swept by the Dodgers in person; and I stopped caring until March. I think the Phillies beat the Brewers and then the Dodgers then played the Yankees in the series. No wait, Tampa Bay played Philly now that I think about it. The Rays won? The Phillies won last year? Honestly the last two post seasons are a blur. The Yankees didn’t win one?? I’m confused. Now that I think more, the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees early in the decade. I can see the hit up the middle and remember Luis Gonzalez — forget if he hit the ball or scored from third.
I count 3 of 9 years, I’m 95% sure what happened and those were memorable. 4 years I have some idea and 2 years I really don’t have a clue.
Off to look up the right answers, then going to the M’s game tonight; I’ll see what the hard-core fans around me remember…
or maybe my argument is wrong and winning the World Series doesn’t matter.
On ctdawg, I think people remember the 2004 series because the Red Sox were so memorable. No one remembers the 1994 World Series because there wasn’t one 🙂
I understand, but I have to say I think this is a moot point. I don’t really care who wins the NLCS. Perhaps many of us don’t. Does that mean it doesn’t ultimately matter? Of course not. Astros fans probably don’t care just as we don’t care about other parts of the game not relating to us.
I remember the 1994 World Series. Mariners vs. Expos. It was awesome.
Felix’s season is officially over. Jack Z announced it a little while ago.
Well, the Mariners just lost one ticket buyer for Sunday with Z’s decision. I’ll stay home and watch the Hawks.
I’m sure there’s some website somewhere where someone has collected and published this information, but I wonder if there’s ever been a Cy Young winner who didn’t make the league’s All Star team the year he won it. If there has been, the list has got to be pretty short.
Well, someone wrote about it on Fangraphs. Johan Santana didn’t make the All Star team in 2004. Here’s the site, sorry I don’t know how to shorten it or make a link.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/all-star-pitchers-and-the-cy-young-award/
Bremerton guy–
Just type anyting you want…
like:
Johan Santana 2004
Then highlight that and click the link tab right above the comment box…
Then type in the link in the window that pops up.
(I just figured this out recently myself)
Because the CBA between MLB and the MLBPA specifically bans most of the obvious ways to pay a player according to his performance. One of the few ways you can structure a contract to reward production by a player is to offer bonuses based on awards earned, all-star selections, and so on. I’m sure the owners would rather base pay and bonuses on wOBA and VORP and UZR (or BA and ERA for the old-school owners) but they legally can’t.
(For that matter, I bet Cliff Lee would love to earn, say, a $10K bonus for every batter he doesn’t unintentionally walk, but legally he can’t ask for that either.)
Do you have to have an IQ of less than 20 to comment on the B & S blog?
Well i don’t even remember who won the world series in 2002, so really nothing in baseball matters. Because it’s just a game.
No. But it helps.