Are You Smarter Than A Baseball Writer?

Congratulations! You've just been awarded a 1987 Baseball Writers Association of America card, which entitles you to vote for post-season awards.

You cover a National League team, so you'll cast your ballot for NL players.

Being  the conscientious reporter you are, you've done your homework and considered seriously the options. That's another way of saying that not only have you not selected Andre Dawson and his 49 home runs MVP, he and his .328 OBP don't make your ballot. The rest of this august club doesn't share your view.

Five hurlers are on your Cy Young list, oh devoted one, and there is little to recommend one more heartily than the others. Here are their seasonal resumes:

Orel Herhiser -- The Dodger righty posted a 3.58 RA -- compared to a league average of 4.05 -- in 264 innings. His 10 complete games was second in the league and his 190 K/74/BB ratio and 1.25 WHIP both represent aptitude. He earned 24 quality starts in 35 tries.

Dwight Gooden -- The Mets' 22-year-old missed part of the season, holding opponents to 3.41 runs/game over 180 innings. Seventeen of his 25 starts pinned the needle on the quality meter. His 148 K/53 BB ratio and 1.21 WHIP were akin to Hershiser's, if slightly more impressive; his seven complete games, a whisker less.

Rick Reuschel -- The veteran northpaw split his 227 innings of 3.61 RA between the Pirates and Giants, though his 25 Pirate starts were runaway Cy Young material and his 8 Giant appearances during the pennant race were far more forgettable. His 20 quality starts in 33 tries lag his competitors, but his 1.14 WHIP and his 107 K/42 BB ratio are anyone's equal, though he gets there a different way. He also led the league with 12 complete games.

Nolan Ryan -- The 40-year-old flamethrower had his best year since 1981, leading the league with a 3.19 RA in 212 frames for the Astros.  His 27 quality starts pace the circuit, as do his 270 whiffs. His 270 K/87 BB ratio is the best of the bunch; his 1.16 WHIP is right there.
Mike Scott & Bob Welch -- This pair is grouped because their performances were eerily similar, though Scott toiled for Houston and Welch for L.A. They relinquished the same number of runs, with Welch pitching four more innings, for RAs of 3.42 and 3.36 respectively. Scott's 233/79 split overpowers Welch's 196/86 and he finished eight games to Welch's six, but his 23 of 36 quality starts is a hair off Welch's 25 of 35. Their WHIPs of 1.12 and 1.15 respectively were Cy material.

It's important to recognize that Reuschel is the only moundsman here not benefiting from a stingy home park. Chavez Ravine, Shea and the Astrodome were the three hardest places to make a living with the stick. Three Rivers bore no such burden and Candlestick had its own unique story, of which holding down scoring was but a small part. (Anyway, Reuschel made all of four starts as a Giant in SF.)

So whom would you vote for? Perhaps you favor Hershiser for the durability of his excellence or Reuschel for overcoming more obstacles.  I'd go with Ryan for keeping runs off the board and getting the most outs without the help of his defense. He'd have borne more of the innings burden had his mates supplied his starts with more support.

In any case, none of these fine specimens won the Cy Young in 1987. None finished second.

Here's what I didn't mention: Nolan Ryan went 8-16 for the punchless 76-86 Astros, whose best hitter, Glenn Davis, pounded 27 home runs but posted a miserable .310 OBP. Hershiser compiled a 16-16 record for a 73-89 Dodger squad so offensively inept that Pedro Guerrero's OPS 54% higher than league average still only produced 89 R and 89 RBI. Baseball writers could never bring themselves to anoint Rick Resuschel's 13-9 mark or Mike Scott's 16-13 worthy of Cy Young awards. In a year when seven American League hurlers were credited with 17 wins or more (and Doyle Alexander got credit for nine wins without a loss after a late season trade to Detroit), the 15-9 records of Dwight Gooden and Bob Welch paled.

Instead, baseball writers split their votes between Rick Sutcliffe, whose 18 wins masked a league average RA, a below-average strikeout-walk ratio and a 1.40 WHIP, and reliever Steve Bedrosian, whose 40 saves gave voters the best opportunity to demonstrate that what they knew about baseball could fit on the head of a pin without getting knocked off by the 21 dancing angels. Bedrosian won the award having faced 366 batters, a mere third of Hershiser's total.

Really, had the writers ignored an 8-16 record and bestowed the honor on Ryan, the earth would have opened up and swallowed Cooperstown whole. The heavens would have rumbled and smoting would have commenced. It was not possible in 1987 and it remain impossible today, even though there are 30 years of research demonstrating conclusively that won-loss records are poor barometers of pitching performance. The nation elected a black president, a Muslim at that; you might think baseball writers could elect the best pitcher regardless of his record.

All this may be significant again as Felix Hernandez of Seattle makes his AL Cy Young case in 2010. King Felix has pitched the most stanzas at a 3.11 RA (the league's third best) with the league's third best strikeout-walk ratio and all the other peripherals you'd expect. Irrelevant to reality but a lead weight to perception is his 9-10 record, which is entirely the result of an historically bad Mariners offense that could play home run derby in a snow globe without making it snow. The M's have scored fewer than 3.5 runs per game and have a team OPS 22% below league average. On top of that, their relief pitching is a grease fire, anchored by a closer at 0-6, 4.14.

In the same way that BBWAA members never seriously considered Nolan Ryan in 1987, they are not yet sufficiently informed to recognize that -- so far in 2010, at least -- Hernandez is somewhere in the vicinity of the AL's best pitcher. Whether he gets credited for wins, his teammates will have to answer for.

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