Who *Doesn't* Win the NL Cy Young?

If you were Dr. Frankenhurler and conspired to design the next Cy Young winner you would assemble a creature who could eat innings, keep the ball in the park, miss bats, carve up the strike zone, suppress plate crossings and stand tallest when the pressure mounted.

Your monster would be named Jake Arrieta.

I mean Zack Greinke.

Oh Lord. We only have room for one of them. And we haven't even mentioned Clayton Kershaw.

It looks this year like Dr. Frankenhurler used the same template twice. One of these guys is Cy Winner 1.0 and the other 1.1.

Arrieta (22-6, 1.77) and Greinke (19-3, 1.66) both posted cartoon numbers with laser command and a cornucopia of offerings. Each topped 220 innings. Each fanned at least 200 and walked fewer than 50. Both benefited from defense and luck about equally; both are freakish specimens even without serendipity's side effects.

Each spells his first name with four letters and his last with seven, including three vowels. Freaky similar.

Their "Deserved Run Average," a complicated computation that accounts for everything the geeks can think of and weighs most heavily the components of good pitching rather than the results, favors Greinke, 2.17 - 2.31.

That's the difference of one run every 63 innings.

The trajectory of the two pitchers' years provide the greatest contrast: Greinke the model of consistency, Arrieta the charging bull. By now you've heard that Arrieta allowed four runs after the All-Star break. (That includes one complete game play-in, which doesn't count in the voting.) Batters hit .136 and slugged .172 against him in August and September, because he allowed two doubles, a triple and a homer. In two months of work.

Greinke is defined by his worst month, August, during which he went 4-1, 2.45, allowed a .325 SLG and whiffed six times as many batters as he walked. That was the bad month.

Cy Young voters will be swayed by which shiny object most appeals to them, the big kick or the steady speed. The overall numbers tilt ever so slightly to the Dodger, as if the inventor made one small tweak in the form between creations. But one of these guys won't win the award, and we'll shake our heads and wonder what more the good tinkerer could have done.

Let's Hear It for the Sister Kisser

It's difficult to talk NL pitching without meandering back to the subject of Clayton Kershaw, the most fearsome pitcher since Pedro Martinez. His 18-3, 1.67 performance this year is cartoonish, as is his 7.78 K/BB ratio, his .82 WHIP and his 7.4 wins against replacement despite missing the first month of the season because of injury and the last month of the season because of time travel restrictions. (That last item should be solved soon, notwithstanding Armageddon.)

Sporting his patented* knee-buckling hook, a paralyzing slider and a fastball with bite, Kershaw is 95-49, 2.48 for his career, producing more value in seven campaigns (about 40 wins) than Catfish Hunter in 15 Hall of Fame seasons. Kershaw will almost certainly win his third Cy Young in four years, a second-place finish in 2012 marring the record.

*It may not actually be patented. I'm not his lawyer. Patent may be pending.

But enough about the likely league MVP. Let's turn our gaze to the largely-forgotten sister-kisser who should finish second. 

At home in Great American Smallpark, Johnny Cueto's 18-8, 2.15 this season is noteworthy. In a hefty 222 innings he's shouldered four complete games and fanned four times as many as he's walked. His six-and-a-half wins against replacement would make Cy Young proud, had the stars not aligned to create Kershaw.
It's not like Cueto is a flash-in-the-pan. He's averaged 4.5 wins against replacement over those four years -- about the same as Max Scherzer -- despite missing most of 2012. He throws strikes, clamps down the running game, keeps the ball in the park and goes deep into games. And he's just 28.

Cueto and Adam Wainwright (18-9, 2.54) have been lost in Kershaw's shadow in 2014 but they deserve some recognition. They're both dominant hurlers in the full bloom of their talent whose careers, unfortunately for them, have coincided with the dominant mound force of their generation.

If Cy Young Were a NLer, Who Would He Be?

Earlier this week, Cliff Lee struck out 11 Atlanta batters and walked none. He limited the Braves to a single run. And he lost, dropping his record to 6-8.

Though Lee pitches his home games in God's Gift to Offense, his 3.18 ERA is 25% better than league average. In 198 innings, he's walked just 28 batters and whiffed 195. His 1.3 BB/9 and  7 K/BB both pace the league, the latter by a country mile.  

Cliff Lee isn't a top five Cy Young candidate, so his absence from any ballots will be no crime. But if you're wondering what happened to Cliff Lee's unique mound magic, the answer is: nothing.

The real question in the NL Cy Young race is where Johnny Cueto, Kyle Lohse and R.A. Dickey found their mound magic. Along with Clayton Kershaw and Gio Gonzalez, they have to be considered the Cy frontrunners. Cueto, a .500 pitcher with a 4.00+ ERA in his first three seasons, has reduced the walks and homers to go 28-14, 2.55 in his last two seasons. The veteran Lohse had posted one exceptional season before (15-8, 3.78 in '08), but he's experienced the full sprinkling of pixie dust this year. In his 12th campaign, he's recorded the most wins (16), best winning percentage (.842), lowest ERA (2.77) most innings (205) lowest WHIP, fewest H/9, fewest BB/9, fewest HR/9 and best K/BB of his career. Pumpkin alert!

And Dickey, well, whoever kidnapped him and replaced him with this guy (19-6, 2.66; 209 K in 22 Innings) is the Mets' MVP.

Closers Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman only pitch 60 innings each, but have been so dominant that they deserve consideration too. More on all of this after the regular season ends. One last start could decide the winner.

And for added drama, the unique stylings of Kris Medlin win Best Supporting Actor. He's barely allowed a run a game and the Braves are undefeated in his 11 starts.