Stats vs. truth, part deux: Lincecum wins NL Cy Young Award

NL Cy Young Award winner, Tim
Lincecum (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum yesterday won the 2009 National League Cy Young Award despite posting only 15 wins – which, in case you’re counting, is one fewer than Kansas City Royal Zack Greinke  had in winning the AL award earlier this week. Yet, as with Greinke, it is an honor richly deserved.

 

Lincecum started seven games in which he worked at least eight innings and didn’t give up an earned run, tops in the majors. He lead the league in strikeouts (261), strikeouts per 9 innings (10.4), shutouts (2), and complete games (4). He posted the NL’s second-best ERA (2.48), and held opposing hitters to a stingy batting average against (.206), on-base percentage (.271), and OPS (.561). And like Greinke, he played for a team that finished out of the playoffs (though at 88-74, the Giants were not the pushovers the Royals were).

 

A Harwich Mariner in his Cape Cod League days, Lincecum prevailed over St. Louis Cardinals Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright in one of the closest elections in history – remarkably, he didn’t even receive the most first-place votes, trailing Wainright 11-12 in that category. His victory, like Greinke’s, is evidence that the NL writers, like their AL counterparts, looked beyond raw statistics to honor players for the truth of their performance (as was the subject of this observer’s piece yesterday). For this, they are to be praised as well, and savvy fans everywhere hope the trend continues.