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Nov 15 2007

Jake Peavy will be the NL Cy Young - will it be unanimous?

Posted by: Richie Rich in 2007 MLB, Diamondbacks, Padres, Pitching

Nobody asked me, but I’m 100% sure that San Diego’s Jake Peavy will be announced as the National League Cy Young Award Winner later this afternoon.

I’m 100% sure of that. Why? Because Peavy won the Triple Crown in the National League this season with 19 Wins, a 2.54 ERA and 240 Strikeouts.

Since the inception of the Award in 1956, every pitcher to capture a Triple Crown has won the Cy Young.

League	Year	Pitcher	Team	ERA	W	K	1st Place Votes	Max Votes
NL	1963	Sandy Koufax	LA Dodgers	1.88	25	306	20	20
NL	1965	Sandy Koufax	LA Dodgers	2.04	26	382	20	20
NL	1966	Sandy Koufax	LA Dodgers	1.73	27	317	20	20
NL	1972	Steve Carlton	Philadelphia	1.97	27	310	24	24
NL	1985	Dwight Gooden	N.Y. Mets	1.53	24	268	24	24
AL	1997	Roger Clemens	Toronto	2.05	21	292	25	28
AL	1998	Roger Clemens	Toronto	2.65	20	271	28	28
AL	1999	Pedro Martinez	Boston	2.07	23	313	28	28
NL	2002	Randy Johnson	Arizona	2.32	24	334	32	32
AL	2006	Johan Santana	Minnesota	2.77	19	245	28	28
NL	2007	Jake Peavy	San Diego	2.54	19	240	??	28

The only question is whether or not the vote will be unanimous. History says it should, as the Triple Crown winner has been voted the unanimous Cy Young nine times out of ten.

The only time it didn’t happen was ten years ago. In 1997 Roger Clemens won the first of his consecutive Triple Crowns with the Blue Jays, but failed to get the sweep of the Cy Young first place votes because Randy Johnson (then with Seattle) snatched two of them and Randy Myers (45 Saves with Baltimore) grabbed one.

This year, Peavy’s competition for all 28 Cy Young votes comes from …

Brandon Webb, D-Backs (18 W, 3.01 ERA, 194 K) - Last year’s NL Cy Young winner, who had three consecutive complete game shutouts amidst a 42 1/3 scoreless inning streak. Webb could sneak one vote away from Peavy here.
Brad Penny, Dodgers (16-4, 3.03 ERA) - The Dodgers would have been lost without him. Probably not enough wins to steal a vote.
Carlos Zambrano, Cubs (18 W) - But the ERA, K’s, IP just aren’t there.
Jose Valverde, D-Backs (47 Saves, 2.66 ERA) - Big Papa’s seven blown saves will probably keep him from being a spoiler here.

However, I think it will be unanimous. And Peavy will sign a contract extension this offseason to stay with the padres for quite a while.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 12:32 pm and is filed under 2007 MLB, Diamondbacks, Padres, Pitching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Jake Peavy will be the NL Cy Young - will it be unanimous?”

houroc says:
November 15th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
well obviously he won today. he definitely deserved it but his team didn’t make the playoffs and they lost it because of his start. I think that should count for something
Rob St. Hubbins says:
November 17th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Winning 21% of your team’s games counts for much more than a bad start against the hottest team in the game at the time.

The Padres’ demise was due more to the fact that the Rockies were on fire and Trevor Hoffman was doing his best Armando Benitez impression.

You don’t expect the career saves leader to blow two of the last three games of the season.