Gio Gonzalez, Cy Young?

Every Friday and Saturday morning I wake up too early, fire up the Xbox, and play NCAA Football until my eyes can’t take it anymore. This morning? To be honest, I’m a little hungover. I need to chill out and digest those three slices of pizza I ate last night so I search my Spotify playlist for something. 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Trying CD? Yep. It takes me about an hour to work through the CD to get to the song that I actually want to hear: “Wanksta.”

This is my favorite song, so I blast it (more like listen at an appropriate level because my head still hurts) while reading my round of online articles. Then 50 (can I call him that?) raps:

“Damn homie, in high school you was the man, homie /

What the f*&# happened to you?”

I consider the depth of these words while reading that, for the first time, the writers who determine these things posted the finalists for every relevant post-season award. I see that every writer on this particular site picked R.A. Dickey to win the National League Cy Young Award and my thoughts go back to 50 (I’m just going to call him that). Remember when R.A. Dickey was the man in June and essentially right up until the Mets fell apart? Then Sportscenter relegated all R.A. Dickey news to the end of the show, in the 15 seconds usually reserved to Canadian Football League results? Is he going to win the Cy Young? Can he win the Cy Young? Should he win the Cy Young? What about Gio Gonzalez?

 

Let’s play a little game:

Player A: 19-9, 2.78 ERA, 217 Innings, 170 SO, WAR 5.8

Player B: 14-9, 2.53 ERA, 227.2 Innings, 229 SO, WAR 6.3

Player C: 20-6, 2.73 ERA, 233.2 Innings, 230 SO, WAR 5.4

Player D: 21-8, 2.89 ERA, 199.1 Innings, 207 SO, WAR 4.5

Who wins the eye test? Player B right? He was tied for 4th in the league with 6 "tough losses" (a real statistic that I actually did not just make up) which, had his defense/ bullpen not been terrible, shows that he could have had a few more wins. Your taking him. I decided. Congrats, we picked Clayton Kershaw who, according to people who know things, has little to no shot at winning this thing. It is essentially a two dog race between Player C (Dickey) and Player D (Gonzalez).

Looking at these numbers you would probably pick Dickey right? But let us consider the importance of pitching for a winning team. The Mets finished 74- 88, good for 4^th place in the National League East. The Nats finished 98-64, the best record in baseball. Over the course of the season the Nationals pitching staff allowed 594 runs, good for the third fewest in baseball. On September 7^th the Nationals shut down Stephen Strasburg- an event that should of killed the Nationals down the stretch, but didn’t.

On September 7^th the Nationals were 6.5 games ahead of the Braves in the race for the division. No one in D.C. was exactly buying playoff tickets at this point though. At this same point the A’s trailed the Rangers by 4.5 games and in 2011 the Red Sox and Braves each led their Wild Card races by 7 and 6.5 games respectively. What I’m saying is that there was still a lot of baseball left to be played. The Nationals had not locked up the East- not by a long shot.

They booted Strasburg from the rotation. Edwin Jackson started to pitch like Edwin Jackson, posting a 7.92 ERA in September while allowing hitters to hit .317 against him. Jordan Zimmermann, the teams’ most consistent pitcher for much of the season, lost it. In 34.2 September innings his ERA was 4.41. The Nationals pitching staff was falling apart: we were forced into throwing Chien Ming Wang (The Human Batting Practice), and John Lannan just to get through the week. But just when things were looking all kinds of bad Gio Gonzalez stepped in and put the team on his back. Greg Jennings style.

He was 4-1 in September, with a 1.74 ERA, a .171 batting average against and gave up only 6 earned runs. Without him- and the offense actually scoring runs- the Nationals limp into the playoffs, possibly as a Wild Card team.

The Nationals were not a Wild Card team, they were the No. 1 seed in the National League. Résumés for Cy Young's and MVP’s will always be bolstered by playing on a winning team, and rightly so. With notable exceptions (Zach Greinke in 2009, Felix Hernandez in 2010) these major postseason awards are handed out to players who make the playoffs. It’s the biggest knock against Mike Trout’s MVP candidacy this year, and one of the larger factors that will keep him from winning it. Miguel Cabrera also won the Triple Crown… so that probably doesn't help Trout. Gio was very much the ace of the Nationals staff, pitched out of his mind when his team actually needed him to produce and led them to the playoffs. I certainly don’t think that candidates for the Cy Young and MVP should lose votes because they don’t make the playoffs, but those who do lead their teams to the postseason deserve a little more credit.

There are cases when one candidate puts up numbers that are so far superior to others that it would be a travesty if they didn’t win- again those Greinke and Hernandez seasons are the best examples of this- but this is not one of those years. R.A. Dickey had a great statistical season, but not anything that separates him from Gio Gonzalez by any statistical measure. Dickey had more strikeouts, and had a lower ERA, sure; Gio had more wins and opponents hit .20 points worse against him. There's a point to every counter point. The only thing that separates them is that Gio was the ace of the best team in baseball and made the playoffs and, if you want to go there, R.A. Dickey was a better story. (And a fantastic read).

While it is not totally Dickey’s fault that his team made the playoffs, it is Gio’s fault that the Nationals did though. Give the man some props- or a Cy Young?

"Wanksta" faded out to the grittier "Many Men." And I bumped it. Obviously. It's my favorite song.