Not The Cy...Yet

A widely assumed rumor became fact on Wednesday when Zack Grienke, the best thing to happen to the Kansas City Royals since Danny Tartabull, won the first Cy Young by a K.C. player since Bret Saberhagen in 1989.

The vote wasn't even close. Grienke received all but three first-place nods. Two went to Felix Hernandez and one went to Justin Verlander.

And while it's hard to dispute Grienke's phenomenal season (especially his absurd 0.84 ERA and 8-1 record through his first ten starts), the overall vote should have been closer.

Now I realize I'm about as partial on this subject as Sarah Palin is to inbreeding. But King Felix pitched his ass off, and deserved more than two crappy first-place votes. If anything, he deserved to win the Cy Young as much as Grienke.

The stat boys are rejoicing that cute acronyms like VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), WPA (Win Probability Added) and WAR (Wins Above Replacement), took on more importance this year than actual wins. Be as it may, there is a place for those stats.

But the one category that seemingly every member of the voting panel ignored was the glaring difference in Meaningful Games Pitched (MGP). Okay, I made that stat up. It still should stand for something though.

Because by my count, King Felix pitched in 30 meaningful games. And time after time, Felix came through like the stud he is in those games.

Grienke pitched in one meaningful game - the final game of the season, when there was some decent chatter about how his low win total (16) might prevent him from winning the Cy Young. All Grienke did was give up four runs in six innings, en route to a no-decision.

True, it's not Grienke's fault that he played for a crap team. But the Royals would have sucked with or without Grienke. The Mariners would have sucked without Felix, but were in a pennant race until September because of him.

That simple fact apparently was lost on the voters. So Grienke winning the Cy is the baseball equivalent to Charlize Theron winning the Best Actress Oscar for "Monster". Great performance. Poor movie.

Felix picked a bad year to be great. But if 2009 is an indication of how good he can be, there will be many more Cy Young Awards for Felix to win.