"Plus, there’s scant evidence that the voters (two members of the
Baseball Writers of America from each league city) will reward a
half-season of excellence. In 1984, pitcher Rick Sutcliffe was traded
from the Indians to the Cubs, for whom he went 16-1 with a 2.69 ERA,
lifting Chicago to a division title. For that performance, Sutcliffe was
awarded the NL’s Cy Young award over Dwight Gooden of the Mets (17-9,
2.60 ERA).
But for midseason acquisitions, that’s it. In 1987,
Doyle Alexander was traded to the Tigers from the Braves (for John
Smoltz!) and went 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA for Detroit. That got him fourth
place in the Cy Young voting. In 2008, Manny Ramirez was dealt from the
Red Sox to the Dodgers and promptly produced a slash line of
.396/.489/.743 in Los Angeles, but that wasn’t enough to overcome the
season-long resumes of St. Louis’s Albert Pujols, Philadelphia’s Ryan
Howard and Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun, who all finished ahead of him in the
voting."
Sutcliffe was traded in mid-June, not the end of July.
Unless the voting changed to one MVP instead of one per league, Cespedes can't win. The award is for one league and for the whole year.
No comments:
Post a Comment