Don’t forget:

Lee, 17 wins
Doc, 14 wins.

In the simplest terms, if Lee maintains both the lowest ERA and the most wins, he’s a lock based on the BBWA perspective. I don’t think the innings pitched thing counts for that much, unless the wins and ERA numbers a very close. For instance last year, with Beckett and CC, if Beckett had the lower ERA in addition to 20 wins, I bet he’d have won hands down. But things being as close as they were, they went with the guy who pitched more innings. I don’t think that’s an issue this year if Lee keeps it up.

I think all the article’s trying to say is that the season is not over yet and the Cy Young is still up for grabs. He talks about how a lot of people seem to be giving it to Cliff already because he has such a (seemingly) huge lead in the stats. This guy is just pointing out that Halladay has put up numbers almost as good while pitching a few more innings, so the difference between the two might not be as large as it seems. I think he’s just saying let’s see them finish the season and see what the stats look like. I didn’t see anything terrible about the article.

His point about Cliff’s run support is certainly valid, which is why his record is much better than Halladay’s. Of course, the writers don’t care about run support and will only look at their won-loss record, because, as you know, some pitchers “just know how to win games.”

Just for my own benefit, how did Lee end up with 3 less starts? I don’t recall any DL time for Lee this year. That is how Halladay is getting those extra 21 innings on Lee.

That author’s complaint about that the Tribe needs 25 wins to finish above .500 was kind of laughable since his next statement was that if Toronto won 25 more games, they would finish with 89 wins. A whopping 7 game difference. The teams are not that far apart (Toronto is beeter than us though).

also, lest we forget, roy halladay is backed up by one of the league’s best defenses and is pitching in front of one of the league’s best bullpens. it should be noted that lee has markedly better defense-independent numbers than halladay (2.75 ERA to a 3.14 DIPS).

[re-posting from another thread where I posted it by mistake]

The guy is making it much more complicated than it needs to be — perhaps having too much fun debunking Wins and ERA to just stick to the stats THT already provides, which are more revealing.

Halladay has amassed exactly one more PRC than Lee — 110 to 109 — and it’s taken him 20 more innings to do it. The reason is simple: Lee has been somewhat more effective in his innings, allowing him to suppress about the same number of runs in 89% of the innings.

Of course, it’s to Halladay’s credit that he has those extra innings, but Lee certainly deserves no demerit on this — he’s on pace for a more-than-respectable 227.2 IP on the season.

So it really comes down to … Lee has been about 10% more effective per inning, while Halladay has pitched 10% more innings. There’s a case to be made that you’d rather have the 10% marginal innings than the 10% marginal run suppression rate. The flip-side is run distribution — each has allowed 5+ runs ("tough to win") three times, but Halladay has six 3-4-run ("winnable") games to Lee’s three, while Lee has eighteen 0-2-run ("tough to lose") games to Halladay’s fifteen.

And in that slim margin lies the other main difference in their seasons. Let’s face it, Halladay has five 4-run starts, and if he allows only two runs in three of those five starts, he’d probably have 16 wins instead of 14, and the same ERA as Lee — and then we’d have a real close call. As it is, he’ll have to solidly outpitch Lee in the last six weeks to take it.

Le at this point is almost certainly the leader in terms of who the writers will vote for.

As for who should win it? I’d probably give it to Halladay over Lee by the slimmest of margins.