12-14 killed any chance of him winning. Meanwhile, 18-4 looks great.
It wouldn’t be until Felix in 2010 who broke that trend
The funniest part was that in 2009, Felix went 19-5 and finished 2nd to Greinke and looking at advanced stats, it was the absolutely the right call.
Back when wins were more important than stats.
“Wins”! Clemens also got an undeserved Cy Young over Mussina in 2001 because he went 20-3
Love me some Ben Sheets!
I was at his 18K game in 2004, and was also at his 2 hitter complete gamer against the Dodgers in 2007 on Opening Day
Like it or not W-L record matters to voters. It certainly mattered 20 years ago.
I’ve made peace with it once I accepted that the Cy Young isn’t an analytical award for the most pitchery pitcher each year. It’s whoever had the best season as a pitcher and yeah, that *does* depend on your team helping you out and the occasionally lucky break.
04 should’ve been Johnson, and 05 should’ve been Clemens
Benjamin in the streets, Ben in the sheets
Been mad about this for 21 years now
Randy’s run support was ABYSMAL that year. I don’t care enough to quantify it, but he would have had more wins than Clemens if Randy got any support at all in his starts.
[deleted]
A guy having 30 decisions in a season seems so crazy by today’s standards.
Even in 2004 it should have been Randy Johnson. More innings, higher strikeout rate, lower ERA, less walks.
I don’t even think Clemens winning was strictly because of his W-L record either. A lot of it was “OMG Prime Rocket is BACK” because of his previous few decent but relatively underwhelming seasons with the Yankees.
Ironically, Clemens really should have won in 2005 when he had a ridiculous 1.87 ERA in 211 innings with a ridiculous 6.4 hits/9 innings. So you can say it evened out, but not really because that doesn’t give Randy Johnson another Cy Young. Then again, Randy Johnson is at least in the Hall of Fame.
Ben Sheets my GOAT!
Ben Sheets was robbed
I often bring up that Cy Young voters cared a lot less about Innings Pitched in the past than they do now. Sometimes people don’t believe me. This is a great illustration of what used to happen. If pitching extra innings per start didn’t lead to more Wins, voters didn’t care. Most guys were expected to pitch deep into games. It wasn’t seen as a notable thing, and “innings eater” was derogatory
Clemens has been on both ends of this.
Clemens 1990: 21-6, 1.93 ERA, 10.4 WAR
Welch 1990: 27-6, 2.95 ERA, 2.9 WAR
Welch won the Cy easily.
Randy was robbed
Clemens actually won exactly as many Cys as he should have – just not all of them came in the right years
Randy Johnson is criminally underrated.
It’s ABSURD how other worldly he was at his peak. Like 1999-2002.
Maybe the best 4 year stretch of any pitcher ever.
We don’t talk about it enough.
32 walks in 237 innings is fucking impressive
The Big Unit was 40 years old in 2004 and still struck out 290 dudes and pitched 245 innings. What the fuck bro
Bam
If this was now Unit wins this going away. He was dominate but the team was bad so he didn’t get a ton of wins.
This shit is always so embarrassing for the olds
Clemens won because ‘wow he old’ which is funny considering Johnson was right there being old
I’m not sure if I should be happy about this or not.
Analytics have come a long way in the last 20 years.
Basically the best season ever by a Brewers pitcher, but naturally happens when the Crew were absolute fucking ass. He was completely absurd that year too. 32 walks in 237 innings? Against 264 K’s? Jesus Christ. And the Unit was still better than him, which is also absurd.
Look the Big Unit lost a million games that year he was clearly not deserving /s
Randy got snubbed of his 6th Cy
Sheets was a baller that year — pitched through injury for no reason, too. It’s amazing what he did for Milwaukee in 2004 and 2008 — those years likely don’t happen in contemporary baseball.
Casually putting up an 8 WAR season at 40 . What a monster
Ben Sheets was Jacob deGrom before Jacob deGrom.
That’s the year Sheets and RJ pitched to Atlanta back to back. Sheets struck out 18 on a 3 hitter. Then RJ threw a perfect game.
Wow that’s more of a robbery than I remembered.
Literally the only reason Johnson didn’t win was because he had 14Ls. 290K, 2.60 ERA, 245 innings, NL leader in hits/9 (and tie-3rd best for his career), MLB leading WHIP and FIP, best WAR in NL.
Johnson got a winning record and 16 wins… with a team that only won 51 games.
16 of Arizona’s 51 wins were because he was pitching. 10 of his losses he allowed 2 or less runs. Two of them he allowed 0 runs. He had a CG with an L. Only 2 of his wins did he allowed 4+ runs.
In his final game that season, he allowed 1 earned run… but 6 runs were scored while he was on the mound. He still won that game because the offense actually stepped up despite the defense not doing their part.
Johnson should have fucking won that award. If that was today, he totally would have.
Holy hell even without advanced stats this was egregious…the disparity in strikeouts, walks, innings, ERA…. Clemens only won 2 more games its gotta be the 14 losses on randy
Incredibly bad but that was the way they valued W-L I suppose
Just win baby win
That was so bad
Ben Sheets was excellent when he was healthy. Which unfortunately was not often in his career. I’d love to see him included in MLB the Show some day!
Roger Clemens was not with Boston in 2004. He was with the Astros.
Fuck Roger Clemens
More proof that wins are stupid
As a Cardinals fan Ben Sheets is one of those guys I pretended to be a lot when I was a kid.
47 comments
Wins aren’t a QB stat.
12-14 killed any chance of him winning. Meanwhile, 18-4 looks great.
It wouldn’t be until Felix in 2010 who broke that trend
The funniest part was that in 2009, Felix went 19-5 and finished 2nd to Greinke and looking at advanced stats, it was the absolutely the right call.
Back when wins were more important than stats.
“Wins”! Clemens also got an undeserved Cy Young over Mussina in 2001 because he went 20-3
Love me some Ben Sheets!
I was at his 18K game in 2004, and was also at his 2 hitter complete gamer against the Dodgers in 2007 on Opening Day
Like it or not W-L record matters to voters. It certainly mattered 20 years ago.
I’ve made peace with it once I accepted that the Cy Young isn’t an analytical award for the most pitchery pitcher each year. It’s whoever had the best season as a pitcher and yeah, that *does* depend on your team helping you out and the occasionally lucky break.
04 should’ve been Johnson, and 05 should’ve been Clemens
Benjamin in the streets, Ben in the sheets
Been mad about this for 21 years now
Randy’s run support was ABYSMAL that year. I don’t care enough to quantify it, but he would have had more wins than Clemens if Randy got any support at all in his starts.
[deleted]
A guy having 30 decisions in a season seems so crazy by today’s standards.
Even in 2004 it should have been Randy Johnson. More innings, higher strikeout rate, lower ERA, less walks.
I don’t even think Clemens winning was strictly because of his W-L record either. A lot of it was “OMG Prime Rocket is BACK” because of his previous few decent but relatively underwhelming seasons with the Yankees.
Ironically, Clemens really should have won in 2005 when he had a ridiculous 1.87 ERA in 211 innings with a ridiculous 6.4 hits/9 innings. So you can say it evened out, but not really because that doesn’t give Randy Johnson another Cy Young. Then again, Randy Johnson is at least in the Hall of Fame.
Ben Sheets my GOAT!
Ben Sheets was robbed
I often bring up that Cy Young voters cared a lot less about Innings Pitched in the past than they do now. Sometimes people don’t believe me. This is a great illustration of what used to happen. If pitching extra innings per start didn’t lead to more Wins, voters didn’t care. Most guys were expected to pitch deep into games. It wasn’t seen as a notable thing, and “innings eater” was derogatory
Clemens has been on both ends of this.
Clemens 1990: 21-6, 1.93 ERA, 10.4 WAR
Welch 1990: 27-6, 2.95 ERA, 2.9 WAR
Welch won the Cy easily.
Randy was robbed
Clemens actually won exactly as many Cys as he should have – just not all of them came in the right years
Randy Johnson is criminally underrated.
It’s ABSURD how other worldly he was at his peak. Like 1999-2002.
Maybe the best 4 year stretch of any pitcher ever.
We don’t talk about it enough.
32 walks in 237 innings is fucking impressive
The Big Unit was 40 years old in 2004 and still struck out 290 dudes and pitched 245 innings. What the fuck bro
Bam
If this was now Unit wins this going away. He was dominate but the team was bad so he didn’t get a ton of wins.
This shit is always so embarrassing for the olds
Clemens won because ‘wow he old’ which is funny considering Johnson was right there being old
I’m not sure if I should be happy about this or not.
Analytics have come a long way in the last 20 years.
Basically the best season ever by a Brewers pitcher, but naturally happens when the Crew were absolute fucking ass. He was completely absurd that year too. 32 walks in 237 innings? Against 264 K’s? Jesus Christ. And the Unit was still better than him, which is also absurd.
Look the Big Unit lost a million games that year he was clearly not deserving /s
Randy got snubbed of his 6th Cy
Sheets was a baller that year — pitched through injury for no reason, too. It’s amazing what he did for Milwaukee in 2004 and 2008 — those years likely don’t happen in contemporary baseball.
Casually putting up an 8 WAR season at 40 . What a monster
Ben Sheets was Jacob deGrom before Jacob deGrom.
That’s the year Sheets and RJ pitched to Atlanta back to back. Sheets struck out 18 on a 3 hitter. Then RJ threw a perfect game.
Wow that’s more of a robbery than I remembered.
Literally the only reason Johnson didn’t win was because he had 14Ls. 290K, 2.60 ERA, 245 innings, NL leader in hits/9 (and tie-3rd best for his career), MLB leading WHIP and FIP, best WAR in NL.
Johnson got a winning record and 16 wins… with a team that only won 51 games.
16 of Arizona’s 51 wins were because he was pitching. 10 of his losses he allowed 2 or less runs. Two of them he allowed 0 runs. He had a CG with an L. Only 2 of his wins did he allowed 4+ runs.
In his final game that season, he allowed 1 earned run… but 6 runs were scored while he was on the mound. He still won that game because the offense actually stepped up despite the defense not doing their part.
Johnson should have fucking won that award. If that was today, he totally would have.
Holy hell even without advanced stats this was egregious…the disparity in strikeouts, walks, innings, ERA…. Clemens only won 2 more games its gotta be the 14 losses on randy
Incredibly bad but that was the way they valued W-L I suppose
Just win baby win
That was so bad
Ben Sheets was excellent when he was healthy. Which unfortunately was not often in his career. I’d love to see him included in MLB the Show some day!
Roger Clemens was not with Boston in 2004. He was with the Astros.
Fuck Roger Clemens
More proof that wins are stupid
As a Cardinals fan Ben Sheets is one of those guys I pretended to be a lot when I was a kid.