9 Reasons for Felix's Deserving of the Cy Young Award

Alright, here we go.

1. Let's start with the Wins Debate. For the longest time, this stat has been used to gauge a pitcher's effectiveness, as a pitcher is the only player that can be awarded with a win in any team sport. As long as he puts in five inning and leaves the game with his team leading, the starting pitcher will walk away with the win, regardless of how many runs his offense put together to give him the lead, how well his defense did to deny the opposition of runs or how well his relievers pitched to maintain the lead for him. Essentially, we're rewarding a pitcher on an individual level for something he can't do alone. Sure, a dominating pitcher should have quite a few wins every season, but it no be the determining stat in deciding an individual award.

2. Now, if the pitcher receiving the win were pitches the entire game, there's more of individual effort. Felix has thrown 5 complete games to his 12 wins, meaning he's had to finish nearly half of his victories. Only Cliff Lee (7 CG to 12 Wins) and Dallas Braden (5 CG to 9 Wins) have better ratios than Felix, while the other Cy hopefuls haven't had to complete very many games at all: CC Sabathia (2 CG to 20 Wins), David Price (2 CG to 17 Wins), or Jered Weaver (0 CG to 13 Wins).

3. Then, consider why pitchers like Hernandez have nearly a 1:2 Complete Game to Win Ratio while Sababthia is 1:10 and Price is 1:8.5. Sabathia has future Hall of Famer, Mariano Rivera, awaiting to take the ball in the 9th. He's still got dominating stuff, (1.58 ERA, 0.84 WHIP, and Opponent's Batting Average of .182). Meanwhile, Price hands the game over to Rafael Soriano, who is equaling as dominating as Rivera (1.82 ERA, 0.79 WHIP, and Opponent's Batting Average of .166), and Soriano has only blown 3 saves in 46 attempts. Meanwhile, David Aardsma has been inconsistent for most of the season and with a 3.44 ERA and 1.17 WHIP and the big off season bullpen addition Brandon League has been a bust, (League has blown more saves (6) than he has completed (4)). So, basically, there has more pressure for Hernandez to finish his games since the guys he would have to turn it over to have hardly been reliable.

4. Speaking of pressure, Sabathia may be on a pennant contending team, but he's also part of an all star caliber pitching staff. Though Javier Vazquez and AJ Burnett haven't pitched spectacularly, Phil Hughes has been dependable and Andy Pettitte has been awesome in his 19 starts. Nonetheless, these are all high profile pitchers and at the least, they've kept the Yankees in contention and had a lot of help from a potent offense. Meanwhile, Hernandez is the only franchise pitcher on the Mariners and ever since they traded Lee, all the pressure has been on him as Vargas and Fister have regressed and the fill-in pitchers have been slightly mediocre to awful. The only games really getting any attention from fans are Hernandez's as most others are considered lost causes, so there is a lot of pressure for Felix to be one of the only non-let downs on this team. Sure, Ichiro is on pace for another 200 hits, but that hardly touched people and got their attention compared to Felix's no hit bid in his last start.

5. Plus, he's flourished under the pressure of being the only high level pitcher on the team. Since Lee was traded, Hernandez has an ERA 1.54 with a WHIP of 0.99 and nearly 5:1 strikeout to walk ratio (100 strikeouts vs. 22 walks). Ironically, Felix grew stronger without the option of 1-2 punch combination of him and Lee in the same rotation.

6. He's also been able to ignore all the clubhouse issues and work with a team that lacks any real unity. This team saw high profile players like Eric Byrnes and Ken Griffey Jr. simply walk away from the team without warning. It dealt with an emotionally unstable Milton Bradley, a scrapping and unrepentant Chone Figgins, and a vocally threatening Mike Sweeney. As it stands, there are no captains and this team will no doubt be retooled in many places in hopes of creating some stability in the clubhouse, but through all the general garbage that polluted relationships, it must be remembered that Felix didn't loaf, didn't fight, and rose above it all to pitch the fantastic season he did.

7. Speaking of stability and relationships, David Price has had the same manager, Joel Madden, and the same pitching coach, Jim Hickey, during his 2 full seasons with the Devil Rays and the cup of coffee he played in 2008. In fact, they've held those positions since Price was drafted in 2007.
CC Sabathia has spent 2009 and 2010 with Joe Girardi at the helm and Dave Eiland as the pitching coach. While Sabathia did spend half of 2008 with the Milwaukee Brewers, where Ned Yost was replaced with 12 games left to play, He spent the 5 years previously under Eric Wedge with Carl Willis as the pitching coach.
Jered Weaver has always played under Mike Scioscia as manager for the Los Angeles Angels and he has pitched with Mike Butcher as his pitching coach since 2007.
Since Felix was brought up to Mariners on 2005, he's played for 5 different managers: Mike Hargrove, John McLaren, Jim Riggleman, Don Wakamatsu and Darren Brown and he's played for 5 different pitching coaches: Bryan Price, Rafael Chaves, Mel Stottlemyre, Rick Adair, Carl Willis, (ironically, Sabathia's pitching coach in Cleveland). It deserves mention, because shows the history of instability that Hernandez has pitched through his entire career and because this is the 3rd season out of the last 4 that Hernandez has dealt with major coaching changes around mid-season.

8. Another point on the pennant race argument and the extra stress that it could cause pitchers like Sabathia and Price: even though the Devil Rays and Yankees are warring with each other for the AL East Crown, they've essentially had a large lead over Boston for months now and it would take a major upset for the Red Sox to fight their way back in from 6.5 behind the Rays in the wild card. No other team in the league is realistically close and hasn't been for months. So, while the AL East title means more than the wild card, these teams have pretty much been in the post season picture for a while now despite which ends up at the top of their division.

9. This year saw a major milestone for Felix as recorded his 1000th strikeout. For any major league pitcher that's around long enough, this is an inevitable conclusion, but Felix did it as the 4th youngest player in baseball history. Comparatively, Sabathia did it exactly 2 months before he turned 27, Price is 25 and only has 286 career strikeouts, Weaver turns 28 and has 766, and Cliff Lee picked up #1000 on July 22nd of this year, about a month before Felix, at the age of 31.