Since Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum won Cy Young awards this week with modest victory totals, there has been much discussion about how baseball writers are finally moving into the 21st century and looking beyond the win column.
Although I'm all for patting baseball writers on the back -- since I am one, and I did vote for Greinke -- I think in the case of the NL Cy Young, my colleagues may have looked past victories, and still picked the wrong guy to make their point.
Let's start with the ol' FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching. FIP is a stat intended to quantify how well a pitcher performed based solely on the things in his control (strikeouts, walks and homers) without regard to the vagaries of the defense behind him.
Major League Baseball announced the winners of its prestigious awards this week; now, FanHouse is following suit. We voted on winners in five categories (MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, Draft Day Bargain, Draft Day Bust), the results of which are revealed below. Remember, this awards show deals strictly in fantasy baseball. I'll also throw in a few awards I'm personally doling out for performances that made the 2009 season what it was.
It's a baseball podcast. The math is easy, right? BaseCast. Let's rock.
The American League Cy Young Award winner, Zack Greinke, was announced Tuesday and the National League Cy Young winner will be announced Thursday, so what better time for the MLB FanHouse crew to discuss both pieces of hardware.
In this edition of BaseCast, Jeff Fletcher, Ed Price and I discuss the implications of Greinke capturing the award, both for the voting body and for the team he plays for, before trying to wrap our head around the intriguing NL race, which features three excellent pitchers (Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Tim Lincecum), but no clear favorite.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
The Cardinals increased their win total from 86 to 91 in 2009, and in so doing they won the National League Central going away. They had both the presumptive NL MVP (Albert Pujols) and two of the top candidates for the NL Cy Young (Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter) on their club.
Despite that very good season, there were promptly dumped out of the playoffs in three games by the Dodgers, and they suddenly find themselves facing an uncertain offseason with key free agents and the contract of a certain once-in-a-generation first baseman looming over everything. To say this offseason is important for the Cardinals would be an understatement.
ST. LOUIS -- Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said on Saturday afternoon that Chris Carpenter will start Game 4 for the Cardinals, if they win Game 3 today, which would be the first start of Carpenter's career on three days' rest.
La Russa said that he didn't announce the decision on Friday because he wanted to wait to see how Carpenter felt playing catch. Carpenter reported he was OK, so La Russa decided to the ball to his ace in the must-win game.
La Russa said that the Cardinals would not have made this decision if there was not an off day on Monday, because then he'd not only have to use Carpenter on three days rest for Game 4, but Adam Wainwright on three days rest for Game 5. With the off day, Wainwright would be fully rested for a possible Game 5.
It truly was one of the more magical endings to a baseball playoff game we've ever seen, a game that can't be described any better than a Hollywood ending in which the hero miraculously manages to fight off an entire army with one gun and six bullets to save the girl.
In the movies, we never get to see the loser's epilogue. The NLDS between the Dodgers and Cardinals leaves its Hollywood atmosphere and shifts to St. Louis this weekend, where we'll find out if the Cards can bounce back from a game in which both Matt Holliday and the entire roster took a collective line drive to the groin.
Playoff Pulse is our morning rundown of the night that was and the night that will be during the MLB postseason.
Looking Forward ...
Is it the desperation of potential elimination that makes teams more willing to push the envelope? Or more willingness to push ace pitchers? Or an extremely good batch of No. 1 starters and a weak bunch of No. 4s?
Whatever it is, two clubs in 0-2 Division Series holes appear ready to bring back their Game 1 starters on short rest in Game 4, should they get to that point. The Red Sox acknowledged as much before their Game 2 loss to the Angels.
Tuesday, FanHouse had the opportunity to discuss the MLB Playoffs with Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, who currently serves as a studio analyst for TBS. TBS will be broadcasting all four Division Series and also the NLCS again this season. Ernie Johnson is the studio host while Dennis Eckersley and David Wells join Ripken as studio analysts for these playoff games.
Of all the things Ripken discussed Tuesday, the most intriguing subject, not surprisingly, was one Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod is an oft-maligned regular season superstar, in that he's put up extremely gaudy regular season numbers throughout his career, yet has never played in a World Series and has pretty sub-par numbers in the playoffs overall -- especially of late.
If you play the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Game" with the Cardinals pitching staff, you quickly see just how these guys ended up with the finest rotation left standing in October.
Start with pitching coach Dave Duncan, a man whose pupils have won four Cy Young Awards. One of them is Chris Carpenter, who began his big-league career learning at the foot of seven-time Cy Young winner Roger Clemens in Toronto. Now you throw in John Smoltz, who has won one of his own and was a teammate of five other pitchers who have won the award and, well, you get the idea.
Suffice to say, if you are Adam Wainwright or Joel Pineiro and you work in this environment, you'd improve almost by osmosis.
In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down each of the playoff teams from a scouting perspective.
To put it lightly, it'd take a naïve team to believe that Games 1 and 2 against the Cardinals will be anything less than an all-out struggle. In Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter, the St. Louis Cardinals own arguably the best 1-2 punch in baseball. Odds are that these two are not going to be knocked out of a game early and will need to be matched zero for zero.
But, what's the best way to scratch out some production against these two? We'll touch more on that later, but let's not sugarcoat it -- Carpenter and Wainwright are who they are for a reason and beating them will take a patient, intelligent approach.
Since Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum won Cy Young awards this week with modest victory totals, there has been much discussion about how baseball writers are finally moving into the 21st century and looking beyond the win column.
It's a 
Footprints in the Snow
ST. LOUIS -- 
Playoff Pulse is our morning rundown of the night that was and the night that will be during the 
Tuesday, FanHouse had the opportunity to discuss the 
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