2010 was the best season for pitchers in DTBL history. The countless number of dominating pitching performances was unprecedented. A man responsible for two of the season’s best moments easily won the 2010 DTBL Cy Young Award. That pitcher is Jackalope right-hander Roy Halladay.
Halladay got his first Phillies and National League season off to a bang with a bunch of impressive starts in the first two months, capped off by throwing the 20th perfect game in MLB history in late May. He wasn’t done with historic outings though. In October, he threw just the second no-hitter in post-season history against Cincinnati Reds in the NLDS. Of course, that performance did not count towards his DTBL accomplishments, but was a nice footnote to an incredible season.
The Jackalope had the best pitching staff in the league and arguably one of the top starting rotations in DTBL history. However, there was no question who the ace of the staff was. Halladay tied for the league lead in wins with 21. His 2.44 ERA and 1.041 WHIP were both the third lowest among qualified pitchers. He finished fifth in strike outs with 219. The win and strike out totals were career bests.
Halladay has had a remarkably consistent career with the Jackalope. This was the third time he reached the 20 win plateau and he is almost always near the top of the league in ERA and WHIP as well. The Jackalope stole him in the fourth round of the 2002 draft and have reaped the rewards ever since. Halladay has 146 wins for the Jackalope with a career ERA barely over 3.00. Only one pitcher on a DTBL roster this season has more DTBL career wins (Andy Pettitte). He ranks in the league’s all-time top 10 in wins, ERA and WHIP. Although he has been a dominating force in the league for nearly a decade, this is his first DTBL Cy Young Award. He finished third in the voting in both 2003 and 2008.
As stated up front, this was a truly remarkable year for pitchers. Although Halladay ran away with the award, the rest of the voting showed just how many deserving candidates there were for the award. Halladay received nine of the ten first place votes for a total of 97 points. 12 other pitchers received top five votes. Usually disbursement like that is saved for the other two awards more so than Cy Young. Cougars pitcher Adam Wainwright finished second, receiving the other first place vote and five seconds for 54 points. Wainwright also won 20 games, and even had a slightly lower ERA than Halladay. Felix Hernandez was a test case in how people value wins. Arguably, he had the most impressive stats of any pitcher if you ignore that he only had 13 wins. He led the league in ERA and finished second in strike outs. His 30 points ranked him third in the award voting, but four people didn’t put him on their ballot. Next came Gators lefty C.C. Sabathia with 23 points. Sabathia tied Halladay for the league lead with 21 wins. Coming in fifth with 20 points was another Gators pitcher, Ubaldo Jimenez. Early in the season, it appeared he would run away with this award. He cooled off in the second half, but still finished with what would be Cy Young worthy numbers most years. Even outside of the top five were a couple of pitchers who could have won in other years, like David Price and strike out champion Jered Weaver. Not to mention a bunch of closers who received some token votes.
Click here to view the full voting results.
So far, Carlos Gonzalez and Roy Halladay have cruised to victories in the first two awards that have been named. I can assure you though that the voting for Most Valuable Player was much, much closer. Stay tuned for that tomorrow evening.