So I'm sure I've written about this before, but in 2005, just as in 2009, there were 28 votes cast for the AL Cy Young Award winner. 17 of the first-place votes went to this guy:

Guy number two, of course, was Johan Santana, and if you take a second to compare those two tables, you'll notice that guy #2 was better than guy #1 (Bartolo Colon) in ERA, complete games, shutouts, innings, hits, runs, earned runs, homers, strikeouts, ERA+, WHIP and K/BB ratio, and in most cases, a lot better. Colon had two fewer walks, but in nine fewer innings, meaning that Santana had a better walk rate, too. The advanced stats, predictably, were even more overwhelming. Santana had a 2.80 FIP and 7.4 WAR; Colon, 3.75 and 4.5.

Colon's only "advantage" was that Colon, who pitched for a much better team than Santana did, happened to end up as the pitcher of record when his team took a lead that his bullpen did not relinquish five more times than Santana did. Somehow his 21 "wins" managed to convince 17 people to ignore the fact that Johan Santana was clearly the best pitcher in the league and give Bartolo Colon the award specifically intended to go to the best pitcher in the league. (We won't even pretend to know what the eight who voted for Mo were thinking.)

Yesterday, on the other hand, Zack Greinke became the first starting pitcher in a non-strike year to win the AL Cy Young Award with fewer than 18 "wins" (he ended up with 16, just like Santana). A lot of people view this as a victory for common sense, the best pitcher winning the award over the ones with prettier "win" totals. And rightly so, I suppose. Except, I can't help wondering:

What if Don Wakamatsu had left David Aardsma in the game on May 14?

See, Felix Hernandez had a phenomenal year for the Mariners. He threw a bunch of innings (by today's standards), struck out a bunch, didn't walk too many. Had an outstanding 2.49 ERA mostly legitimized by a nice 3.09 FIP. In any other year since at least 2003, Felix would have had a very good argument for winning the AL Cy Young Award. The problem, of course, was that he didn't do any single thing nearly as well as 2009 Zack Greinke. Felix was great, but Greinke was much, and clearly, greater. Felix finished with a WAR of 6.9; Greinke, an incredible 9.4. The gap between them was essentially the same as the gap between 2005 Johan and Bartolo.

But Felix went 19-5.

And on May 14, Felix left the game after seven sterling innings and with his Mariners holding onto a 2-0 lead on the road against the Rangers. David Aardsma, who would soon emerge as a dominant closer, came on for the 8th and shut 'em down in order, throwing 13 pitches. Brandon Morrow then came out for the 9th, and could get only one out; a Hank Blalock home run, David Murphy double and Chris Davis homer, and just like that the home team was celebrating a 3-2 win.

Not that Wakamatsu made a bad move under the circumstances, but if he just gets a gut feeling and leaves Aardsma in the game, it's very, very likely that the Mariners escape with a win. Ultimately, then, to discard chaos theory and all that for the moment, one of Felix's no-decisions turns into a win, and Felix closes out the season 20-5 rather than 19-5.

I don't need to tell you that nothing meaningful has changed about Felix under these circumstances; he's exactly the same pitcher in this scenario as he was in real life. Even if you believe that pitchers have some sort of ability to inspire their guys to score runs for them or something, nothing like that could have happened here. Literally the only thing that's different in any way is that there's a 20 in the front of his stat sheet rather than a 19. It's just as clear as ever than Greinke was a much better pitcher in every way.

But do you think the voters would see it differently? Because I do. I think if Hernandez "wins" 20, he also "wins" the Cy Young. I think that, as impressive as it is that 25 of the 28 voters picked the right guy despite the W/L records, it's entirely possible that the thing would've been flipped on its head had David Aardsma just stayed in that game (or had any number of things outside of Felix's control given him the one extra "win" at some point in the season). I believe the BBWAA is getting better, but slowly. I don't believe they've gone from completely clueless in 2005 to suddenly enlightened in 2009. Greinke's year was just too great to ignore...but had someone reached that inexplicably magic number 20, it suddenly would've become immeasurably more ignorable in the minds of a large number of those 28 voters.

I don't know, maybe I'm just overly cynical, or maybe I'm just still bitter about the Santana snub. What do you think?