Sportsfrog.com

1. Tim Lincecum, SP, SFN: 15-7, 225.3 IP, 2.48 ERA, 28.8% SO%, 3.5 SO/FP
2. Adam Wainwright, SP, SLN: 19-8, 233.0 IP, 2.63 ERA, 21.9% SO%, 3.1 SO/FP
3. Chris Carpenter, SP, SLN: 17-4, 192.7 IP, 2.24 ERA, 19.2% SO%, 3.2 SO/FP
4. Javier Vazquez, SP, ATL: 15-10, 219.3 IP, 2.87 ERA, 27.2% SO%, 5.0 SO/FP
5. Dan Haren, SP, ARI: 14-10, 229.3 IP, 3.14 ERA, 24.5% SO%, 5.3 SO/FP
6. Matt Cain, SP, SFN: 14-8, 217.7 IP, 2.89 ERA, 19.3% SO%, 2.3 SO/FP
7. Jair Jurrjens, SP, ATL: 14-10, 215.0 IP, 2.60 ERA, 17.2% SO%, 1.9 SO/FP
8. Wandy Rodriguez, SP, HOU: 14-12, 205.7 IP, 3.02 ERA, 22.7% SO%, 2.8 SO/FP
9. Josh Johnson, SP, FLO: 15-5, 209.0 IP, 3.23 ERA, 22.3% SO%, 3.0 SO/FP
10. Ubaldo Jimenez, SP, COL: 15-12, 218.0 IP, 3.47 ERA, 21.7% SO%, 2.1 SO/FP

For the most part, the AL voters got it right. I don’t understand the logic of filling out a ballot where you award 1st and 2nd to the guys with top ERAs but then 3rd to a wins driven candidate when there’s still one more guy with a great ERA. Still, they got 1-2 correct and didn’t have any ridiculous additions to the final tally so I won’t complain much. Just like the American League, the National League falls into distinct tiers where the top tier should get all of the 1st and 2nd place votes and the next tier should fill out the rest of the ballot (the AL’s 2nd tier went three deep, the NL only goes two).

Up until last night, I was thinking this is Tim Lincecum’s award and anyone else would be a mistake. I’ve softened that stance since really looking into the numbers. It’s not a simple valuation decision here like in the AL; using runs saved against replacement, Lincecum, Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter are all within a single run of each other for the season. (For comparison’s sake, Greinke was a full 10 runs better than both Hernandez and Halladay.) So while it’s not the no-brainer the other three major awards are, I give the nod to Lincecum after factoring in peripherals: He once again led the league in strikeouts, finished runner-up in ERA and third in innings pitched. (Thankfully Lincecum’s pot arrest took place after the ballots were submitted; the only thing that would annoy me more than voters valuing the wrong statistics would be voters choosing morality over statistics. That said, expect atleast one voter to disavow his selection on the basis of trumped-up moral outrage sometime today or tomorrow and for that (non-)story to carry ESPN into college football this weekend.)

Wainwright versus Carpenter is a really tough call. Again using my baseline for runs saved over replacement, they’re within only 0.04 runs of each other but arrived there via very different means while pitching for the same team. Wainwright threw 40 more innings than Carpenter (the equivalent of almost 4.5 full games) but also allowed 26 more runs. An argument for either one is legitimate; it’s safe to assume that Carpenter wouldn’t have pitched to an ERA of nearly 6.00 had he matched Wainwright’s innings but, on the flipside, he didn’t match Wainwright’s innings meaning a lesser pitcher had to make up the difference. In the end, I went with Wainwright and I’m not proud to admit that I may not have been able to get past Carpenter’s failure to reach the magical 200 innings mark. Atleast it isn’t based on wins, right? (Of course, had Carpenter pitched 200 innings he would have had more RSOR than Wainwright and thus won the statistical battle so I can somewhat justify my innings volume complaint. Somewhat.)

I could go on for hours about just how underrated Javier Vazquez is. He followed up a 2008 season where he ranked 9th in innings and 4th in strikeouts in the American League with a 2009 season ranking 5th in innings, 6th in ERA and 2nd in strikeouts in the National League. In doing so, he walked/hit only 48 batters all season for a SO/FP of 5.0, a marked topped by only two other 200+ inning pitchers (Halladay and Haren). His combination of dominating stuff, impeccable control and durability (10 straight seasons of atleast 198 innings pitched) should merit discussion along side the game’s top starters but instead he’s either ignored (just one All-Star Game) or derided for one terrible half season in New York. One year after being dealt for prospects, Vazquez is again the subject of trade rumors but Atlanta would be wise to retain him; trading an undervalued asset rarely works out in a team’s favor and a near guarantee of 200 above average innings is tough to replace.

Dan Haren matches Javier Vazquez’s ability to combine high strikeout totals with low walk totals while consistently pitching every fifth day but does a much better job with runners on base. As such, he just completed his second season in Arizona, not at all a pitcher friendly home park, with an ERA again under 3.35. Signed for the next three years at just under $34MM (plus a club option / buyout), Haren is among the best cost certain values in all of baseball.

Matt Cain’s season was similar to Justin Verlander in that he finally fulfilled the expectations he’d carried since reaching the majors, although he did so without the same upper echelon peripherals. In fact, his SO/FP/GB percentages almost perfectly match Joe Blanton, although Cain’s stuff is certainly much better. He is yet another pitcher whose path to success may become more clear as Hit f/x data is more readily available.

Jair Jurrjens : NL :: Jon Danks : AL … I have no real analysis here. Nothing about his statline indicates he should be improving on a strong rookie year ERA but improve he did, by a full run per game down to 2.60. I’m still not convinced he’s going to be a long-term #1/#2; a pitcher with merely average peripherals, a low HR rate despite no heavy GB tendencies and a relatively high unearned run rate is probably looking at some future regression. Of course, its worth noting I would have said that same thing last year, too.

If your first impression of Wandy Rodriguez was to watch him throw a single inning, completely free of context, you’d assume he was a top back-end lefty (a half-sized Mike Gonzalez perhaps). A small, somewhat slight pitcher with a strange motion and deceptive fastball, he doesn’t look like the type who could hold up throwing 200 innings per season but he did just that in 2009. In some ways, Rodriguez is the anti-Jon Garland as Garland is a guy who looks like an ace standing on the mound but doesn’t have the stuff or results to match. Rodriguez will likely always be a bit overlooked but what he did this year wasn’t a statistical fluke (he ranked 7th in the NL among pitchers with 180+ innings in SO%, 10th in SO/FP). If he simply maintains his current level in 2010, he’ll be right back on this list next year.

Josh Johnson emerged as the trendy new, nationally noticed pitcher of the 2009 season. Having missed most of 2007 and half of 2008 with elbow problems and subsequent Tommy John surgery, Johnson hit the 200 IP mark for the first time at any professional level last year during his age 25 season. A legitimate #1 starter with a huge fastball, his future success is dependent only on his ability to stay on the field. Florida will face a tough decision on whether to mitigate their risk by cashing Johnson in for a massive bounty of prospects or hold on and hope he can lead them to a playoff berth or two before reaching free agency after the 2011 season. Behind Felix Hernandez, there isn’t another reasonably available pitcher I’d rank higher as a trade target.

There were several potential candidates for the #10 spot but Ubaldo Jimenez gets degree of difficulty points for pitching in Colorado and thus the nod. Somewhat reminiscent of A.J. Burnett, when Jimenez is good, he looks absolutely unbeatable. When he loses his command, he looks like just another big but unharnessed arm. Only 26 going into 2010, Jimenez’s career can go any of a number of ways. In a worst case situation, his command gets no better and starts to cost him strikeouts making him more suited for high leverage bullpen work. If he pitches more or less as he did in 2009, he’ll be a useful but frustrating #2 for the foreseeable future. However, if Jimenez can just shave a few percentage points off his free pass rate while maintaining his strikeout and ground ball tendencies, he’ll be a perennial mid-to-upper half finisher on this list.

Next week, the MVP ballots …