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vote 4 yourselfs!!!!!

Josh Beckett 8-0 sub 3 era i would take him, randy johnson not having a bad year, Johan Santanas still good.

Hey Favre, the throwdown is "most dominating pitcher THIS year". Therefore every guy you mentioned is not even close. The only 2 pitchers whose names can be mentioned are Peavy and Haren and I gotta give the edge to Haren with his superior BAA.

Well, it's very close, but I know who I'd rather have on my team, and his name rhymes with Stevie :-)

Haren SO FAR is more dominating...numbers don't lie...put in the fact that Peavy pitches half his games in a huge park and pitches to inferior lineups...

Peavy will end up with better numbers though...

He may very well and certainly he has the track record that Haren hasn't yet built. But thus far this year? Haren's clearly been as strong if not stronger. And there's at least half a dozen other guys in the league who have been comparable.

LuckyLopes who are these half a dozen guys you speak of?

I'm not convinced... I need more stats.

Josh Beckett 8-0 sub 3 era i would take him...

Yeah, wins is more of a team stat...a horrible barometer to determine how great a pitcher is...

Example, Colon wins CY in 2005, even though Santana was 1st or 2nd in ERA, WHIP, BAAA, IP and Ks...Colon was 3rd in one category, 6th in another ,9th in another and out of the top 10 in 2 more...Colon had more wins, cause his team scored a BUNCH of runs, and he won the CY...The Twins that year were 2nd to last in scoring...in fact Santana was only 3rd in the voting...again, even though he finished 1st or 2nd in ERA, WHIP, BAAA, IP and Ks...Rivera took 2nd...you know, a Yankee...not saying Rivera didn't dserve 2nd, he did, but he should have been 2nd to Santana, not Colon...no one should have gotten more votes than Santana that year...

Another example...Wang last year...he took 2nd in the CY voting last year and his numbers, other than IP and Wins, were pedestrian at best...Halladay beat him in every category but wins, but the Yanks scored a lot for him, so he got 19 wins and he took 2nd...that and he's a Yankee, so any chance they get...

Jim L. you are right my friend. I say the same thing about wins for a pitcher all the time but people just can't seem to grasp the concept.

Jim, you are right about Ws. On the other hand Beckett's also putting up a 2.95 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, and .214 BAA. He's doing it in a hitter's ballpark in the AL East. So he also deserves mention. He might not be as impressive as Peavy has been but he has been close.

Wins are overrated, but not worthless. And an 8-0 start is impressive, no doubt. So in this case the W total should probably be a little plus to his already exceptional numbers. The Colon and Wang examples you gave are very true but this is a case where the Ws actually do match up to the stats (or at least come close).

BTW, good timing on this email, waiting until after Peavy's performance last night raising his ERA from 1.68 to 1.97

I wasn't dogging Beckett...I am VERY impressed with him this year, but when someone puts the record in there as their main reason, I throw the flag :-)

Beckett is doing awesome...all props to him...just not the most dominate, but top 10 for sure...

yeah, whenever anyone uses wins as a cause, I point to Pettitte's 21 wins in 2003, with an ERA of 4.03 or his 19 wins in 2000, with an ERA of 4.35 :-)

Someone read this week's Sports Illustrated. haha

'Someone read this week's Sports Illustrated. haha'

Why do you say that?

I know I haven't read a Sports Illustrated in, like, 6 years...

Oh sorry, because this week's SI had a big article on how dominant Jake Peavy was. It was titled "Country and Western." Pretty good actually.

what about chris young? but ya haren is better than peavy and he's on my fantasy team

Arrgh. Computer screw up zapped my arguement. My apologizes.

My point is that Haren has been the superior pitcher to this point of the season. You contended that the numbers show Peavy to be and they don't.

If the question is what pitcher in baseball I'd take for Game 7 of the World Series is neither of them. Its Johan Santana or Roy Oswalt or Roy Halladay. 2 months of their career vs Peavy's notwithstanding. But that wasn't the arguement, was it? The arguement was that Jake Peavy is the most dominating pitcher this year. According to the numbers, Haren has been better.

HardAbs, Sorry I missed your question earlier. Half dozen was a loose number but I can at least come close to it.

2 of them have already been named in Josh Beckett and Chris Young. Young's nearly matched Peavy's numbers. Given that they ptch for the same team Peavy's slightly better numbers give him the clear edge but he's certainly right there. Beckett's numbers have already been posted. Once you consider the AL difference they become more impressive next to Peavy. As I said earlier, I'd still probably give the nod to Peavy but its close.

I'll add at least these three to the list.

John Lackey: 2.60 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, .241 BAA in the AL.
Rich Hill: 2.71 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, .189 BAA in Wrigley.
Oliver Perez: 2.80 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, .196 BAA although he pitches in almost as much of a pitcher's ballpark as Peavy.

I'd still probably give Peavy the nod over all of them besides Haren, but they all have dominated this season in similar ways to Peavy and Haren. Although Peavy has the advantage of K numbers on all of them.