Ken Davidoff 2011 NL Cy Young ballot, Halladay #1

11/17/11, "Clayton Kershaw is your National League Cy Young Award winner. Congratulations to him. I wish I had time to write an obnoxiously long breakdown of my ballot, but it's a travel day for me. So here is my ballot, followed by some general thoughts:

• 1. Roy Halladay, Philadelphia
• 2. Cliff Lee, Philadelphia
• 3. Kershaw
• 4. Cole Hamels, Philadelphia
• 5. Ian Kennedy, Arizona

• OK, now here come some general thoughts:

1. As I type this, I have no idea how many wins each pitcher recorded, although I know that Kershaw won the old-fashioned "Pitching triple crown." So wins are inconsequential for the purpose of my ballot. Pitcher wins are inconsequential in life, if you think about it.

• 2. Why Halladay first?

Both Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs have him first in Wins Above Replacement. Because his 6.29 strikeouts-to-walks ratio led the National League. Why Lee second? Because he was pretty close to Kershaw in every major category, and then I looked at their respective splits. It's hard to ignore that Kershaw feasted on the carcass of the Giants, the NL's worst offensive team of 2011. Kershaw pitched 42 innings over six starts against the Giants; that's 18 percent of his workload. He threw another 25 1/3 innings, over three starts, against the awful Padres, second-worst in the NL. He tallied a 1.07 ERA against San Francisco and 1.78 against San Diego. On one hand, Kershaw's schedule isn't his fault; he didn't create the NL West to be a pitcher's paradise. On the other hand, I don't think we should view these numbers in a vacuum. The more context, the better.

• 3. I placed Hamels over Kennedy because of a superior strikeouts-to-walks ratio.

Any other questions/concerns, I'm happy to answer them....

• --As Fred Wilpon departed, a reporter asked him whether it was important for the Mets to re-sign Jose Reyes. Responded Wilpon: "What kind of question is that"? Then he left.

And now I'm leaving. Thanks for reading this week. Tune in tomorrow morning for the first Comment Winter Olympics of the season."

• 11/17/11, "MY NL Cy Young Ballot," Ken Davidoff, Newsday

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