Adieu to Schoenfield

Believe it or not, there are days when I scan the sports pages and don't find anything that ticks me off. On such days, the Daily Bandwagon is my go-to column for SRAM material. But with David Schoenfield writing it the past couple of weeks, moronic comments in that normally fertile space have been harder to come by. True, SRAM did blast Schoenfield last week for twisting his ankle jumping off the Patriots bandwagon so fast, but in general common sense seems to prevail in his columns. Said sense will be tossed back out the window starting tomorrow, however, when Dan Shanoff returns.

Today Schoenfield does a quick summary of the NL Cy Young race, which he claims to be between Clemens and Johnson. The stats, provided by Schoenfield himself, break down thusly:

Roger Randy

W-L 18-4 16-14

ERA 2.98 2.60

IP 214.1 245.2

H 169 177

BB 79 44

SO 218 290

Clemens, of course, had greater run support; Johnson was 13-2 when Arizona scored more than 2 runs. Johnson's 8.10 hits+walks per nine innings was the best in the NL since Greg Maddux in 1995. Johnson also had 31 more innings pitched.

On the other hand, Clemens pitched in a pennant race; Houston won his last nine starts. The vote: Clemens wins. The Quickie vote: The Big Unit. He would have won 20+ playing with Houston.

(My apologies for the poor formatting on the table.) A solid analysis. Schoenfield as usual gives too much weight to the category over which the pitcher has the least control (W-L), but still makes the right call. Johnson is clearly better in all of the other categories.

Schoenfield also probably makes the right prediction on which way the real votes will fall. The journalists making the votes will of course make the same cockamamie arguments for Clemens that they do for the MVP race each year and favor the player on the playoff team over the player hanging out with the sad sacks. Plus they like the whole Clemens storyline thing.

Meanwhile, the ESPN panel of "experts" actually gives the Cy Young to Johnson, 4-2. Only Jim Caple (moron) and Tim Kurkjian (what?!) give it to Clemens. Kurkjian is one of my favorite analysts; I'd like to know his reasoning behind that call.