Cliff Lee is, well Cliff Lee.  One of the best left-handed pitchers in baseball.  His line for the season is ridiculously good:

3.00 ERA, 1.018 WHIP, 57 IP, 54 K’s, 10 BB  (baseball-reference)

A line like that should have at least 5, 6 or 7 wins to his name.

But this is Cliff Lee pitching for the Phillies, which means he’s actually 0-2.  It seems that every year, the Phillies offense picks a pitcher and refuses to give them run support.  Cliff Lee won (or lost) the drawing this year.   Though Roy Halladay is right there with him.

The only real blight on his record (other than the win-loss record) is his penchant for the long ball.  He tends to give up 1 a start and that’s where most of his earned runs have come from.

Last night was no exception.  Cliff Lee gave up 3 runs in 7 innings, including a 2-run shot to Lucas Duda.  The Phillies offense were up to it’s usual games with Cliff Lee.  They scored one run during those 7 innings.

It’s usual because up to that point, they have only scored 13 runs all year while Cliff Lee was pitching.

» Continue reading “Cliff Lee: Win Cy Young Without Winning A Game”

Almost every contract has some incentives written with them.  For example, it is a good bet that the Phillies will be paying Roy Halladay additional money when he is named to the All-Star squad.  There is a chance that they might be paying Halladay, Cliff Lee or Cole Hamels for winning a Cy Young award.

I like learning what incentives players have and, lucky for me, Todd Zolecki is really good at posting contract information.  Sometimes, however, incentives are written into the contracts that just makes me laugh.  Zolecki posted this about Kyle Kendrick’s latest contract:

Kyle Kendrick. $3,585,000. Plus: $25,000 for All Star; $50,000 for World Series MVP; $25,000 for League Championship Series MVP; $50,000 for Cy Young or Rolaids ($25,000-2nd; $15,000-3rd). The ZoZone

Yeah, the Phillies should not be worried about making sure this money is available.  They are in no danger of having to pay KK anything above his contracted amount.

You can’t turn on MLB Network or ESPN right now without people discussing the MVP races going on as baseball heads into the final weeks.  However, as intense the National League MVP race is, with many viable candidates, it’s the American League that is causing the most debate.

AP

This lead me to ask ladies of Aerys Sports 3 very simple questions:

1) What makes a player an MVP?

Cheryl Norman, writer for SouthSide Hit Girl (White Sox):  This one always causes a bit of internal debate. Are you looking at the best player or are you looking at the player who means the most to a particular team. Then on top of that, there is the question of whether a player who means a ton and is the best player on a bad team worthy of consideration. I think i would like to see the award go to the player who, that without his contributions, his team is a completely different team.In other words, if you took that player off that team, that team might potentially have no relevance because that player’s contributions are so outstanding that you notice he is missing. If I use that criterion, then a lot of the “best” players in the game might not qualify because his team would still win and do quite fine without him being there.

Terri, writer for Tales from the JuiceBox (Astros): I think an MVP is the player without whom the team doesn’t work or succeed. For a whole league, it’s that player, but on a serious contender team. Yep, contender. If you’re the best player on my Houston Astros this year, sorry, but them’s the breaks.

Kristine, writer for The Green Room (NY Jets): What Terri said.