After watching Sabathia implode twice in the postseason, you can't think of him as the top pitcher in the American League, but, without the benefit of playoff hindsight, he garnered 19 first-place votes and a total of 119 points. Beckett was second with 8 first-place votes and a total of 86 points.
Two writers - Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News and Jorge Ortiz of USA Today - left Beckett off their three-man ballot. Each of them voted Sabathia first, Cleveland teammate Fausto Carmona second, and Angels pitcher John Lackey third. One writer, Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas Morning News, left Sabathia off his ballot, voting Beckett first, Carmona second, and Minnesota's Johan Santana third.
The gap between Sabathia and Beckett was mildly surprising, but in speaking with some of the 28 voters, since the two pitchers' ERAs were so similar (3.27 for Beckett and 3.21 for Sabathia), there were two major factors that tipped the scales in the Cleveland ace's favor: innings pitched and quality starts.
Sabathia pitched 241 innings to Beckett's 200 2/3, and had 25 quality starts (at least six innings, three runs or fewer) to Beckett's 20. Both Carmona (26) and Lackey (24) had more quality starts than Beckett. In fact, 11 other AL pitchers did.
"I know there are people up there wanting to know why the guy in New York left Beckett off the ballot," said Feinsand. "The numbers that jumped out at me with Sabathia was his innings pitched, and the quality starts. He beat Santana three times in a year, and his ERA was actually a little lower than Beckett's."
You can be sure Red Sox Nation wants no part of this quality start nonsense. They know they watched the best pitcher in baseball this season. Beckett was the first 20-game winner in two years, reinventing himself after a tepid 2006 in which he went 16-11 with a 5.01 ERA, 74 walks, and 36 home runs surrendered. Beckett pared that to 40 walks and 17 home runs this season.
He was the indisputable stopper on a team that threatened to stumble to the finish line. Beckett was 4-1 with a 3.18 ERA in September. He pitched for a team that moved into first place on April 18 and stayed there for the remainder of the season.
