Bedard: AL CY Young?

Amy Young has a "fluff" piece on Bedard, over at ESPN.  

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2978076&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos1

You've got to love his attitude towards the media.  Honestly, if a bunch of reporters showed up at my office every day at 5pm asking me questions, I'd tell them to fuck off, too.

Bedard has been getting quite a bit of love on BBTN regarding his Cy Young chances.  Essentially, it looks like it's going to come down to a two-man race, between Bedard and Beckett.  Beckett has more wins (a meaningless statistic), and Bedard has more Ks.  In fact, let's just do ourselves a comparison:

            W  L  ERA  WHIP  Ks  BBs H/9 BB/9 SO/9
Bedard   12 4  2.98 1.077 207 52   7.1 2.4  10.5
Beckett  15 5  3.24 1.101 148 30   9.0 1.4  8.7

This isn't even close, really.  Despite the fact that Bedard has walked more, his WHIP is still lower.  His ERA is lower.  And, even though Bedard pitchers in a hitters park, he still blows Beckett away with Park-Adjusted ERA:

        Park-Adjusted ERA
Bedard  3.09
Beckett 3.36

Yet, on a recent BBTN segment, Peter Gammons reported that, despite all these numbers, despite the fact that Bedard seems to have, like, eight different pitches, when asked who they'd want to start game 7 of a WS, most of the league's GMs said Beckett.

I'm a huge fan of Beckett.  I really am.  I marked in 2003 like nobody's business (I went to college in Miami).  But this is 2007, and these numbers don't lie.  A better bullpen might mean that Bedards W-L record would be improved.  But since W-L is irrelevent, Bedard should be this year's Cy Young winner.

Since he plays for the Orioles, though....

Update [2007-8-18 15:15:22 by madhatternalice]:: I can't believe I didn't talk about Haren here. I made up for it in the comments, but I'm adding the pertinent info for both him and Johan Santana here:

        W L ERA WHIP Ks BBs H/9 BB/9 SO/9
Bedard 12 4 2.98 1.077 207 52 7.1 2.4 10.5
Beckett 15 5 3.24 1.101 148 30 9.0 1.4 8.7
Haren 13 4 2.54 1.125 138 46 8.2 2.0 6.8
Santana 12 9 3.02 1.048 174 39 7.1 1.7 8.9

Now, those are some nice pitchers. Santana has a better WHIP, but a higher ERA. He's also on pace for his lowest strikeout total since 2003. He also doesn't get a lot of run support (9 losses??) And while smart people don't give a lot of credence to wins/losses, the voters do.

How about Quality Starts? How often does a pitcher not blow up?
        Starts Quality Starts Percentage of QS
Bedard 26 20 76.9%
Beckett 23 16 69.6%
Haren 26 24 92.3%
Santana 25 19 76.0%

Haren, far and away, is the most consistent pitcher of the 4. But his higher WHIP shows that he's playing with fire.

Based on pure numbers, and all biases aside, it's a toss up between Haren and Bedard. But I guess that's why they play a full season. Beckett will be considered only because he's playing for a contender. Santana might be playing for a contender; I've maintained since the ASB that Detroit would slide, and Cleveland would take the division, and Minny would take the WC.