Posted by Bill Baer on Monday, October 19, 2009 at 2:03 pm

One of the current projects of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance is award balloting, done in a style similar to that of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Every “area” will have votes cast by its blogger representatives. From the Philadelphia region, myself and the crew at Fire Eric Bruntlett will be voting on all of the awards. Regions with more representatives will have the votes split up, with some voting for MVP, others for Cy Young, and so on. It’s a great and intriguing project, so make sure to stop by the BBA website for the final tallies.

Feel free to chime in with your thoughts whether you agree or disagree. On October 14, I picked the AL and NL Rookies of the Year. On the 11th, I detailed my choices for the AL and NL Managers of the Year. Today, I’ll explain my picks for the AL and NL Cy Young award winners. As usual, feel free to leave a comment and start a discussion on the subject.

American League

No surprises here, folks. You knew it in June and you know it now: the AL Cy Young winner is Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals.

In the last twenty years, only six pitchers have finished a season in which they made at least 25 starts with an ERA+ over 200. Greinke is one of those six. The other five: Pedro Martinez (1997, ‘99, 2001-03), Greg Maddux (1994-95), Roger Clemens (1990, ‘97, 2005), Kevin Brown (1996), and Rich Harden (2008).

Greinke threw over 229 innings across 33 starts, struck out 242 batters while walking only 51 (4.75-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio), and compiled a meager 1.07 WHIP and 2.12 ERA. FanGraphs values him at 9.4 Wins Above Replacement, 1.2 WAR ahead of his closest competitor Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers.

• Second Place: Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers
• Third Place: Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners

National League

Make it back-to-back Cy Young awards for Tim Lincecum. The last pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Young awards would be Timmy’s teammate Randy Johnson, then of the Arizona Diamondbacks circa 1999-2002 (he actually won four in a row). Who knew the San Francisco Giants would have such royalty in their starting rotation?

It seemed a daunting task to improve on what Lincecum did last season, but he did it. His ERA+ went from 167 to 173 and he walked 16 fewer batters than he did last season. Perfecting perfection? You betcha.

In terms of WAR, Lincecum led the way at 8.2 with Javier Vazquez lagging far behind at 6.6 — even more of a landslide than the AL Cy Young race.

• Second Place: Javier Vazquez, Atlanta Braves
• Third Place: Adam Wainwright, St. Louis Cardinals

It’s interesting to note that, of the six pitchers listed here, only two went to the post-season (Verlander and Wainwright). None of the six Rookie of the Year candidates I named went to the post-season, either. That just goes to show that you don’t necessarily have to have that one dominant or break-out player to reach the post-season.