Cy Young Award

We are just a few days away from the All-Star break for the 2011 MLB season.

We've already seen some spectacular performances in the first half from expected names and some newcomers alike.

Like last season, baseball has been largely dominated by incredible pitching performances. Pitchers are going deeper into games than they have in recent memory and leaving most hitters in the dust.

There have been a few exceptions however.

With that in mind, here are the best (and just for fun, the worst) in the AL and NL this season

In his last 10 starts Felix Hernandez has been nothing short of brilliant, giving up no earned runs in five of those outings and one earned run in four other games during that stretch.

He went eight innings in half of the starts, and if the Mariners didn't hit like the Bad News Bears, Hernandez would win the AL Cy Young award this year by a landslide.

In recent weeks a lot has been made about the American League Cy Young award and the debate has mostly surrounded CC Sabathia vs. Felix Hernandez. Last night the Yankees were blanked by Jon Lester and it was an amazing performance that should put him into that conversation as well.

First, let’s get some stats out of the way:

Even had CC Sabathia pitched well last night, who knows if it would've been enough to lock down a second Cy Young Award?

The groundswell for Felix Hernandez is building. The Mariners ace fired eight more brilliant innings in a 1-0 loss earlier Thursday, dropping him to 12-12 on the year.

Before I begin, I must state two things: I am a Yankees fan and I fully believe in utilizing advanced metrics to determine who deserves certain awards.

What exactly does that mean? That means I think the individual performance should far outweigh aspects of a player's profile that are affected by their team's performance.

The year 2010 has been the year of the pitcher in Major League Baseball. It is filled with no-hitters and perfect games, from very different pitchers all throughout the league. 

Last year, Zack Greinke surprised us all by having a 3 under ERA, and earning 15 wins even with low run support. 

This year, only two pitching candidates are veterans, and one is only 24 years old (guess who it is)!

This has certainly been a surprising and exciting season thus far, and this discussion gives us another reason to love baseball.

Fun fact: Who has the best winning percentage of any pitcher in baseball over the past five seasons?

Here's a hint. It's not C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Johan Santana, Josh Beckett or any of the other pitchers the East Coast writing establishment loves to go on endlessly about.

It's Jered Weaver at .663.

Weaver has clearly taken his game to another level in the absence of former Angels ace John Lackey, and has managed to single-handedly carry his team through a horrific stretch in the process.

Immediately after Roy Halladay tossed the 20th perfect game in MLB history, and an absolute gem at that—coming against a division rival in a hotly contested game, I logged on to different sports web sites to read about the reaction to such a momentous game.

Halladay's perfect game, aside from being only the second in the history of the Philadelphia Phillies, also comes as the second of the month of May—the first one being thrown by Dallas Braden, the pitcher that had mostly been known as the guy Alex Rodriguez disrespected.

When you think of top pitchers in the game, names like C.C. Sabathia, Tim Lincecum, Zack Greinke, Felix Hernandez, and Johan Santana come up.

Nowhere in the discussion does Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay come up...except with Phillie fans.

However, after what we've seen from Halladay in the first four games of the 2010 season, is it too early to give him the NL Cy Young Award?

Philadelphia fans would be happy for Major League Baseball to go ahead and do this, while others would be hesitant, especially San Francisco Giants and New York Mets fans.

Last year I predicted that Zack Greinke would win the American League Cy Young award, and I nailed that one.

I thought Cole Hamels would win the National League version of the award, and, well, that didn’t turn out quite like I expected.

The Cy Young Award is an honor given annually in baseball to the best pitchers in Major League Baseball, one each for the American League and National League.