Roger "The Rocket" Clemens won his record seventh Cy Young award. Congrats to the old man!

I was hoping this would be the year for Jason Schmidt in San Francisco, who came in fourth. But I guess you can't beat Clemens' numbers, even though he fell short of his goal of getting the Astros' to the World Series.

Randy Johnson came in second, no surprise there. Wonder how long he'll stick it out with the Diamondbacks?

I was hoping for Jason Schmidt myself, but Clemens numbers were undeniable: 18-4, 2.98 ERA and 218 strikeouts.

Jason Schmidt seemed to fall off as the season progressed & Clemens just got stronger & stronger. Without him, there was no weay the Astros would have made it to the NLCS--especially with the hits the rest of their pitching staff took.

~Adam

Clemens got a lot of sentimental votes because 1) he's old, 2) he's retired, 3) he's such a sweetheart of a guy, 4) he lost only 4 games in 33 starts, and 4) this could have been his only chance to win a NL Cy to go with all his AL Cy's. I had Schmidt pegged at third after Johnson.

I'm predicting a unanimous decision for Johan Santana in the AL Cy voting.

Rocket is an amazing athlete, and an intense competitor. Congrats to him - he deserves all the credit in the world.

I was looking for the " " after that statement but it was nowhere to be found. :confused: "Clemens" and "sweetheart" are two words I've never seen in the same sentence without some irony or sarcasm.

I don't think Santana will be unanimous because Schilling will probably get a few first place votes, but I hope you are right.

C'mon, George, you know me better than that, how I loves me my sarcasmisms - and 'specially since I slipped that comment in there mainly to get a reaction from you. Hee! wink

I guess I should have put a few after "he's retired," too. wink

Sorry Seph, I had just gotten home from a 14 hour shift at work and didn't even notice who had written it. Now rereading your initial post and realizing it was our resident Mocking Montrealan, I can't get enough paper towels to wipe up the sarcasm oozing onto my computer desk!

I don't think that stuff oozing is sarcasm. eek! wink

Congrats on the Rocket's 7th Cy Young! The guy deserves it.

Okay, guys, I love The Rocket. Gotta admit it, there's something compelling about him. His son Kody is f**king hot, if you haven't checked him out. But...any day (any night)...I'll take The Rocket in bed over anything.

Did you see the cover of Sports Ill. last year when Pettitte and Clemens came to the Astros? There's gotta be something more between Andy Pettitte and The Rocket's friendship. Just something to feed your hungry fantasies...

D.

[ December 13, 2005, 01:45 PM: Message edited by: D. Fabi ]

Kody is eight years old -- cute maybe, but "hot"? You're probably thinking of his brother Koby, who just signed on to play third base for the UT Longhorns.

Rocket will be back in 2005, at a record salary, no less. Once again he is the highest-paid pitcher in baseball.

Rocket gets the big bucks to stick around

Clemens or no Clemens, Astros in a fix

Clemens asked for $23 million in arbitration to the Astros offer of $13.5 million... and they compromised on $18 million, which makes him, at 42, the highest-paid pitcher and tied as the 4th highest-paid player after A-Rod ($25 mil.), Manny ($20 mil.), and Jeter ($18.9 mil.). Roger, Sammy and Barry all make $18 mil.

One wonders about Houston's thinking. They lost Beltran, lost Kent, Bags and Biggio are in the twighlight of their careers. I think their window of opportunity may have passed.

[ January 22, 2005, 08:56 AM: Message edited by: canmark ]

Houston's thinking is, they need Clemens to sell tickets. Similar to how the Mets' overpaying for Beltran and Pedro is related to their new cable sports channel.

On the face of it, though, I can't complain about the money. He won the Cy Young award. He deserves the money. The problem is, if he's not up to par in 2005 and wants to come back after that (which seems possible because his oldest son apparently wants to pitch against him in a game) how much of a pay cut will he accept? That's the problem with sports and their big-money/long-term contracts.

I suppose. But speaking from experience, if a team is on its way down, paying big bucks for a guy who's only going to play one in every five games is not necessarily going to bring in crowds. Roger won a Cy Young with Toronto, but the fans were just not showing up because the team was going down.

I heard this week on PTI and Around the Horn that the Astros draw an additional 3000 tickets per game when Clemens pitches. So I'm not sure he deserves quite that amount of money. But apparently the Astros think he does. But they probably should have made Beltran more of a priority.

If the Astros are drawing 3,000 extra for each Clemens start, they're taking a dive into the red financially. Here's the math: 3000 tickets x 20 game starts in Houston (his contract has him pitch more at home) x $20 avg ticket price = $1,200,000. Even with consessions doubling that amount, it's no where near what he's getting paid. There has to be some additonal benefit they're getting (TV contract, merchandising) that we don't know about to make this even a break even deal.

It wasn't for lack of effort by McLane

it's more about the season ticket sales than the individual game ticket sales. it might end up being a decent move for drayton. not to mention it could help local tv ratings....if the ratings go down, the revenue doesn't go up next time the deals are negotiated...

Current espn.com poll: With Roger Clemens returning to pitch one more season, who is the favorite in the NL Central?

Results so far (114,177 votes cast):

Chicago Cubs - 28%
Houston Astros - 14%
St. Louis Cardinals - 58%

The Cards are winning - thanks to the acquisition of super hot stud, Mark Mulder.
Boy, I'm gonna miss seeing him on the the mound. frown

I can't believe no one else has said that Clemens didn't deserve this award. For the second time he was awarded the Cy Young when someone else clearly had a better year.

Look at Randy Johnson's year and stats. In 245.2 Innings pitched Johnson had the second best ERA (NL) at 2.60 and led the league in Batting Average Against at .197. He lead all of MLB with 290 strikeouts and won 16 games. All while playing for the 2003 Diamondbacks, which lost 111 games! Their total runs scored? 615. And oh yeah, he pitched a perfect game to boot.

Compare to Clemens (who wasn't any slouch): While pitching 214.5 innings (8th place), he posted the second most wins at 18. The fifth best ERA(2.98), fourth most in batting average against (.217) and fifth most strikeouts(218). While playing for the playoff bound Houston Astros. Record: 92-70. The team total runs scored? 803.

Randy Johnson (who I'm no fan of, by the way) beat Clemens in every stat except for wins and losses. A pitcher cannot control how his team bats while he sits on the bench. Johnson pitched so much better than Clemens I cannot believe that the Rocket accepted the award with a straight face. What a joke.

Yet in 1972 Steve Carlton pitched for a Phillies team that won 57 games. He managed to win 27 of them.

This may be true. However this was also a different era and a different game back then.

Carlton pitched over 346 innings that year while starting 41 games. He also pitched 30 complete games! Something unheard of back then.

His ERA also wasn't to shabby. He only allowed 1.97 runs per nine innings. In total he allowed 84 runs for the whole year. So 30 of those times he pitched he went the whole game, holding on to make sure his team might bat in two runs at least.

You don't see that anymore. At all. Carlton and Johnson or Clemens, for that matter, cannot be compared in that manner.

whoops, to correct myself--not unheard of back then, considering eight other players that year pitched at least 20 complete games.

I meant pitching 30 complete games would be unheard of nowadays. Livan Hernandez led the league with 9 complete games in 04.