Now 2005 was not an exceptionally good year for the voters. Based on WPA Santana was 16-9 while Colon was 14-9, through in the SO and ERA and there is no reason for Santana to not win the award.

The win statistic as it is used today is pretty awful. If I played fantasy baseball I’d lobby for quality starts to be used instead of wins.

If anything, the Indians bullpen HURTS Lee, as they are less likely to strand runners that Lee leaves on base, and Wedge is MORE likely to leave Lee in even if Lee is tired, thereby hurting his numbers.

It might be another case if we were comparing the exact same run prevention spread across different amounts of innings (such as CC Sabathia vs Josh Beckett last year). But Lee has been better at preventing runs, and as such I think he deserves the nod over Halladay.

Plus, he has so many more wins :).

I don’t find your argument at all compelling against using an average bullpen’s replacement of Lee’s innings v. the Indians bullpen’s replacement of Lee’s innings. If you’re not going to isolate Lee from his teammates in evaluating Lee, then Halladay deserves the same failure to isolate, which you haven’t done.

The manager’s decision to continue riding a starter — particularly an ace — largely comes down to pitch count, not bullpen. No matter how awful your bullpen, when your ace is spent, your ace is spent. Halladay has thrown 14.46 pitches per inning vs. 15.02 per inning for Lee. Why? In large part because Toronto’s defense (8th in DER) ends innings faster than Cleveland’s defense (21st).

If you’re going to give Halladay a bump because he’s been of slightly less quality in 21.1 more IP of quantity, that’s not unfair. But you have to weed out some portion of those 21.1 IP to Toronto’s defense — NOT all to Halladay — as they ended innings more effectively, and thus slowed Halladay’s approach to his pitch count, and thus extended his IP.

1. Francisco Rodriguez (154.4)
2. Cliff Lee (150.1)
3. Joe Saunders (124.8)
4. Jonathan Papelbon (124.2)
5. Roy Halladay (122.4)

The formula is ((5*IP/9)-ER) + (SO/12) + (SV*2.5) + Shutouts + ((W*6)-(L*2)) + A 12-point bonus awarded for leading your team to the division championship (pro-rated based on the current standings).

But then we’re making a judgment we can’t make on how many innings Lee would pitch in an ideal world, pitch to “his heart’s content”. I don’t think we can judge whether Lee goes back out for the 8th because Wedge needs him to or because that’s Lee’s optimal usage pattern, irrespective of the bullpen behind him. [How do we know what Lee's usage would be in a world where Lee pitches as many innings as he wants versus a world where he pitches as many innings as Wedge says so?]

That said, you could use Lee’s pitches/GS to help your point. From 2002-2007 Lee averaged 97 pitches/start while he’s averaging 106 this year. But this could just be a product of increased effectiveness.

Halladay made 24 starts (and one scoreless 2.1 inning relief appearance). Setting that aside, he “asked” his bullpen to pitch 36.1 innings.
w/ TOR bullpen: 76 RA
w/ avg bullpen: 81 RA
w/ CLE bullpen: 86 RA

Lee made 23 starts and averaged 7.03 IP/GS. If we give him one more start at his current IP and RA rates, he “asked” his bullpen to pitch 47.1 IP.
w/ TOR bullpen: 64 RA
w/ avg bullpen: 71 RA
w/ CLE bullpen: 76 RA

What does this all mean (besides I really like to procrastinate)? That in 24 starts, Halladay and Lee’s teams both give up 76 runs despite the difference in bullpen quality.

The context of his innings pitched can’t be removed from the bullpen that is actually coming in after him.

Penalizing Lee for the quality of his bullpen is just like penalizing Halladay’s teammates for not giving him the run support for 4 more wins.

For what it’s worth, the Toronto bullpen has been excellent this year — 3.01 RA/9. Using your equation, Cliff Lee + Toronto’s pen (7 RA in 20 IP) = 53 RA. This pushes Lee’s advantage to 11 runs over Halladay.

Using AL average bullpens (4.30 RA/9) for Lee we get 56 RA, eight runs better than Halladay.