Congratulations to Tim Lincecum for winning his second consecutive NL Cy Young award.  It’s nice to see that the voters looked beyond uncontrollable stats such as wins in deciding the top pitcher of the National League.  You have to feel for the Cardinal’s Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright.  The voters overlooked the fact that they had more wins and were on a playoff team. Rather they focused on statistics that the pitcher had more control over such as FIP and VORP.  FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching and it covers the statistics that a pitcher is responsible for such as walks, strikeouts, hit batters and home runs.  VORP is the Value Over Replacement Player.  VORP measures the value that the players provides over a replacement or backup player.

Like I did with the Zack Greinke when he won the AL Cy Young Award last week, I want to analyze the salaries of the past 4 winners of the NL Cy Young.

Year	Player, Team	Bonus	Salary when winning C.Y.	Salary 1 year later	Salary 2 years later	% of salary increase
2009	Tim Lincecum, Giants	$0	$650,000	n/a	n/a	year-to-year contract
2008	Tim Lincecum, Giants	$0	$405,000	$650,000	n/a	60% from 08-09
2007	Jake Peavy, Padres	$100,000	$2.5 million	$4.75 million	$6 million	140% from 07-09
2006	Brandon Webb, D-Backs	$0	$2.5 million	$4.5 million	$5.5 million	120% from 06-08

The American League over the last 4 years had 4 different pitchers that were more established in the league (ie. they had proven their success early on and their agents had negotiated a high contract before they won the award).  Cliff Lee would be the exception since he was paid $3.75 million during Cy Young year in 2007, but he was signed to a long-term deal that was back loaded in salary.

The National League has 3 pitchers over the last 4 years that are in the early parts of their career.  Lincecum is negotiating year-to-year knowing that he’s arbitration eligible.  He should expect a nice raise for the 2010 season with at least a $1-2 million base salary which he’ll sign before Spring Training 2010.  Jake Peavy and Brandon Webb had similar contracts when they won their awards and a similar pay raise over the following 2 years.  Peavy is now reaping his rewards with the 3 year $52 million contract that is good through 2012.  Webb recently had his 2010 team option exercised for $8.5 million despite his injury plagued 2009 season.  He’ll have to perform well in 2010 to expect a long-term deal similar to Peavy’s current contract.

The Giant’s have a pitching bargain with Lincecum.  He’s easily worth $20 million per season.  They need to milk it and make use of it before his discount expires after the 2012 season.  You can easily predict that Lincecum will be the most sought after pitcher then with the Yankees and the Red Sox taking dump trucks full of cash and dropping it off at his door when he’s a free agent.