Cliff Lee Climbs to Peak of Pitcher's Mound-ain, Receives A.L. Cy Young Award

When baseball writers ascended to the top of Mount Selig, slowly brought their collective hands to their mouths, and yodeled the name of Cleveland's Cliff Lee as the 2008 American League Cy Young Award winner, it marked the pinnacle of the continued climb skyward for the Rock City hurler.

Lee littered last season's A.L. landscape with a rock-bottom record of 5-8 and an ERA just north of six runs a game. He found himself perched atop other hurlers by starting off this season with a 6-0 record and an ERA in the lower stratosphere at .067.

Other Cy Young runners up, Mike "Moose" Mussina, Daisuke "Mtn Fuji" Matsuzaka, Roy "North of the Border" Halladay, Jon "Rainier" Lester, and Francisco "K Rod" Rodriguez, (need I say, "The Erupting Volcano"?), were left to eat Cliff's proverbial mound dust. 

After losing his footing against cross-state rival, Cincinnati, Lee slalomed through the season's slippery slopes by winning 15 of his next 16 decisions. He allowed only 24 earned runs in his next 137.1 innings (excluding a no-decision vs. the Sabertooth squad from Detroit).

Critics made a mountain out of a mole hill, as Lee appeared to stumble to the season's summit, finishing his ascent to the stars by going 1-1 and surrendering 14 runs in his final 21 innings. With his team tumbling earthward, it appeared to be a case of Lee thrusting his personal flag into the peak of a ground breaking campaign as cold winds swirled off the shores of Lake Erie.

Lee chiseled out quality starts in 23 of 31 games, gave up six hits or less in 19 of his starts, and walked one or fewer runners in 21 of 31 appearances. 

Three seasons ago, Lee finished fourth in the Cy Young while compiling a winning percentage of .783. By winning at an .880 clip this season, Cliff went over the top in winning his first A.L. pitching hardware.

What makes Lee's rise to the skies even more earth shattering was that he didn't even appear on the preseason topographical map. A Mar. 27 story on MLB.com entitled "Sizing Up the AL Cy Young Contender's" touted, Lee's since departed teammate, CC Sabathia (6-8 in '08 while in the AL), Boston's Josh Beckett (12-10), Angels' John Lackey (12-5), Jarod Weaver (11-10) and Kelvim Escobar (0-0), Ray's Scott Kazmir  (12-8), Yankee Andy Pettitte (14-14), Detroit ace Justin Verlander (11-17), and White Sox Mark Buehrle (15-12) and Toronto's Halladay (20-11) as the league's top candidates. 

Only Halladay even appeared on any of the A.L. writer's 28 ballots. These 10 hurlers finsihed the '08 season with a .534 winning percentage. Do the math.

But just where does Lee's campaign stack up against the other winners this century's Cy Young Awards. 

King of the Mound-ain? 

Gasping for Oxygen? 

Or Left at the Lodge?

A statistical snap shot of the AL winners from 2000 to the present, below, shows the full season records of Pedro Martinez ('00) , Roger Clemens ('01) , Barry Zito ('02), Halladay ('03), Johan Santana ('04 and '06), Bartolo Colon ('05), CC Sabathia ('07) and, now, Lee ('08).

Name	G	CG	W	L	Pct	ERA	H	I	BB	H/BB/9
Pedro	29	7	18	6	0.750	1.74	128	217	32	6.64
Rocket	33	0	20	3	0.870	3.51	205	220.1	72	11.33
Zito	35	1	23	5	0.821	2.75	182	229.1	78	10.21
Halladay	36	9	22	7	0.759	3.25	253	266	32	9.64
Johan	34	1	20	6	0.769	2.61	156	228	54	8.29
Bartolo	33	2	21	8	0.724	3.48	215	222.2	43	10.45
Johan	34	1	19	6	0.760	2.77	186	233.2	47	8.99
CC	34	4	19	7	0.731	3.21	238	241	37	10.27
Lee	31	4	22	3	0.880	2.54	214	223.1	34	10.00

A geological survey of the stats, giving one point to first place in a category to 9 for last in a category unearths the following data:

Name						Ranking					Total
Lee	5	3	2	1	1	2	6	4	2	5	31
Pedro	6	2	7	4	7	1	1	1	1	1	31
Johan	3	5	5	3	4	3	2	5	6	3	39
Zito	2	5	1	2	3	4	3	6	8	6	40
Johan	3	5	6	6	6	5	4	7	5	2	49
Halladay	1	5	3	5	5	7	9	9	1	4	49
Rocket	4	6	5	1	2	9	5	2	7	9	50
CC	3	3	6	5	7	6	8	8	3	7	56
Bartolo	4	4	4	6	8	8	7	3	4	8	56

Not since 2000, when Pedro Martinez dusted corners, en route to an 18-6 record and a microscopic 1.74  ERA, has any pitcher compiled such rock solid statistics. Lee's 22-3 record and .880 winning percentage are tops since 1995, when Randy Johnson went 18-2 (.900 pct) and the top percentage of any pitcher with 19 or more wins since Ron Guidry went 25-3 (.892) almost three decades ago (1978).

His 22 wins rank second to Zito (23), most by a southpaw since Zito. Additionally his 34 walks and 2.54 ERA are second to Pedro's mountain top campaign.

So, when future sculptors, start chipping away granite to form the Century's rendition of rock-solid seasons, maybe, just maybe, the mountain scene will contain a steep Cliff.