San Francisco Giants' Tim Lincecum wins second consecutive Cy Young - ESPN

Lincecum wins second consecutive Cy Young

It was one of the closest ballots ever. Final score 100-94-90. (Lincecum-Carpenter-Wainwright) Those three guys got 94 of the 96 possible ballots. (32 voters list three choices apiece.)

Although Wainwright finished third, he actually had the most first place votes. He was hurt by the fact that he had very few seconds. Voters tended to list him first or third. Wainwright thus became the first starting pitcher in NL history to get the most "firsts" without winning the whole magilla.

Carpenter was left off the ballot entirely by two voters, but adding back those four points would not have closed the gap between him and Lincecum. Tough loss for Carpenter. He led the league in W-L Pct and ERA, and also beat the other two guys in WHIP. Even without the trophy, he has to be absolutely thrilled with the way he rebounded after two years out of the action. He pitched better this year than he did in his own Cy Young year in 2005. The most amazing improvement is that he virtually stopped allowing homers altogether (only 7 all year, in 28 starts)

Lincecum had three persuasive arguments in his Cy brief: (1) Opponents only had a .561 OPS against him, better than Carpenter, much better than Wainwright; (2) he has incredible stuff and led the league in strikeouts; (3) if you compare his year to the previous year, when he also won the Cy, you'll see he improved in every important department which he can control: ERA, hits/inn, bb/inn, wild pitches, balks, complete games, shut outs, home runs allowed, K/BB ratio, opponents slugging average, opponents on-base percentage. The kid improved on a Cy Young year across-the-board. Gotta tip your hat to that.

Call it a win for the little people. Wainwright and Carpenter look like NBA stars at 6'6" and 6'7". Lincecum is 5'11", 160. Maybe.

Lincecum is only 25 years old, made only $650,000 this year. Wainwright is only 27.