Andrew (Chicago): Who is your pick for NL Cy Young? It seems both the Giants (Lincecum/Cain) and Cardinals (Carpenter/Wainwright) have 2 pitchers making strong cases, and then there's Lee & Haren out there too...
Joe Sheehan: Lincecum recently passed Haren in my eyes, but it's really too close to call. Any of about four guys--probably not Carp because of the innings--could win it.
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Bill (New Mexico): Speaking of difference makers in the stretch drive, how much difference does John Smoltz make for the Cardinals? Do you take his five scoreless innings in San Diego seriously? How about the contention that he was tipping his pitches in the AL but that that's fixed now?
Joe Sheehan: The "tipping pitches" thing sounds for all the world like happy talk, and seems incongruous given how many swing-and-misses he got. I can't get excited about hammering the Padres in San Diego. That's probably the best possible scenario for any pitcher. Smoltz's problems came on contact, which was very hard during his time in Boston; we'll have to see more to reach conclusions.
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Dave Duncan (St. Louis): Read the papers once in a while, Mr. Sheehan. Smoltz is one of many, many veteran righties I've fixed over the past 3 decades, oftentimes by spotting delivery flaws like "pitch-tipping." I. Do. It. All. The. Time.
Joe Sheehan: No, you mostly teach them to throw strikes and keep the ball down using a sinker. You've had a great career, but you've done it with a particular skill set. (Some people think you also teach scuffing. I'm agnostic on the matter.)
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tiptonhr (Knoxville, TN): You "don't have a strong opinion of" Pujols as a person? What can you possibly have against Pujols off the field?
Joe Sheehan: You're not reading that correctly. By "strong opinion" I mean just that. I don't like or dislike him, because I really care about his work as a player more than anything else. I don't evaluate these guys as people, because I don't think we know them as people. We know their work, we know what they say to the media (and how the media evaluates them, usually related) and we know what they allow us to see. There's not nearly enough there for me to evaluate a person.
That applies to all public figures, pretty much. I care about their work, their talent, and not about who they are or their lives.
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Tim (DC): What kind of case can be made for Hanley over Pujols for MVP?
Joe Sheehan: If you're a big positional-value guy, and I have been in the past, and you can overlook that Pujols is better at his position than Ramirez is at his. It would also help if Ramirez would outplay Pujols over the next five weeks, catch him in the metrics.
Baseball Prospectus
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