Kevin Brown’s Lost Cy Young Award

The 1998 San Diego Padres…. National League Champions, Vote Yes on C, and ‘F’ the Yankees….

Kevin Brown

The team featured Tony Gwynn (.321 avg), Greg Vaughn (50 HR), Ken Caminiti, Steve Finley, and Wally Joyner. Future Hall of Famer, Trevor Hoffman, recorded 53 Saves with a 0.85 WHIP. Dan Miceli won 10 games in relief and the underrated, Andy Ashby, went 17-9 with a 3.34 ERA.

However, the Padres best player that season, without a doubt, was Kevin Brown. In fact, Brown was the best pitcher in the entire National League in 1998, earning a Factor12 Rating of 33.661, over a full point higher than second place pitcher, Curt Schilling (32.453 F12). Brown finished the year 18-7 with a 2.38 ERA / 1.066 WHIP / 257 K / 8 HRA in 257 innings pitched.

Brown went on to dominate the post-season as well, out dueling Randy Johnson in Game One of the NLDS by recording 16 strikeouts against an Astros lineup that included Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, and Moises Alou. Brown threw another gem in Game Two of the NLCS against the Braves, hurling a complete game shutout against the likes of Chipper Jones, Andres Galarraga, Andruw Jones, Javy Lopez, and Ryan Klesko, defeating starting pitcher, Tom Glavine in the process. (Post-season games obviously do not count for CY voting, or for F12 Rating, but it still puts an exclamation point on his season in my mind.)

Unfortunately, the Cy Young voters did not see the brilliance in Kevin Brown’s season like we did at 60ft6in.com. The BBWAA fell in love with Tom Glavine’s 20-6 record, ignored everything else, and handed him the award at season’s end. What was Glavine’s Factor12 Rating you ask? 28.903. That is 4.758 points, or 15%, worse than Brown on the F12 scale, good for 15th overall.

Trevor Hoffman finished in second place, and Brown a disappointing third. Interestingly, Hoffman actually received more first place votes than Glavine, but Glavine claimed the award based on points. Also, Curt Schilling, who finished second overall in F12 Rating, did not receive a single Cy Young vote, despite leading the NL in strikeouts, innings, and complete games.

***Factor12 Top12 1998: