How Can a Zito Be a Hero?

In a relatively close race Barry Zito won the AL Cy Young today finishing in front of Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe. Zito had the most wins so he was the obvious choice. Martinez had the best ERA of the three so he finished second.

But I just wanted to demonstrate just how close they were. Here are their Support Neutral Wins Above Replacement from Baseball Prospectus. Note that they finished top three in the AL (and were only behind Johnson and Schilling in the all of MLB):

Lowe, 7.0
Zito, 6.5
Martinez, 6.4

This makes a case for Lowe being the best of the three. Three poor starts in August and September helped raise his ERA from 2.09 to 2.58 and helped seal his fate in the Cy Young vote.

Of course the Win Shares (thanks to David Pinto), point to Zito but may be suspect since they list Halladay, Guardado and Koch (3rd!) before the Red Sox:

Barry Zito 25.1
Tim Hudson 24.0
Billy Koch 23.2
Eddie Guardado 22.4
Roy Halladay 22.3
Derek Lowe 21.8
Pedro Martinez 21.6

Also, keep in mind the highly suspect Jose "Uh-oh" Mesa is sandwiched between the two Boston starters and that John Smoltz is listed higher than any AL pitcher.