Least Deserved Cy Young given to a reliever

Phil Niekro's 1979 season is (o_0). 44 games 21-20 and 23 CGs!

I think it has to Bedrosian frankly.

Eckersley is the stupidest MVP though.

Related: Jim Konstanty's MVP in '50, a few years before the first Cy Young. Have no idea who he was up against, but I think that's generally considered a bizarre one.

btw i had no idea that terry pendleton finished SECOND in the mvp voting the year after he won.

Hong Chih Kuo of the Dodgers beat Gagne's 2003 ERA by a franction of a percentage point this year to post the greatest relief season ERA wise in Dodger history (and steroid free!)

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I never understood why the Yankees were so quick to ship out Sparky Lyle in favour of Goose Gossage. Has there ever been anything quite like this in baseball history? A player wins a major award and gets traded away one year later, not for economic reasons or because the team had a fire sale or because he started sucking, but because he became expendable? (wait, I just thought of one ... the Phillies traded Cliff Lee to Seattle and replaced him with somebody they thought was better)

It makes a bit more sense when you look at Lyle's stats. Basically, he was really lucky. At that point in his career, he couldn't strike anybody out, and his W-L record and ERA in '77 were way out of line with his peripherals.

I'm trying to check if there's a reason to vote for anyone other than Bedrosian.

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Mark Davis was robbed.

Have there seriously been three MVPs given to relievers? How many starting pitchers have won an MVP?

something like 15 i think? from the time rollie fingers won mvp til now, 4 pitchers have won mvp and the only non-reliever was clemens in '86.

Such a weird choice--Gagne seems to me one time where you can make a very good case for a closer...37 hits and 137 strikeouts in 82 innings?! 55 saves without blowing one? And there wasn't a dominant starter that year; Schmidt and Prior were both very good. You can certainly question Gagne on general principles, but I don't see how that's noticably undeserving, especially measured against some of these other seasons.

Buncha angry grudge-holding Giants fans is what happened.