Price, Dickey named as Cy Young winners
NEW YORK — David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays and knuckleballer R. A. Dickey of the New York Mets won baseball’s Cy Young awards Wednesday.
Price barely beat out 2011 winner Justin Verlander for the American League prize in one of the closest votes ever. Dickey was an easy choice for the NL honor in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
The 38- year- old Dickey became the first knuckleball pitcher to win the Cy Young Award, an achievement mentors such as Hall of Famer Phil Niekro are quite proud of.
“I am not a self- made man by any stretch of the imagination,” Dickey said on MLB Network. “This is a victory for all of us.”
Runner- up two years ago, Price was the pick this time by the slimmest of margins. He received 14 of 28 first- place votes and finished with 153 points to 149 for Verlander, chosen first on 13 ballots.
Other than a 1969 tie between Mike Cuellar and Denny McLain, it was the tightest race in the history of the AL award.
Rays closer Fernando Rodney got the other first- place vote and came in fifth.
“It means a lot,” Price said. “It’s something that I’ll always have. It’s something that they can’t take away from me.”
Price went 20- 5 to tie Jered Weaver for the American League lead in victories and winning percentage. The 27- year- old lefty had the lowest ERA at 2.56 and finished sixth in strikeouts with 205.
Verlander, also the league MVP a year ago, followed that up by going 17- 8 with a 2.64 ERA and pitching the Detroit Tigers to the World Series. He led the majors in strikeouts ( 239), innings ( 238Ï) and complete games ( six).
Price tossed 211 innings in 31 starts, while Verlander made 33. One factor that might have swung some votes, however: Price faced stiffer competition in the rugged AL East than Verlander did in the AL Central.
“I guess it’s a blessing and a curse at the same time,” Price said. “There’s not an easy out in the lineups every game. It feels like a postseason game.”
Weaver came in third with 70 points, but was listed second on a pair of ballots. The right- hander threw a no- hitter and had a 2.81 ERA in his first 20- win season but missed time with injuries and totaled only 188Î innings for the Los Angeles Angels.
The top pick in the 2007 amateur draft out of Vanderbilt, Price reached the majors the following year and has made three straight All- Star teams.
Despite going 19- 6 with a 2.72 ERA in 2010, he finished a distant second in Cy Young voting to Felix Hernandez, who won only 13 games for last- place Seattle but dominated most other statistical categories that year. Verlander was trying to become the first AL pitcher to win back- to- back Cy Youngs since Boston’s Pedro Martinez in 1999 and 2000. San Francisco right- hander Tim Lincecum did it in the National League in 2008- 09.
Dickey garnered 27 of 32 first- place votes and easily outdistanced 2011 winner Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Gio Gonzalez of Washington finished third.
Dickey joined Dwight Gooden ( 1985) and three- time winner Tom Seaver as the only Mets pitchers to win the award. The righthander was the club’s first 20- game winner since Frank Viola in 1990. And perhaps most impressive, Dickey did it during a season when the fourth- place Mets finished 74- 88.
“It just feels good all over,” he said.
Miami’s Loria: ‘ Not today, boys’
CHICAGO — While the Miami Marlins and Toronto Blue Jays worked on a blockbuster trade with far- reaching implications, major league owners and executives descended on Chicago Wednesday for the first of two days of meetings.
The deal was the talk of the baseball world. But the game’s power brokers didn’t seem too interested in talking about the trade in public, perhaps waiting to see its full scope.
“Not today, boys,” Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria said as he strolled by a group of reporters. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not going to figure it out for you.”
Loria went on a spending spree last winter, handing out lucrative free- agent deals to All- Star shortstop Jose Reyes, left- hander Mark Buehrle and closer Heath Bell. The Marlins thought they would contend for the NL East title and draw 3 million fans in the first year of their publicly financed ballpark.
But they flopped, finishing last in the division. Bell was traded to Arizona in October, with the Marlins agreeing to pay $ 8 million of the remaining $ 21 million owed to the reliever. Now Reyes, Buehrle and Josh Johnson — probably Miami’s best pitcher when healthy — are headed to Toronto for a package of top prospects.
“I really haven’t focused on it,” said New York Yankees president Randy Levine, whose team will have to contend with the improved Blue Jays in the AL East. “Obviously, they got great players and both teams felt they improved themselves.”
The deal is pending physicals for the players, and Miami could be sending money to Toronto in the trade — something that likely caught the attention of the owners at the meetings.
“That’s an interesting question, but I think you might want to address that to the commissioner,” White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf said.
Commissioner Bud Selig said Wednesday night that no deal has been submitted to him for approval, but otherwise declined to address the potential trade. He is expected to talk at the conclusion of the meetings Thursday.
Selig and the owners shuffled in and out of rooms all day, but no one seemed interested in talking about the topics discussed at the meetings.
Oakland is interested in building a new ballpark in San Jose, but that area is considered part of the San Francisco Giants’ territory. Selig said at the World Series he is working on the issue, and A’s managing partner Lew Wolff refused to talk about the situation Wednesday.
The owners are expected to hear more about expanding the use of instant replay to fair- foul calls and trap plays on potential catches, and possibly even more. But it was unclear if that topic was addressed on the first day of the meetings.
“Without focusing on a general type of play, I would say that we need to, baseball needs to move forward,” Red Sox president Larry Lucchino said. “I’m confident the commissioner and the special committee he’s got in place will examine a variety of options that will begin to address that problem.”