I had forgotten the details of the 1987 NL Cy Young race.  Bedrosian won, but it looks like Hershiser (who went 16-16) would have been the best choice, because of the extra IPs and CGs. 

Yeah, I can see that, MG. I just remember '87 as reading billions of stories about Ryan being one of the unluckiest pitchers ever, and though Hershiser is a personal favorite of mine (we have the same alma mater :-) I thnk Ryan at 8-16 would have been a more interesting (if wildly unlkely ) winner. On that same note, if Felix had been 12-13 rather than 13-12, everything else statistically identical, I don't think he wins, either.

Of curiosity, I looked it up and was shocked to learn that Ryan NEVER won a Cy Young? Wow. Best ever to never win one?

Technically speaking I guess the best pitcher never to win a Cy Young award would be Cy Young.

But if you want a non-trivial answer, how about Marichal, Sutton, Niekro, or Blyleven?

Interesting... Looking at the NL MVP race I saw Andre Dawson with a 2.7 WAR from a season with 49 HRs, 137 RBIs, 90 R. 

On the surface that doesn't seem to add up. JoBau's numbers this season were pretty similar and his was about 6. Was the Hawk's defense that bad?

The Hawk only drew 32 walks in 1987, his knees were shot so his range was poor, and 1987 was a very big hitter's year and Hawk put up the cool Triple Crown numbers in Wrigley.  Any resemblance with Bautista's 2010 is pretty superficial. 

I don't trust WAR. There's just too much variation between BB-Ref WAR and FanGraphs WAR and Prospectus WARP - to me this indicates that the defensive components are not sound and replacement levels are not well established.

Dawson's 1987 is a good example:

BB-Ref: 2.7

Fangraphs: 3.7

Prospectus: 3.3

Those are not small differences.

Bob Elliot was one of the three writers who voted for Sabathia. 

"I feel like they got it right," Price said on a conference call from Nashville, Tenn. "Felix, I thought he deserved it, even though he didn't have a lot of wins. You can't really control all that. You can't control the offense and the hitters and stuff like that."

"The numbers he put up -- those were pretty ridiculous numbers outside of the won-loss column," he said. "I feel as if Felix was on a different team -- if he was on the Yankees or something like that -- he's going to win quite a few ballgames."

Funny that Price mentioned the Yankees when he's on a pretty good team.  When you combine offense and defense the Rays were probably a better bet to earn a win on.

Roger Clemens, of course, was spectacularly unlucky in 2005 (in his 11 no decisions, he gave up 8 runs in 73 IP - six times he gave up no runs at all) but what the hell. It's Roger Clemens, who cares.

Juan Marichal has a pretty good case. In 1963 he went 25-8, 2.41; in 1966 he went 25-6, 2.23; in 1968 he went 26-9, 2.43.

Not only did he never win - he got no Cy Young votes in any of those years.

Well, 1966 and 1963 there was just one Cy Young and there were only votes for 1st place. Those two were won by Sandy Koufax at his peak (1966 was 27-9 1.73 ERA 317 K's 190 ERA+, his best). Both years Koufax won the NL's pitchers triple crown (Wins-ERA-K's) with WHIP's below 1.

It wasn't until 1970 they started having the ability to vote for more than 1st place so not getting votes before that doesn't really mean a lot.

I'm not saying Marichal deserved any votes. But that's one tough-luck case...