The Players Have Chosen: Lincecum

I'm late with this but wanted to report that Tim Lincecum won both the Players' Choice 2008 NL Outstanding Pitcher Award, which is awarded by the Players' Trust (which the Players' Association created, and which is voted on by players), and the Sporting News NL Pitcher of the Year (also voted on by players).   

El Lefty Malo had some good analysis at his blog regarding how this award has differed from the Cy Young winners in the past, about 20% of the time.  Hank Schulman had some info on his blog, The Splash, about how two Cy Young voters came up to him and let him know that they voted for Lincecum (and that is out of 32 voters, two writers from every team's geographic coverage).   He also shared his thoughts about the Cy Young process in an earlier post (venting about how fans shouldn't blame the official scorer), about how voters in general are "very studious and look at a player's entire body of work", which is encouraging.   

However, he admitted that there could be a lazy voter or two who looked only at Lincecum's September and mark him down, and given the number of pitchers who can legitimately lay claim for the award - Johan Santana, Brandon Webb, CC Sabathia, and Lincecum, plus others who could draw a vote or three - the voters can be split at least four ways on the award and a vote here or there could make the difference between Lincecum winning or not.