Today they're going to announce the winner of the National League Cy Young Award; Thursday we'll find out who won in the American League. And you know what's truly bizarre about the Cy Youngs this year? There seems to be some question about who's going to win the National League award when there really shouldn't be; and there's no question about who's going to win the American League award when there certainly should be.

Curt Schilling will, I suppose, pick up at least a few first-place votes for National League Cy Young, because a fair number of the voters are -- and I say this with all due respect -- simple-minded. They see that Schilling won 22 games and Randy Johnson won "only" 21, and they don't look any farther.

Let's look at this thing rationally, though. Sure, Schilling won one more game than Johnson did (they both lost six games). On the other hand, Johnson's ERA was 17 percent lower than Schilling's, and Johnson struck out 27 percent more hitters than Schilling. They both allowed 9.7 baserunners per nine innings, but Schilling gave up twice as many home runs as Johnson did. Does anyone really want to argue that Schilling's one-win edge outweighs Johnson's advantages? Honestly, the notion strikes me as preposterous.

Whenever I write something like the above, I get e-mails that read something like, "Sure, Johnson may have pitched better than Schilling, but it's not nearly so clear as you make it sound. You're not giving Schilling enough credit."

Look, either Johnson was better or he wasn't. Suppose you've got two basketball players. One of them stands 7 feet, 2 inches; the other stands 7 feet. The taller player is, of course, merely 2.4 percent taller than the shorter player ... but no matter how you choose to interpret the numbers, the taller player is still taller.

That's not to say that baseball statistics are as clear-cut as heights. They're not. But Randy Johnsnon certainly looks "taller," so if you want to argue that Schilling was nevertheless the better, more valuable pitcher, then you must bear the burden of proof. Schilling was great this season, but there's only one National League Cy Young Award available, and The Big Unit deserves it.

In the American League nobody's as tall as Randy Johnson, and of course that's true both figuratively and literally; none of the AL's Cy Young candidates come close to matching Johnson's physical stature, nor did any of them dominate their league as Johnson did his.

But let me describe one Cy Young candidate ... This pitcher finished the season with a 3.51 ERA, which ranked ninth in the league. You might consider him one of the league's most valuable pitchers, if he had chewed up a lot of innings. He didn't, though. This pitcher with the ninth-best ERA in the league finished with the 12th-most innings pitched, behind Steve Sparks, Jeff Weaver, and Mark Buehrle (among others). This pitcher, in fact, didn't lead the American League in any of the "counting" stats; not innings, not strikeouts (third), not even wins (second).

This pitcher is, of course, Roger Clemens, and he's not only a Cy Young candidate; he's the leading Cy Young candidate and might take every first-place vote. Why? Because Clemens did lead the league in one category -- winning percentage -- and he led in that category by quite a bit. Clemens went 20-3, but even that's understating the impact of his winning percentage on observers. Clemens essentially won the Cy Young on September 19, when he ran his record to 20-1.

Granted, 20-1 is awfully impressive. Most baseball writers, and for that matter most baseball fans, get all goggly-eyed when they see 20-1, and you really can't blame them. Hey, I got goggly-eyed, too. Most pitchers who are 20-1, or for that matter 20-3, are indeed the best pitchers in their league.

Just not this time. I probably shouldn't go over this territory again, because I've done it before and so have my colleagues over at Baseball Prospectus, and so I don't particularly want to devote another 500 words to the subject. In a nutshell, though:

1. Clemens received a lot of help from his teammates.
In 2001, only one pitcher in the American League (Paul Abbott) received more run support per nine innings than Clemens did. And no, his teammates didn't score more runs because they were particularly "relaxed" when Clemens pitched. That notion, trotted out whenever a big winner gets big run support, simply doesn't withstand the rigors of even the most rudimentary analysis.

2. Clemens "just knows how to win." This one doesn't hold up, either. In 1996, Clemens posted a 3.63 ERA and went 10-13. In 2001, Clemens posted a 3.51 and went 20-3. Does anyone really think that Clemens forgot how to win in 1996, and then somehow remembered again this year?

It's pretty simple, gang. For the most part, Roger Clemens pitched well this season. And when he didn't pitch well, his teammates bailed him out. He might have been one of the five best pitchers in the American League this year. But the best? Hardly.

So who was the best? Here are my five favorite candidates:

             IP   OPS    W-L    ERA 
F Garcia    239   627   18- 6  3.05  
M Mussina   229   632   17-11  3.15
J Mays      234   654   17-13  3.16
M Buehrle   221   656   16- 8  3.29
T Hudson    235   653   18- 9  3.37

As it happens, these also happen to be the top five ERA qualifiers, but that's not the only reason they made the list. For example, if Freddy Garcia, who pitches in the best pitcher's park in the league, had Tim Hudson's ERA then he wouldn't be here.

Like I said, Garcia pitches in Safeco Field, which is certainly one of the best pitcher's parks in the league. Oakland's Network Associates Coliseum is tough on the hitters, too. Just looking at ERA and home ballparks, the three best pitchers in the American League this season were Mussina, Mays and Buehrle ... but that ignores competition, doesn't it? The American League West was the best division in league's best division and the West clubs played their interleague games against the National League West, the best division in that league. Joe Mays pitches for the Twins; 11 of his 34 starts and eight of his 17 wins came against the awful Tigers and Royals. (Clemens has a similar issue; only six of his 20 wins came against winning teams and he beat the Devil Rays, Orioles, Blue Jays and Tigers for 11 of his 20 wins.)

The truth is that I don't know which of those five pitchers was the best (though if you forced me to choose I'd vote for Mussina). The truth is that none of them jumps out and says, "Pick me!" And the truth is that if I did have a vote, I'd spend more time thinking about this than I have, because my decision would count for something.

What I do know is that Roger Clemens, the greatest pitcher of his generation, wasn't the American League's greatest pitcher in 2001.

Rob can be reached at rob.neyer@dig.com, and to order his books, including the just-published Feeding the Green Monster, click here.