Quote:
Originally Posted by howard38
Some time in the 1980s the wording was changed to "outstanding" pitcher. Pitchers on post-season teams still won the bulk of the awards but it's not unusual now to see guys on also-rans like Greinke and Hernandez win it.
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Possibly because they finally realized there already is a 'most valuable player' award.
Also, the team's performance (run production) is going to more adversely affect a pitcher's statistics, than it will a potential MVP field player. So basically, it's going to be difficult to give the Cy Young to a playoff pitcher who has worse stats than a guy on a non-playoff team - not only will the statistical differences be glaring, but also the fact that the poorer pitcher had better run production behind him, yet still had worse stats.