Award Injustices-Dominik Hasek Over Martin Brodeur 1996-97

We are going to be running a series highlighting the greatest award injustices (situations where the winner of an award clearly should not have been the victor) in New York sports history. We will be doing this in both directions-where a New York player was not given the award even when he was the superior player, and when a New York player was given the award even though there was a better option available. Today we will be examining...

Dominik Hasek's victory over Martin Brodeur for the 1996-97 Vezina Trophy

The Vezina Trophy, named after 1920's goaltender Georges Vezina, is awarded to the best goalie in the league. It is basically the CY Young of NHL awards, since goalies rarely win the Hart Trophy (the NHL's MVP award), winning the Vezina is the crowning achievement of a successful season. During the 1996-97 season there were two clear candidates for the Vezina, Dominik Hasek of the Buffalo Sabres, and Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils. Their stats follow-

1996-97 Stats- Games Played Wins Losses Ties Shutouts GAA Save %
Dominik Hasek- 67 37 20 10 5 2.27 .930
Martin Brodeur- 67 37 14 13 10 1.88 .927

Brodeur and Hasek had remarkably similar seasons. They started the same amount of games, won the same amount of games had save percentages within .003 of each other. And yet Hasek won the Vezina trophy and he won it handily. Not only did Brodeur win the same amount of games as Hasek, but he last lost 6 fewer and tied 3 more, giving him a much better overall record. However, the two most vital parts of Brodeur's argument in favor of winning the Vezina over Hasek are his goals against average and the amount of shutouts he had. Brodeur's goals against average of 1.88, easily the lowest of any goaltender of the 96-97 seasonis incredibly impressive and nearly half a goal better than Hasek's GAA. Many people argue that, like ERA in baseball, GAA is heavily dependent on the defense in front of you but even so, a GAA that low is indicative of an amazing goaltender not just the caliber of his defense. The 10 shutouts that Brodeur had during the 1996-97 season also speak to the high-level that he was playing at.Having twice as many shutouts as Hasek, while playing the same amount of games lead me to believe that Brodeur was the better stopper that season.
Hasek went on to win three Vezina trophies, from the 1996-97 season through the 1998-99 season, while Brodeur was held without a Vezina until the 2002-2003 season. That Brodeur had to wait that long for his first Vezina is one of the greatest injustices in New York hockey history, especially since he should have had it won in the 1996-97 season.

-Mose

Award Injustices-Fergie Jenkins Over Tom Seaver 1971

We are going to be running a series highlighting the greatest award injustices (situations where the winner of an award clearly should not have been the victor) in New York sports history. We will be doing this in both directions-where a New York player was not given the award even when he was the superior player, and when a New York player was given the award even though there was a better option available. Today we will be examining...

Fergie Jenkins victory over Tom Seaver in the 1971 Cy Young race.

First let's start with the stats of each player
Wins Losses ERA Strikeouts WHIP
Player A: 20 10 1.76 289 0.95
Player B: 24 13 2.77 263 1.05


Now if you were a CY Young voter, who would you have voted for? I know that Player A would have had my vote easily. Yes he had 4 less wins, but he also had 3 less losses, an ERA a full point better than Player B's and he had 26 more strikeouts. Even his WHIP was an entire tenth of a point better. It should have been no contest between these two players. Yet, Fergie Jenkins (Player B) had more than three times as many first place votes as Tom Seaver (Player A) did. I thought that Jenkins might have won so handily because the Cubs in 1971 were a much better team than the Mets, making Jenkins' contributions more valuable, but in fact the Cubs and the Mets had the exact same record in '71, 83-79.
This means that the only reason why Jenkins dominated the vote getting was because of his 4 more wins. That just doesn't justify the award for me. Seaver still had 20 wins, second most in the National League, the benchmark for any truly amazing pitching season, and that ERA is simply absurd. Seaver was the only pitcher with a sub 2.00 ERA that season, and he was the only pitcher with a sub 1.00 WHIP. Not only that, but Seaver led the league in strikeouts even though he threw 40 innings less than Jenkins. On the opposite side of the coin, Jenkins led the league in home runs allowed and in hits allowed, not the categories you would expect the CY Young award to be leading in.

So for me it is pretty clear that Tom Seaver was robbed in the 1971 CY Young voting. what do you think?

- Mose