Today's big baseball news is that Pedro Martinez has won the AL Cy Young Award. Of course, it's news in the same sense that it's news when there's strife in the Middle East, or when Dennis Rodman gets in legal trouble, or when The Yankees win the World Series. Notable, if not the least bit surprising. Now it comes down to Pedro winning the MVP, which he deserves, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Simply put, he had one of a handful of the best performances by a pitcher in the history of baseball last year.
Most teams have one or two guys like that.
In 217 innings, Pedro allowed 128 hits . Pedro's closest competitors in this statistic all-time are Nolan Ryan and Luis Tiant. Both may have shut down their opponents hits-wise, but made up for it partially by giving up more walks. In Ryan's record-setting season of 1972, he allowed 157 walks in 284 innings. In 1991, Ryan allowed 5.31 hits per nine innings, just like Pedro, but he allowed 72 walks in 173 innings.