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me too!

also:

It was not surprising that Greinke won, since his earned run average, 2.16, was the lowest in the American League since 2000. But his decisive margin of victory over Seattle's Felix Hernandez was a sign that voters overlooked his deficiency in another bedrock statistic: wins.

Greinke tied for seventh in the league in victories, with 16. The lowest previous total for an A.L. starter in a nonstrike season was 18. Yet few voters penalized Greinke, who collected 25 of 28 first-place votes.

Hernandez had two first-place votes, and Detroit's Justin Verlander the other. The Yankees' C. C. Sabathia finished fourth, and Toronto's Roy Halladay was fifth. All of those pitchers had more wins than Greinke, who was 16-8 for a team that tied for last in the A.L. Central. Hernandez was 19-5 with a 2.49 E.R.A.

"I thought that could push him over the top, because his won/loss record was way better than mine," Greinke said. "But I'm also a follower, since Brian Bannister's on our team, of sabermetric stuff and going into details of stats about what you can control."

Bannister, a right-handed starter, is known for his appreciation of modern pitching metrics, which emphasize the factors for which pitchers are essentially responsible: walks, strikeouts, home runs and hit batters. In Greinke, he found a like mind.

"He's extremely bright, and he's really picked up on using all the information out there to make his game better," Bannister said by telephone. "He's always had the talent. His confidence level, which is extremely high, combined with his knowledge of the numbers behind the game now, definitely makes him one of the best pitchers in the world."

Bannister said Greinke has learned to adjust his pitching based on the advanced defensive statistics. Because of the size of the outfield at Kauffman Stadium and the strength of the Royals' outfielders, relative to their infielders, it sometimes made more sense to induce fly balls.

"David DeJesus had our best zone rating," Bannister said, referring to the Royals' left fielder. "So a lot of times, Zack would pitch for a fly ball at our park instead of a ground ball, just because the zone rating was better in our outfield and it was a big park."

To that end, Bannister introduced Greinke to FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching, the statistic Greinke named Tuesday as his favorite. It is a formula that measures how well a pitcher performed, regardless of his fielders. According to fangraphs.com, Greinke had the best FIP in the majors.

"That's pretty much how I pitch, to try to keep my FIP as low as possible," Greinke said.

:swoon

my favorite part of that greinke article is the implicit condemnation of the royals awful infield defense

"David DeJesus had our best zone rating," Bannister said, referring to the Royals' left fielder. "So a lot of times, Zack would pitch for a fly ball at our park instead of a ground ball, just because the zone rating was better in our outfield and it was a big park."

i think francona might be legit the best manager in the league so it's pretty unfortunate that he doesn't have one