My NL Cy Young ballot

I wish I had time to write an obnoxiously long breakdown of my ballot, but it's a travel day for me. So here is my ballot, followed by some general thoughts:

OK, now here come some general thoughts:

So wins are inconsequential for the purpose of my ballot. Pitcher wins are inconsequential in life, if you think about it.

Why Lee second? Because he was pretty close to Kershaw in every major category, and then I looked at their respective splits. It's hard to ignore that Kershaw feasted on the carcass of the Giants, the NL's worst offensive team of 2011. Kershaw pitched 42 innings over six starts against the Giants; that's 18 percent of his workload. He threw another 25 1/3 innings, over three starts, against the awful Padres, second-worst in the NL. He tallied a 1.07 ERA against San Francisco and 1.78 against San Diego.

On one hand, Kershaw's schedule isn't his fault; he didn't create the NL West to be a pitcher's paradise. On the other hand, I don't think we should view these numbers in a vacuum. The more context, the better.

Any other questions/concerns, I'm happy to answer them.

--Here's my news story about the official additional wild-card team and the Astros moving to the American League in 2013.

--As Fred Wilpon departed, a reporter asked him whether it was important for the Mets to re-sign Jose Reyes. Responded Wilpon: "What kind of question is that"? Then he left.

And now I'm leaving. Thanks for reading this week. Tune in tomorrow morning for the first Comment Winter Olympics of the season.