Brad Lidge has been named as this year's National League Comeback Player of the Year. My question is: what did he come back from?

Lidge in 2007:

W = 5
L = 3
S = 19
G = 66
IP = 67
K = 88
ERA = 3.36

My pick would have been Ryan Dempster. Goes from being a crappy closer in 2007 to having an ace-caliber season in the Cubs rotation in 2008. Carlos Delgado would have been a decent choice as well.

I agree that the Lidge pick makes no sense.

It makes sense depending on how you feel about the “save” stat.

Lidge’s saves
05 - 42
06 - 32
07 - 19
08 - 41 (he was 41 of 41, right?)

I’m not saying I agree with it but there is your reasoning right there.

EDIT: fixed some numbers

it's the perception of a "comeback", the impressions of Lidge are tainted by that Pujols HR, and his subsequent struggles after that. I also bet the writers looked at the ERA this year(1.95) compared with last year(3.36), and concluded that that was a comeback.

A lot of time the writers chose people who just did terribly the year before, and "came back" from that.

Lidge was a closer, a set up guy, a crappy set up guy, etc in 2007. He "came back" to be dominant on 2008. So, his come back was from being bad.

Jason Giambi got come back player of the year in 2005 for coming back from a steriod deprived season in 2004....now THATS bad.

Cliff Lee wins Comeback Player of the Year award over Josh Hamilton and we're talking about Lidge?

Did Hamilton win it last year for Cincinnati?

Lee makes perfect sense: dude was in the minors for much of last year.

An ERA more than a full run better than league average, and 88 K's in 67 innings, is bad? I think not.

Someone like Jorge Cantu would seemingly be a much better choice.

Also, I'm not sure that this a writers' award.

No, Dmitri Young did.

Well "comeback" would imply you once had success at the MLB level, lost it, then regained it, right? As much as Hamilton went through a slew of shit, none of that is reflected in his ML track record.

To me this just highlights how arbitrary these awards are. Someone came up with a definition or set of criteria, and that sticks. In general it's best not to get too excited or worked up over the results of these things.

I would agree with that. Ryan Ludwick also seems like a logical choice.

Other options...?
Randy Johnson (11-10, 3.91 ERA in 184 IP after only 56 2/3 innings last year)
Kyle Kendrick (coming back from Japan?)
Nomahhhh, for impersonating a SS? (kidding -- he was completely awful this year)


Personally, I always appreciate the "comeback to earth" award, for players who way overperformed in the past and came crashing back down to reality this season.

I'd rather a pitcher who spent most of last year middling in the minors only to come back and win (soon) the Cy over a junkie who stopped banging dope in his veins win an award. Josh Hamilton "came back" from self inflicted wounds.

While I agree with this the logic fails when one would assume the same voters gave the award to Giambi.

I think Cantu would have been a fine choice...I'd have voted Cantu in the NL, Lee in the AL.

I definitely would have picked other players over Lidge. Then again he seemd to have back big time mentally after his bitch slap by Pujols

Hamilton's "comeback" season would have been last year, not this year. This was his breakout year.

But last year was his rookie season. How do you "come back" to a place you've never been to before? I've always thought the award was for someone who had some degree of success in the majors, sucked for a while, then was good again.

That's why Hamilton didn't win, would be my guess.

I hear there was a pretty good pitcher on some AL team that had, like, cancer or something two years ago, only started 12 regular season games last year due to recovery from it, and I guess he sorta pitched well throughout this season. He had a no hitter or something......I think he might've won game 1 of a playoff game on the road yesterday.

He didn't come back from sucking like Lee. He came back from a deadly disease.

But Lester did not have an established record of success in the majors before he got cancer. Wasn't he still in his rookie year when the cancer was discovered?

I think a lot of people in this thread are using their personal biases when parsing what "comeback" should refer to or cover in the guise of this award, rather than comparing how the history success of those winning it this year comapres to the winners of the past. If the later is done, I think a consistent pattern emerges:

1. "Success" for at least a sustainable period at the major league level.
2. A drop off, sometimes extreme, from the baseline set in period one.
3. A one-year progression at least back near what is achieved in period one--sometimes in excess of it.

Looked at it that way, there's no way you can't have Lee as the AL CPY winner, and there's a solid argument to be made for Lidge in the NL.