Cardinal Nation isn’t too happy about the outcome of the National League Cy Young Award voting, for obvious reasons.

Numbers crunchers Keith Law and Will Carroll left Chris Carpenter off their ballots, opting for Javier Vazquez and Danny Haren instead. This vaulted Tim Lincecum to his second consecutive CYA, to dismay of Cards fans pulling for either Carpenter or Adam Wainwright.

This stirred all sorts of commentary and analysis on the Internet. Here are some samples:

Rob Neyer, ESPN.com: “Purely in terms of performance — rather than precedent — it’s very difficult to make the case that a vote for Vazquez or Haren is somehow crazy. Vazquez’s ERA was little different from Wainwright’s, but he was one of only two National Leaguers with a strikeout-to-walk ratio higher than 5-to-1.”

Ken Rosenthal, FoxSports.com: “Lincecum went 3-4 with a 3.40 ERA in his last eight starts. Only two of those starts were subpar, but one was a four-inning, five-run performance on a hot late-September day in Los Angeles when the Giants were fighting to stay in the race. Wainwright, on the other hand, was 11-3 with a 1.90 ERA in his final 18 starts, helping lift the Cardinals to the NL Central title.”

Danny Knobler, CBSSports.com: “Was Carpenter helped by the Cardinals’ superior defense? Probably, but Lincecum was helped by pitching at AT&T Park, where his ERA (1.88) was significantly lower than his ERA on the road (3.21). Carpenter was the league’s dominant pitcher in the second half of the season, going 10-1 with a 2.06 ERA. And while the Cardinals were a much better offensive team than the Giants, Carpenter’s run support was almost identical to Lincecum’s (5.84 vs. 5.83). The two voters who saw Lincecum the most, the voters from Nothern California, both put Carpenter first on their ballot.”

Steve Gardner, USAToday.com: “Despite the old-school Baseball Writers Association of America doing the balloting, statheads may have actually made some major headway by having the voters agree with one of the things fantasy geeks have been saying for some time now: Wins are not the best judge of a pitcher’s effectiveness.”

Perhaps someday baseball games will be played in a computer, not on the field. Statistical formulas will determine outcomes, not actual action.

In such a world, perhaps Vazquez would win the Cy Young every year. In the meanwhile, Tipsheet, old-fashioned to core, will insist that ACTUAL VICTORIES should count for something.

We can’t wait until next week to see the stat guys argue that Albert Pujols was by no means the Most Valuable Player in the National League last season.

STILL, LINCECUM IS A GOOD KID

As you can see from this classic commercial.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while wondering how many these stat-crunchers are arguing that the Phillies, not the Yankees, actually won the World Series, based on the “advanced metrics” governing the game today:

• Say, was that really Keith Tkachuk cutting to the net to score a power forward’s goal against the Coyotes?
• Somewhere out there, was Mike Ditka smiling as Ricky Williams demolished the Carolina Panthers Thursday night?
• What if your workplace issued a NFL-style injury report? What would it look like?
• With the Big 12 North down, how did Colorado fall so short this season? Will the school scrape up the funds needed to fire Dan Hawkins as a result?
• Is this sort of peripheral activity going to undermine football recruiting at Ole Miss?
• Will this apparent infighting hamper the future of KU athletics?
• Now that Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan are getting up in years, shouldn’t they learn to make nice in public?
• Will they hash out their difference over a bowl of buffet pudding?

MEGAPHONE

“I made a mistake and I regret my actions earlier this month in Washington. I want to apologize to the Giants organization and to the fans. I know as a professional athlete I have a responsibility to conduct myself appropriately both on and off the field. I certainly have learned a valuable lesson through all this and promise to do better in the future. I hope and expect the matter will be resolved soon. In the meantime, I am focused on preparing for the 2010 season. Since all this is still pending before the courts, this is all I can say on the topic right now.”

Lincecum, during his conference call with reporters, reading his apology for his postseason marijuana bust.

INBOX

From the electronic mail bin:

“Can you do an article guessing the pre-stadium and post-stadium revenues and compare it to payroll?   I thought one of the ways that the Cards sold the stadium was ‘re-investment’ into the team.  It seems to me that our payroll really hasn’t increased subsequent to our increase in revenue. Would be great to see some analysis here.”

Ty Shay

According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, my go-to site for contract stuff, the Cards payroll has gone up appreciably this decade. Here are the Opening Day estimates, year by year:

• 2000: $ 63,900,000
• 2001: $ 78,538,333
• 2002: $ 74,660,875
• 2003: $ 83,786,666
• 2004: $ 83,228,333
• 2005: $ 92,106,833
• 2006: $ 88,891,371
• 2007: $ 90,286,823
• 2008: $ 99,624,449
• 2009: $ 88,528,409

Last season, the Cards added payroll on the fly by taking in rental hitters Matt Holliday and Mark DeRosa – pushing the effective late-season payroll closer to $100 million after Bill DeWitt realized revenues were not falling as feared.

ELSEWHERE ON STLTODAY.COM

Adam Wainwright got jobbed.

The stat nerds explained why they stiffed Carpenter.

Hockey Guy noted that Chris Mason saved the Note Thursday night.