A year ago, I was one of 28 writers empowered to elect the American League MVP. After spending the final month of the season studying, analyzing and comparing their credentials, I cast my vote for Magglio Ordonez over the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez.
        There was no doubt in my mind then  -- and there is no doubt in my mind now --  that I made the right choice.
        Not everyone agreed. That’s putting it mildly. I lost count of the number of  people  -- especially New Yorkers, as usual blind to their own provincial bias _ who cried foul. I caught hell.
        Those votes annually rotate among the baseball beat writers in each A.L. city. This year, I will be voting on the Cy Young Award.
        No controversy, no debate, no question there. The winner has to be Cleveland’s Cliff Lee, right?
        Not necessarily.
        Lee’s numbers are dazzling: 22 wins, just two losses, a 2.41 ERA.
        Even Denton True Young, also known as Cy, would be impressed.
        Lee is certainly a great story. Banished to the minors last year and excluded from the Indians’ postseason roster, Lee went to spring training hoping to land a job as Cleveland’s fifth starter. 
        Instead, he is enjoyed a year for the ages.
        Another thing I like: Lee throws strikes.  Only once this season has Lee walked more than two batters in a game.       
        However, 14 of his wins have come at the expense of teams with losing records -- including five against the Kansas City Royals. And the list of Lee’s victims includes  Dontrelle Willis, Livan Hernandez, Carlos Silva, Jarrod Washburn, and rookies Clayton Richard and Chris Lambert.
        Give Toronto’s Roy Halladay the six runs a game that Lee has gotten this year, and Doc would at least be 22-2, too, instead of a misleading 19-11. Toronto has scored two runs or less in eight of Halladay’s 11 losses this year.
        Halladay has pitched more innings (237 to Lee’s 216 1/3), completed twice as many games (8), and struck out more enemy hitters (220 to 162).
        Although Halladay pitches half of his games in a ballpark that favors hitters, batters are hitting just .239 against him compared to .251 against Lee.
        Ask the hitters in the Tigers’ clubhouse and a lot of them will tell you they think Halladay is the best pitcher in the league.
        Of course, they don’t have a vote.     
        And where would the Los Angeles Angels be without Francisco Rodriguez’s record 60 saves? Not counting the days until the playoffs begin, I can guarantee that.
        But, as my annual Hall of Fame ballots will attest, I have never been a big fan of reliever pitchers, as crucial as the role of the closer has become in today’s game.
        To paraphrase Jim Leyland, if a pitcher can’t get three outs in the ninth inning before he gives up three runs, he doesn’t belong in the big leagues. For me, the save is a somehow hollow statistic.
        And all of those single-inning saves aside, I don’t even think Rodriguez is the best relief pitcher in the A.L. For my money, I’d rather have Boston’s Jonathon Papelbon, Minnesota’s Joe Nathan or New York’s Mariano Rivera.
        The Tigers would be headed for the postseason this year if they had a closer of that caliber. But I doubt they have enough confidence in Rodriguez to shell out the mega millions he is sure to demand on the free agent market this winter.