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According to baseball fans, no player was more “clutch” in 2008 than CC Sabathia.

The left-hander, who started the year with the Indians, finished it with the Brewers and now is available to all 30 teams in free agency, won Major League Baseball’s Clutch Performer of the Year Award, presented by Pepsi, after a fan vote on MLB.com.

 The reigning 2007 AL Cy Young Award winner, Sabathia, split this regular season between the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers and posted a career-best 2.70 ERA in 2008 with a career-high 251 strikeouts (which was second in the MLB to Tim Lincecum’s 265) and also posted a career- and MLB-leading 253 innings pitched. He was at his best after a July 7 trade brought him to Milwaukee, going 11-2 in 17 starts, including a complete-game win over the Cubs on the final day of the regular season.

It was Sabathia’s seventh complete game for the Brewers and his third straight start on short rest. And it will be remembered as the day Milwaukee punched its first postseason ticket in 26 years and a living godsend for the Brewers fans and organization.

Now, that’s clutch.

Sabathia is also up for the NL Cy Young Award, however he has four strong opponents in this competition, such as Tim Lincecum (18-5, 2.62 E.R.A) who led the major leagues in strikeouts and was second in NL in E.R.A and also won two awards in Players’ Choice Award for Outstanding Pitcher of the Year and Sporting News Top NL Pitcher of the Year, Brandon Webb (22-8, 3.30 E.R.A) who was the 2006 NL Cy Young Award Winner and led the NL and tied for majors in wins but had only 183 K’s in 226.1 IP, Johan Santana (16-7, 2.53 E.R.A) who led the NL in E.R.A, and Rich Harden (10-2, 2.07 E.R.A) who would’ve led the league in E.R.A had he qualified in needing 24 more Innings pitched.  So the competition is heavy with either Sabathia or Lincecum regarded as the top heavy contenders for the title and Webb always the fan favorite and Santana as the dark horse.

Nonetheless, there was no other player more clutch than C.C. Sabathia was for his Milwaukee Brewers team.  However, he couldn’t clutch up in the playoff series against the NL Pennant winning Phillies. So there is still more left to prove for Sabathia as far the postseason is concerned.  But one thing we know about Sabathia, is he is a dominating starter who can go the whole nine yards as his  10 complete games suggest.

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