Brandon Webb of the Arizona DiamondBacks.

The breakdown of the voting is as follows:

One really can’t complain with the outcome of the award because not one of the top three distinguished themselves from the other.

Webb busted out of the gates with a 9-3 record with an impressive 2.65 ERA in the season’s first half, keeping the DiamondBacks in the NL West race till August.

After the All-Star break, however, Webb had a rather uneven second half, notching a 7-5 mark and a still impressive (but certainly not as dominating) 3.76 ERA and slipped back to the rest of the pack.

Overall, Webb threw an astounding 235 innings and ended the season with a 16-8 record, lowest win total for a Cy Young winner.

The second place winner, San Diego Padre closer Trevor Hoffman, had an historic season, setting the Major League Baseball all-time saves record of 482. During the season, Hoffman appeared in 63 innings and registered an 0-2 record and a sparkling 2.14 ERA.

Entrenched in third place was Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter, despite netting 16 second place votes. Carpenter, who led the majors with five complete games, was aiming to become the first back-to-back Cy Young Award winner since former Arizona DiamondBack (and current New York Yankee) Randy Johnson, who won the award in four consecutive years (1999-2002).

Carpenter finished the regular season with a 15-8 record and a 3.09 after a rough September.

For the record — award voting is completed at the end of the baseball season.

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In my opinion, I had it @ Hoffman, Webb and Carpenter. I thought Hoffman had a great season and was the key to the Friars getting into the playoffs. Like I mentioned above, there really wasn’t a clear-cut favorite this season — all three pitchers made a solid case for it, but there were quite a bit of blown opportunities by all three hurlers during the year to seperate themselves from the pack.

No qualms with the final outcome, though.