Predictably, that's led some to believe he's worthy of serious Cy Young consideration. But he isn't. First, too much emphasis is placed on the save, which is a profoundly flawed and misleading statistic.

In the modern game, closers are most often deployed with an eye toward racking up saves. But one common save situation — working the ninth with a three-run lead — is by no means a high-leverage situation, and the fact that closers are rewarded with a save in those instances is an absolute joke.

Even blowing two-run leads in the ninth is a rarity. As well, the days of the "relief ace," when guys like Goose Gossage and Sparky Lyle regularly logged multi-inning saves, are long gone. Now, it's rare to see a closer work more than three outs at a time.

But even if K-Rod were shouldering a Gossage-like workload, he still wouldn't deserve the Cy Young. This is because great starting pitchers are uniformly more valuable than closers.

You'd think this would be self-evident, but all too often voters have ignored the obvious and given the Cy to closers. Actually, it's happened five times in the NL and four times in the AL. On each occasion, there were far worthier choices to be found among the ranks of starting pitchers. Let's put a finer point on this ...

Below you'll find a list of each closer Cy Young winner and their league rank, among pitchers, in a Baseball Prospectus statistic called Value Over Replacement Player/Pitcher (VORP). VORP measures, in runs saved, what a pitcher provides over and above a hypothetical pitcher who's comfortably below the league average (go here if you're interested in a more detailed explanation of VORP). Here's how the honored closers stack up:

As you can see, in terms of actual value (sort of the point, right?), no closer who won the Cy Young deserved it. Mostly, it's a matter of innings. If you're a closer, then no matter how many saves you tally or how low your ERA is you're simply not going to be as valuable as a front-line starter who's working, in some instances, four times as many innings.

And that brings us back to K-Rod.

This season, Rodriguez ranks a mere 59th in VORP among AL hurlers. Once more for maximum emphasis: according to VORP, Rodriguez has been the 59th best pitcher in the American League in 2008. Closers never deserve to win Cy Youngs, but Rodriguez, should he take the hardware, would stand as perhaps the least deserving Cy Young winner of all-time.

Hell, this season 17 other relievers have higher VORPS than K-Rod does (!): Joe Nathan, Scott Downs, Mariano Rivera, Brad Ziegler, James Johnson, Joakim Soria, Bobby Jenks, Grant Balfour, J.P. Howell, Dan Wheeler, Jonathan Papelbon, Jesse Carlson, Darren Oliver, Jose Arredondo, Matt Thornton, Ron Mahay, and Hideki Okajima. Rodriguez hasn't even been the best reliever on his own team.

Quibble with VORP if you like, but it's inarguable that Rodriguez doesn't merit serious consideration for the Cy Young. There's a debate — a good one — to be had over whether Cliff Lee of the Indians or Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays deserves it in the AL, but no closer should ever be a part of those discussions. Even Nathan, who's been miles better than K-Rod this season, can't approach Lee, Halladay or any number of other aces in terms of overall value. This is a simple reality of the game, and voters should begin acknowledging it.

To be sure, K-Rod is a great closer and certainly a thrill to watch, and he's worked some critical innings this season with success. However, the closer role has some built-in limitations, and those limitations mean that a modern closer should never, ever be given the Cy Young. That's the case regardless of how many saves Rodriguez hoards in 2008.