Cy Young Day

The BBWAA presents the Cy Young Award Wednesday night. You can see who is selected the best pitcher in the National League and the American League on MLB Network.

Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke, and Clayton Kershaw are the finalists in the National League. This may be one of the toughest votes ever. Each went on an amazing streak during the season. From 6/1 to 7/31, Greinke posted a 10-game stretch with a 5-1 record, a 0.86 ERA, 68 K/10 BB/2 HR in 73 1/3 innings. That included six starts in a row without allowing a run. Kershaw started slowly, but finished strong. From 6/27 to 9/14, covering 14 games, he went 9-1 with a 1.00 ERA, 133 K/13 BB/3 HR in 108 innings. There was only one game in the stretch in which he allowed more than one earned run. Arrieta saved his streak for his last 12 starts, going 11-0 with a 0.41 ERA, 89 K/14 BB/1 HR in 88 1/3 innings. He did not allow a run in eight of the starts, and did not allow an earned run in one more. He also threw a no-hitter.

It may come down to something as simple as wins and ERA, however. Arrieta won 22 games with a 1.77 ERA. Greinke won 19 games with a 1.66 ERA. FanGraphs, which uses the underlying ability of the pitcher, ranks Kershaw first in WAR. Baseball Reference, with a more results oriented WAR, ranks Greinke first. Arrieta is a close second in both, while Kershaw and Greike are farther behind the top pair. The consensus between the two measures points to Arrieta. That’s the way I suspect the vote will go, Arrieta, Greinke, Kershaw.

The American League award comes down to Sonny Gray, Dallas Keuchel, and David Price. Gray pitched well, but doesn’t approach Price or Keuchel in Wins, ERA, or Three-True outcomes. Price won the three-true outcome race, mostly on the basis of his strikeouts, and finished first in fWAR. The two had nearly identical ERAs, Price at 2.45, Keuchel at 2.48, but Keuchel pitched 12 innings more. Price gets a boost from the trade, as he went 9-1 in 11 starts for the Blue Jays with a 2.30 ERA, helping that team to the division title.

Keuchel, it should be noted, is an extreme groundball pitcher with a high strikeout rate. That’s fairly unusual. He also won 20 games, and while wins are less important to voters now, when two pitchers have similar ERAs and one has more wins, that could be the tie-breaker.

Both deserve to win, and we’ll see how the vote goes.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1NDkjsJ