Those in Northeast Ohio have known for a few years now that Corey Kluber is one of baseball’s best pitchers. Despite winning the Cy Young in 2014, Kluber still hasn’t received as much respect as he deserves. That very well may change after this historic postseason from the Klubot. While his playoff performance won’t decide whether he wins this year’s Cy Young Award, certainly he has put the baseball world on notice that 2014 was no fluke performance by a no-name pitcher. Corey Kluber is one of baseball’s best and deserves the AL Cy Young Award for 2016.
My finalists for this year’s Cy Young are the following: Kluber, Justin Verlander, Chris Sale, Zach Britton, and Rick Porcello. There are strong arguments to be made for each of these pitchers and given the BBWAA’s historic tendency to favor more traditional statistics like Wins, it’s not always easy to accurately determine who will win the award. So, we’ll look at each of these in turn.
Rick Porcello
Why He’ll Win: Wins. If the BBWAA feels that leading the league in wins is the most important stat for a pitcher, then Rick Porcello will be taking home the trophy this year. His 3.15 ERA finished 5th in the American League. His 5.2 WAR earned a tie for the league lead among pitchers. Finally, he finished 4th in innings pitched this season. Porcello was clearly one of the league’s better pitchers this season.
Why He Won’t Win: Pitcher wins mean nothing. Any one who understands the flaws of using pitcher wins to definitively prove how good a pitcher is will tell you that Porcello is not as good as his record suggests. Nobody received more run support than Rick Porcello. In his 33 starts, Boston hitters provided 189 runs scored. That’s 20 runs higher than second on the list, David Price, also a Boston pitcher. Coincidence? I think not. The Red Sox had a fantastic lineup this season so it’s not hard to see why a pitcher can win 22 games when they are receiving over 6 runs per game of support. Additionally, while Porcello is a good pitcher, he doesn’t have particularly impressive “stuff.” His 7.63 K/9 rate ranked 19th in the American League, and while strikeouts aren’t the end-all be-all of pitcher analysis, pitcher dominance is always something that is discussed when debating who is the best. Strikeouts are inherently one of the best means of showing how much a pitcher has dominated opposing hitters, just ask Khris Davis how it felt to strikeout and fall down at the same time against Andrew Miller.
Chris Sale
Why He’ll Win: For years now Chris Sale has dominated batters while playing for a bad team in the Chicago White Sox. This year was no different. In 2016 he finished second in the league in strikeouts with 233; he pitched the 3rd most innings in the league at 226.2; his 3.34 ERA finished 9th and his 3.46 FIP was good for 3rd. Moreover, his 5.2 WAR locked him in a tie for first in the American League.
Why He Won’t Win: He definitely had a very good season in 2016, but he didn’t lead the league in any major category except WAR and who knows how much influence that has on the BBWAA. Not only that, but the White Sox underperformed once again this season and Sale was kind of a dick at times, apparently having a diva-like attitude when it came to jerseys. Team performance and how much the media likes you (or dislikes you) can certainly impact who wins post-season awards.
Zach Britton
Why He’ll Win: He was the league’s most dominant reliever this season. Britton lead the league in saves at 47 and didn’t blow a single opportunity this year. He also posted an absurdly low 0.54 ERA, a mark that was nearly one whole run lower than Andrew Miller’s 1.45 second place finish.
Why He Won’t Win: Winning the Cy Young as a reliever is hard. Only 9 relievers have accomplished the feat and only 2 have done it since 1992. Not even Mariano Rivera, the game’s all-time best reliever, took home the crown. The Royals and now the Indians have really shown how important relief pitching can be. Perhaps in the future relievers will be considered more earnestly for the award, till then, odds are not on Britton’s side.
Justin Verlander
Why He’ll Win: Going into this season I thought Verlander had finally moved out of his prime and into the world of being a very good pitcher rather than one of the best in the league. Welp, looks like I was wrong. At age 33 Verlander turned back the clock to his 2009-2013 form. He lead the league with 254 strikeouts this season, 21 more than second place finisher, Chris Sale. He pitched 227.2 innings, second most in the American League. His 3.04 ERA was second best, while his 3.48 FIP was the fourth best mark. Like Porcello and Sale, he too finished with 5.2 WAR, tops among pitchers. When you are that close to the top in so many major categories, the argument writes itself.
Why He Won’t Win: Among this group of “finalists” he has the fewest wins for a starting pitcher at 16. Like it or not, that could be a deciding factor. The Tigers were also a bit of an underachiever again this year. While they nearly squeaked into the playoffs as a Wild Card, they missed the boat for the second straight year. I wouldn’t put it past some of the BBWAA voters to hold this against him.
Corey Kluber
Why He’ll Win: 18 wins, third highest total in the American League. His 3.14 ERA was the fourth best mark in the AL and his 3.26 FIP was the best. He struck out the fifth most batters in the league at 227 and he lead the league in shutouts. His 5.1 WAR was second in the American League.
Why He Won’t Win: Justin Verlander is ahead of him in two major categories, strikeouts and ERA. In my opinion, the race comes down to these two. If Kluber doesn’t win, I think it will be because the writers viewed Verlander’s resume more favorably.
Predicting the winners of these awards can be a fool’s errand sometimes. All have strong cases for why they should win, but I personally think Verlander and Kluber should be at the top of the list. Regardless of who wins, Tribe fans should rest assured knowing that we have Kluber under team control through 2021!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
