In a season where there is serious talk that Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw may win the NL MVP award, there is little doubt about who is going to win the NL Cy Young Award. But, in the AL, where for most of the season it was a foregone conclusion that Seattle Mariners own Felix Hernandez would win his second Cy Young, the award has become a two man race.

NL Cy Young Award

Before we begin discussing the NL Cy Young award, let’s make sure that everyone understands that Clayton Kershaw put up the numbers he put up after missing the month of April. These numbers are for five months, not six, 27 starts, not 34 or 35.

With a 7.2 WAR, Clayton Kershaw outpaced Jordan Zimmerman of the Washington Nationals, his next closest NL competitor by 2 full wins. Adam Wainwright of the St. Louis Cardinals is third for WAR by a pitcher in the NL with 4.5.

Only five pitchers in the NL had a WAR higher than 4 and had Kershaw even started as many games as 32 he would have had a WAR in excess of 8.5. So, were talking twice as good as Zimmerman or Wainwright or Stephen Strasburg or Johnny Cueto. That’s insane.

Kershaw led the majors in ERA with 1.77, beating his closest NL rival Johnny Cueto of the Cincinnati Reds by almost a half a run. His MLB leading FIP was 1.81, also beating his closest NL challenger, Jordan Zimmerman, by almost 0.8 runs. And his xFIP of 2.08 also led the majors and outpaced Stephen Strasburg, the nearest NL pitcher, by nearly half a run.

Not unexpectedly, he also led the majors in WHIP with 0.86, making him one of only four starting pitchers with a sub 1 WHIP this season. And surprisingly, he did NOT lead the league in BB/9 rate, but was a disappointing 7^th in the majors and 5^th in the NL at 1.41.

Kershaw led all starting pitchers in the majors with a 10.85 K/9 rate leading to 239 strike outs in only 198.1 innings. Compare that to Sandy Koufax in 1963, the year he won the Cy Young and the NL MVP. Koufax’s K/9 rate was 8.86. He managed to strike out 306 hitters that year because he threw 311 innings. At 311 innings and a 10.85 K/9 rate, a pitcher would strike out 375 batters. Again, insane.

And for the “purists” who hate math, Kershaw also led the majors in wins with 21 in only 27 starts. That’s a win in 77.78% of his starts.

The NL Cy Young Award is a slam dunk for Clayton Kershaw.

AL Cy Young Award

For most of the season, the AL Cy Young award seemed to be as open and shut as the NL. Back in early August I wrote a column making the dual Cy Young and AL MVP argument for Seattle Mariners Felix Hernandez. But an August with a 2-2 record and a 3.31 ERA by Felix, allowed Cleveland Indians Corey Kluber to enter the conversation in a real serious way.

Kluber led the majors among starting pitchers with a 7.3 WAR (remember WAR is cumulative so the 37 additional innings Kluber threw eeked out the 0.1 win over Kershaw). Hernandez was third in the majors and second in the AL for starting pitchers at 6.2 WAR.

Kluber and Hernandez had almost identical workloads, each starting 34 games, with Kluber pitching 235.2 innings to Felix’s 236.

Hernandez led the AL in ERA with 2.14, edging out Chris Sale of the Chicago White Sox at 2.17. Kluber was 7^th in the majors and 4^th in the AL at 2.44.

The two are first and second in both FIP and xFIP in the AL. While Kluber beats out Hernandez in FIP (2.35 to 2.56, Felix wins in xFIP 2.51 to 2.57),

Kluber has a higher K/9 rate at 10.27 compared to Hernandez’s 9.46, which results in Kluber having more strike outs (269 to 248). Kluber is second in the AL, behind David Price of the Detroit Tigers who led all of MLB with 271 K.

What may ultimately tip the scale to Kluber is that darned wins stat. Even though everyone should know by now that wins are not a statistic within the control of the pitcher, there are still a lot of crusty old timers with votes for these awards.

Kluber won 18 games on a club that won 85, while Hernandez won 15 on a team that won 87.

Then there’s the question of whether to go with the new guy or the guy who’s won it before. If novelty swings the pendulum, it will go to Kluber. If familiarity is the dish of the day then it will go to Felix.

I’m going to go with Corey Kluber, mostly because the Indians are not nearly as good of a defensive team as the Mariners and that Kluber pitches his home games in a hitter friendly park whereas Felix’s home games are in a pitcher’s park. But either would be a worthy winner this year.