Indians ace Corey Kluber and Nationals ace Max Scherzer have been named the Cy Young Award winners in their respective leagues, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced tonight. Scherzer has now won back-to-back Cy Young Awards and three total in his career after receiving 27 of the 30 first-place votes. (Clayton Kershaw received the other three first-place votes.) It’s the second AL Cy Young nod for Kluber, who won in even more convincing fashion with 28 of 30 first-place votes. (Chris Sale received the other two first-place votes in the AL.)
Kluber, who also took home the award back in 2014, rode a blistering hot finish to his second career Cy Young honor. The 31-year-old missed nearly all of May after going on the DL early that month with a lower back strain. At the time of Kluber’s DL placement, he carried a 5.06 ERA through his first six appearances on the season.
The Kluber of old resurfaced upon returning from injury, though. In his first appearance upon activation, Kluber fired six innings of shutout ball with two hits, one walk and 10 strikeouts. From that point forth, he went on an otherworldly hot streak, pitching to an immaculate 1.62 ERA with a 224-to-23 K/BB ratio that looked more like something one would see in MLB: The Show than in real life. All told, Kluber wrapped up his season with an AL-best 2.25 ERA through 203 2/3 innings. Kluber also led the American League in complete games (five), shutouts (three) and walks per nine innings (1.6) while averaging 10.3 punchouts per nine frames as well.
Sale took not only the other two first-place votes but 28 second-place votes, meaning that he and Kluber were first or second on all 30 ballots. Luis Severino finished a distant third place, while Carlos Carrasco, Justin Verlander, Craig Kimbrel, Ervin Santana and Marcus Stroman rounded out the ballot.
As for Scherzer, the 33-year-old topped 200 innings for the fifth consecutive season and led the National League in strikeouts for the second consecutive year. His gaudy 2.51 ERA and 12.0 K/9 rates were both career-bests, and he’s now made at least 30 starts in the past nine seasons after taking the hill 31 times this season.
Unlike Kluber, Scherzer was dominant from day one in 2017. Remarkably, there was only one point throughout the entire season where Scherzer’s ERA crept above 3.00; on May 20, he yielded three runs in five innings to bump his ERA to 3.02. From that point forward, Scherzer was virtually unhittable, posting a 2.30 ERA over his final 141 innings and at one point whiffing at least 10 hitters in six straight outings.
Kershaw received 25 of the 30 second-place votes, while Zack Greinke and Scherzer’s teammate, Stephen Strasburg, each took home a second-place vote as well. Strasburg wound up finishing in third place, with Greinke taking fourth and Kenley Jansen landing fifth overall in the balloting. Yet another Nats starter Gio Gonzalez, came in sixth place overall, giving the Nats three of the top six in the NL. Robbie Ray, Jacob deGrom, Jimmy Nelson and Alex Wood each collected an odd fourth- or fifth-place vote here and there, rounding out the ballot in that order.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Kluber was a no brainer.
Except for the two with no brains. Those two asshats ought to have their voting privileges revoked.
one was a white Sox writer and one was a red Sox …had to stick with their man
Sale had over 40 more strikeouts and a lower FIP. I’m 100% okay with Kluber winning, but it’s pretty ignorant to suggest someone should have their voting privileges revoked over voting Sale.
If the voters were this analytical in 2012 Kershaw would have won it over R.A Dickey
Agreed. Dickey won essentially for being an anomaly.
And pitching in NY.
Every single team has 2 voters. NY nor any other city has an advantage over another.
Are they not allowed to vote for members of their own team?
Otherwise the 2 missed votes for Kluber are still a big question mark.
Yeah they’re allowed to vote for their own team.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic
Yes. How do you think unanimous awards get won?
The 2 who voted for Sale were a Boston writer and Bruce Levine (White Sox). All votes are directly on the BBWAA web page.
If the Nats don’t re-sign Bryce Harper after next year, they should trade Scherzer; $42 million per year in the last three years of his contract?!? They’d be able to get at least five top prospects if he was on the market now coming off two straight Cy Young Awards and dominating the entire league (even with the crazy eye thing going on).
A younger, SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper Chris Sale took 2 top prospects and fillers to get. You really think someone is going to give the Nats 3 more top prospects on top of that? Not even close.
5 top prospects when he’ll count as $42M against the cap for 3 years….and the team will be paying him through 2028? Sure that could happen if WSH ate his entire salary.
He’s not making $42M per year at any point…it’s simply for accounting purposes. He makes $15M per year for 14 years…7 while with the Nats, the next 7 deferred. His AAV counts as $31M per year according to the luxury tax.
In any case he’s not going to be traded, nor would he command that type of package if he did. The only player in baseball who might get 5 top prospects would be Trout, and even that would be a stretch.
The Nationals aren’t set to implode the moment Harper walks. They’ve still got a good team, and a lot of young prospects coming. They should be fine.
Bryan Harper is not a carry-the-team type player. The Nats had their worst season when Bryan Harper had his best. Losing him may be a blessing in disguise. The Nats can focus on other weaknesses. If they improve their overall OF and develop a better bullpen instead of shelling out a record payday for one player, the whole team benefits, not just one player.
How about Bryan’s brother Bryce?
You can’t be serious. Without Harper in 2015, the Nationals would have won 75-79 games, not 89. Maybe the team’s poor performance that year had to do with the fact Ramos, Zimmerman, Espinosa, Desmond, Werth, Taylor all hit under .250, combining for .233/.284/.389; or that Rendon, Span, Zimmerman, and Werth each missed 70-100 games; or that Strasburg essentially missed 2 months.
The only knock against Harper is that in 3 of the past 5 years he has played under 120 games. Other than that, only Trout is a better player. Now, does it make sense to commit to a 10yr/$300M contract? That really depends upon a lot of factors. But to claim he isn’t a “carry-the-team” type player is simply unfounded.
Wow. It wasn’t even close for kershaw. I thought it would be scherzer, but not by that much.
No issues with Scherzer, but since they both missed time, Kershaw should have won this award.
Agreed
Disagree and I’m neither a dodger or national fan.
Too bad for Kershaw getting hurt. I’d pick him over Scherzer every day of the week to be on my team
In the postseason Scherzer makes Kershaw look like Sandy Koufax
Post season:
Scherzer 3.73 ERA
Kershaw 4.35 ERA
More like makes Kershaw look like Chan Ho Park
Scherzer has blew it for the Nats 2 years running now. Scherzer on 2 days rest was awful. Kershaw was able to go 4 shutout innings. Kershaw had way more great playoff games you can point to than Max
Didn’t the defense blow it for Scherzer this year and an admitted blown call?
Kershaw got screwed had better era and most wins and 2nd in every other category
Kershaw is probably the best pitcher in baseball. But if he doesn’t get to 200 IP he shouldn’t win. Scherzer pitched at least 40 more innings than Kershaw. That’s a significant gap.
Passing 200 IP means that pitcher consistently pitched much longer than 5 innings a game. That’s what should be expected of a Cy Young winner. That’s what should be expected of an Ace.
That’s going to become less and less likely as teams are starting to get smarter about the “times through the order” penalty. Only a handful of pitchers threw 200 innings this year – not because they aren’t aces, but because managers are realizing that pulling starters early and going to a bevy of nasty relievers is smarter baseball. I would guess in ten years we won’t have any 200-inning starters anymore.
And that is a sad thing.
For sure, that’s one of the reasons I loved Roy Halladay, always pitched late into games.
Also wrecked his arm and ended his career early, which is also a sad thing.
How did he wreck his arm and career early? Halladay pitched into his late 30s, and nearly 15 full years in the major leagues. What exactly would a long career be?
Halladay’s career started late and ended at 36, and he was getting shelled at the end because his arm was wrecked. Most HOF pitchers (which Halladay wil be) have longer careers than his. He had a strong – but short – peak. Similar to Koufax, who was also absolutely abused and retired at 30.
Career started late? He started his pro career at 18 and debuted in the majors at 21. How on earth is that late?
You are just saying random stuff now brah… Koufax led the league in lowest era his last 5 years. 1.73 in 1966. Get outta here with random stupid arguments, smh.
Halladay entered the league at 21, bounced around the rotation and bullpen at 22, injured at 23, came back strong at 24 and didn’t look back until his last two year in the league when the injuries did him in. He had 10 truly amazing years of great baseball; equal or longer stretches than Pedro, Randy johnson, and Tom Glavine. Koufax was no more abused than the likes of Gibson, Marichal, & Drysdale over the stretch of time
Fun note about Stephen Strasburg and the “times through the order” penalty. Strasburg has consistently done BETTER the first three times through the order. The first time: batters OPS .636. Pretty impressive.
The second time: .617. Seriously?
The third time: .605. That’s domination.
It does go up significantly the fourth time through – but that’s only based on 76 plate appearances where the first three are based on over a thousand each. I’d like to think that the fact that he’s still pitching this well this long after TJ surgery – where so many of the other examples that people said they should do (Medlen, Harvey, etc.) – would put aside the idiotic “shutdown” controversy. But I’m not holding my breath.
He is basically the only pitcher in baseball you can say that about though. I wouldn’t call a single outlier any sort of proof of anything.. Strasburg is one of the very best pitchers in baseball. Coparing him to any pitcher, especially a scrub like Medlen and a guy like Harvey, who has had multiple injuries, is a little unfair.
I wasn’t comparing 2017 Strasburg, Medlen and Harvey. In 2012, the Nationals were criticized for not managing innings for Strasburg the way that the Braves did with Medlen, who emerged as the ace of a solid Braves staff and was available for the playoffs. Medlen started the Wild Card game at home for them; the Braves had a 23 game winning streak in home starts by Medlen. They lost anyway. Which, by the way, could easily have been the Nationals’ fate had they tried to manage Strasburg’s innings that year – the Nats could have been in the WC game with Strasburg and lost if they had used Strasburg less and ended up with more John Lannan.
The other side with Strasburg was “the hell with it, give him the ball!” With Harvey, of course, after much controversy the Mets elected to push Harvey and Harvey ultimately agreed. He’s never been the same since.
So my point was not to compare them as pitchers now, but in the approaches that the teams took to handling them and the ultimate results. In 2012 Medlen was an ace; in 2015 Harvey was an ace. In 2012 Strasburg was at that level, too. And after taking care of his arm and rehab, the Nats have 2017 Strasburg finishing #3 in the Cy Young voting while Medlen and Harvey …. aren’t. It seems at least possible that the Nationals are reaping the benefits (including Strasburg deciding to stay in DC rather than try free agency) of their decision to put the interests of the player first.
Kershaw pitched longer than 5 innings a game, if he didn’t miss 6 week due to injury he would’ve hit the mark
Of course. And that’s why it’s a shame about the injuries. But you can’t give out awards for “would’ve”.
Scherzer only pitched 25 more innings than Kershaw, not the 40+ you listed. Kershaw missed 6 weeks and still hit 175, so he definitely pitched late into games. I think Kershaw should have won, but I’m obviously biased and recognize the bias. In the end Scherzer is a very deserving winner.
Are you kidding me kershaw had the better era and had more wins and second in every other category scherzer only had more innings pitched and few more strikeouts
Putting aside the reliance on pitcher wins (really?) … on ERA, you can’t ignore that Kershaw pitched in one of the more pitcher-friendly parks in MLB. Scherzer did not. When you park-adjust their ERA’s, they are basically the same.
When broken down by quality of contact allowed and expected performance (xwOBA), Scherzer’s numbers are the best in MLB. That’s before you get to the extra innings pitched, WHIP and K’s. Kershaw is great, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins another CY next year. But in 2017 it was Scherzer, and legitimately so.
Thats crazy scherzer putched 25 more innings. Who would you want on the mound for 1 important game kershaw or scherzer
Baumgartner is the best pitcher in MLB
Klubot!!
There’s more guys with 3+ Cy Youngs than I expected, but the list is remarkable:
Clemens, Randy Johnson, Carlton, Maddux, Koufax, Pedro, Palmer, Seaver, Kershaw, Scherzer.
For whatever reason, I hadn’t really thought of Scherzer in terms of the HoF before this year, but he’s got a shot now. His age is going to keep his win total down, but he’s got the highlight package to get in.
Writers need to majorly change the benchmarks they look for when voting on pitchers for the HoF like, immediately. If we assume there are always at least 3-5 pitchers active at a time its hard to see Scherzer not ending up enshrined. But the days of comparing cumulative stats to past HoFers is over…though 3 Cy Youngs is quite a good one.
Yep, we aren’t going to ever see another 300-win pitcher ever, but voters are still acting as if that’s the norm. The fact that a guy like Mussina isn’t in yet, for example, is appalling.
He wanted to sign in the Lou.
MO wouldn’t pay the local guy.
Turrible
Turrible indeed….anybody got a translation?
Why not a picture of Kluber for the header?
Kluber finally won a cy young.
Yeah finally won one…after winning one just 2 years ago… :/
He diddnt deserve that one. Tell me how he could have possibly deserved it more than King Felix? This season Kluber definitely deserved to win, but not 2014.
Setup for this was a little odd but stats back Felix on this.
He definitely deserved it a lot more than Rick Porcello did last year…I’ll admit that I’m a biased Indians fan but all Porcello seemed to have was more than 20 wins
Which stat? The 6.8 WAR to Kluber’s 7.4 WAR?
ERA, WHIP, ERA+, H9, IP(nearly the same though). And King Felix’s ERA and WHIP were the lowest in the AL since Pedro. ERA should be the main stat used for starting pitchers, and Felix was better 2.14-2.44.
You just used the 5 most common and arguably easiest to destroy stats to support Felix. Look at advanced stats– like how to determine what a QS should actually be (not the dopey 3 runs over 6) and you will see Kluber was the most dominant pitcher for often. Yes, ERA is important but when your talking about 1/3 a run over 9 innings that’s not significant enough to hand it to Felix.
Felix went on a historic stretch of 16(could have been more) straight starts of 7 innings and 2 or less runs allowed.
And had 0 complete games and 0 shutouts. Not to mention Kluber had 21 more Ks and a better WAR and WHIP.
Felix had the better WHIP, he actually lead the American league in WHIP.
My bad, was looking at different stat.
My vote would have been for Kershaw, but still a tough choice.
AL should have been closer. Sale faded, but Kluber spent time on the DL.
It should read that kluber was tied for league lead in complete games and shutouts. He was tied with Santana in both categories.