As expected, Gerrit Cole is the 2023 Cy Young winner in the American League. The Baseball Writers Association of America announced the Yankee star has won the award. Former Minnesota right-hander Sonny Gray was the runner-up, while Toronto’s Kevin Gausman took home third place.
There wasn’t a ton of intrigue, as Cole received all 30 first-place votes. While he’s a six-time All-Star and two-time ERA champion, this is his first career Cy Young. No AL pitcher topped Cole’s 209 innings, while he led Junior Circuit pitchers (minimum 150 innings) with a 2.63 ERA. He was sixth among that group with a 27% strikeout rate and trailed only Gausman and Pablo López with 222 punchouts overall.
That well-rounded dominance made Cole an easy call as the AL’s best pitcher in the eyes of voters. It’s his sixth top five finish and the third time he has been a finalist, as he’d twice before finished as runner-up. Having at least one Cy Young on his résumé could go a long way towards burnishing an eventual Hall of Fame case.
For now, the 33-year-old will look to replicate this year’s success in hopes of leading the Yankees back to the postseason. Despite Cole turning in one of the best seasons of his career, New York floundered midseason and finished barely above .500. Cole will be in the Bronx for at least one more year. He’s headed into year five of a nine-year, $324MM free agent contract. He has the ability to opt out after next season.
Gray received 20 second-place votes to earn the highest Cy Young finish of his career. It was well timed for the three-time All-Star, who hit free agency a couple weeks ago. Gausman secured seven second-place votes and was the most common selection for third. Stray second-place votes went to Luis Castillo and Zach Eflin, although Baltimore’s Kyle Bradish edged out that duo for fourth in overall balloting.
Others to receive at least one vote: López, George Kirby, Framber Valdez, Chris Bassitt, Félix Bautista and Chris Martin. The full results are available at the BBWAA website.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Unsurprising.
Yep
Raffy is still his daddy!!!
Palmeiro??
bunt – No, Rafaela.
It was between him and the Ninja Turtle..I wasn’t sure!
He owns Cole!
There’s always one
The only cheater is your mom
Good thing the rest of the Yankees supported him this year
Before this win, Cole was the 2nd highest in win shares for the Cy Young award amongst players without a win.
Now let’s trade him for several top prospects. Yankees are several players away from winning a WS
Except for his No-Trade clause right?
No-Trade clause
Well at least tell us who #1 is now Darkside!! Haha
Waino.
Thank You. That is super interesting. I gotta find the entire list now hah
It’s on BBREF.
Jeff Passan remains undefeated.
MLBTR writers need to start asking for scoops. That would be awesome.
I wonder if it was a mistake in the MLB PR department or if baseball writers have an embargo, and they know who won, similar to what Hollywood does with movie reviews with film critics.
Embargo sounds very plausible…I don’t think layman like us are privy to such intimate details haha
Two scoops or one?
I’ll take a vanilla shake with sprinkles instead please & thanks!
Well deserved
Way to go Gerrit!!!
Cole got ro… no, wait… Congrats Gerrit Cole!!
Just in time for him to opt out of his remaining contract and force NY to add another year to his deal to retain him. There’s no way Cashman lets him test the market, right?
Worst cheater in baseball history, way to go.
Relationship wise?
Alex Rodriguez but yeah
Neopolitan Sosa has entered the chat.
In your face, Alek!!
The opt-out kicks in after next season. The question becomes would you sign a recently-turned 34 y.o. Gerrit Cole to a 5-year, $180MM contract? If you look at what DeGrom, JV, and Max received, then it’s an easy answer.
It’d only be 4 years after next season.
I think he’ll opt out barring any injury. He can’t do much more from an AAV standpoint but some desperate club would likely throw another 2 years on the back end.
5 years including the ’29 exercised option which nullifies his opt-out.
DeGrom is always injured
Gotcha. Yeah that’ll be exercised
“As expected”
Quite contrary to Snell’s write-up where they said he had a “decent” chance at it.
Congratulations!
Every time I think this site has hit rock bottom you maroons manage to drain a little bit more out the pool, carry on. Ahahaha!
Sony Gray, the runner up.
If only he had pitched that way as a Yankee, what a tandem, we would have had.
But hey Montas and Rodon are a pair of fine consolation prizes.
I used to troll my Yankee friends by saying Cole was the modern day Nolan Ryan. Always lead in Ks, had a high ERA, all of his actual CYA-worthy seasons got overshadowed by someone else (take 2019 for example), and I swore that he’d never win a Cy Young. Guess I can’t do that anymore.
So 3 former Cincinnati Reds pitchers in the top 5. Apparently the reds didn’t need them for their rotation
Ideally they would have extended Castillo, but A.) we don’t know if he was willing to sign an extension with them, B.) they weren’t planning on being contenders again as quickly as they have become, and C.) they got a nice return back for him. Marte looks like he could be a stud as soon as next season.
I’d really like to see them make a strong effort to bring Sonny Gray back. It seems like a real possibility, considering Gray has made comments about wanting to pitch for a team that’s closer to his home (Tennessee) and that money isn’t necessarily everything to him. He rejuvenated his career there, and the Reds number one need is a top of the rotation arm. They have the money to get it done, if they’re willing to spend it.
Sonny gray and his 1.18 whip coming in second is kind of a joke to me
But that 0.4 HR/9 rate is kind of ridiculous.
1.189 won the NL award. Voters only care about ERA now…
Head – Did you watch Nasty Nate pitch?
The goal has always been to prevent runs, not baserunners.
Sonny Gray had 1.147 WHIP. Gausman was nearly 1.18 (1.178)
Cole & Snell really propelled their teams to championship contention.
It’s so surprising to me that a guy that threw 51 innings out of the Red Sox bullpen could be considered the 5th best pitcher in the AL.
At least it was only by one person.
His first. Good fo him.
Weird when there isn’t a crazy indisputable sub-2 ERA Cy Young winner who looks other worldly.
Congrats he deserves it. He has a good shot at another one too considering how durable he’s been.
They actually got the AL CY correct.
A different present might have happened. Sonny Gray pitches well for the Yankees, they extend him, and don’t sign Cole.
Yankee fans hated Gray more than any other Yankee pitcher with the exception of Ed Whitson.
That said, cheers to Cole for a deserved Cy Young Award.
The media painted him as the bad guy and the fans ate it up. It was 2017 when spin-rates first became the trend. The Yankees also wanted Gray to pitch up in the zone and change what was already working for him as he fought against it. It’s not one-size-fits-all as the Yankees have also learned this past season with their offense.
That Cy Young that the Yanks bought really has helped them this year win nothing.
Phew! For once, a Yankee wasn’t robbed. They usually have to blow away the competition to win an award.
Cole seems likely to maintain a high level through his 30s similar to Verlander. Great arm and mechanics, and he’s smart pitcher who seems likely to adapt when he loses a few ticks off the heater.
> [Cole] has the ability to opt out after next season
So…where does Cole get traded in July?
So…. It’s a formality that Cole “opts out” and the Yankees exercise that 10th year at $36M?
Or does Cole convince them to give him the A-Rod treatment and give him an additional 8 years/$360M for a total contract of 12 years/$481.333M?
(considering that one year at $36M was actually a pro rated $13,333,320 thanks to the shortened season)
It feels like Cole is in the same role as A. Pettitte in 2009. Great pitcher but needed an ensemble. So, they added A.J. Burnett, C.C. Sabathia and M. Texiera. This time they will add Aaron Nola and/or Blake Snell and Cody Bellinger. And when they do…watch out for The Empire in ’24.
Shohei Ohtani
Cole is Mussina… great pitcher, HOF career, destined to not get a ring… Yankees will get one the year AFTER he retires.
Shoutout to my man Chris Martin on one heck of a season!!!!!
If Cole had pitched for Orioles, Rangers or Astros he probably wins 20 or more games.
No one cares about pitcher wins. They are useless and meaningless.
They are neither useless nor meaningless, they are simply one measure of success and by no means the primary measure of success. The fact that more sophisticated ways to measure performance result from better data analysis does not mean that all previous measures are meaningless and worthless. See “batting average”.
Batting average is more meaningful than wins. A batter controls his batting average. Unless Gerrit Cole gets run support and pitches 9 innings every game the W is not in his control.
If you’re a really good pitcher—you’re most likely going to amass wins. But someone like Jacob Degrom has almost no wins but has undoubtedly been a top pitcher of the last decade.
I wonder if Bautista had stayed healthy and not had that one blowup outing, how close he would have gotten to winning this.
Only in sports do cheaters prevail.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with politics and business.
ever been in business?
Didn’t realize he hadn’t had one prior. Great job!
We going to talk about the elephant in the room? His spin rate was elite, then it was not elite overnight (the day the rule went into effect), then it was elite again. I am not just calling Cole out. The spin rates are up again, and many of us can watch pitchers go through their routines in between pitches and say exactly why. There is a reason why so many pitchers all had a 150+ rps drop after the rule and seen rps go right back to where it was prior to the rule.
Either they are going to enforce the rule or not. Enough with the theatrics. If cheating is fine just say it is.
would have won at least 20 with average run support