In many years there are no exciting award races. The MVP will be clear cut in both leagues. The Cy Young awards will be preordained. The Rookie of the Year winners will be decided by the time the Opening Day rosters are announced. Gladly 2013 is not one of those years. I would venture to say that none of the major awards have a guy whom should clearly take home the crown. Maybe you could make a case Kershaw has separated himself, but Harvey is right on his tail. Perhaps the voters will love Cabrera’s run at a second triple crown, but Trout is probably going to defeat him in WAR again. There are many great races, but my personal favorite this year is for the AL Cy Young, if only because there are so many fantastic choices. There is a good chance that many voters will be lazy, and just vote for Max Scherzer because of his record, but they will be doing themselves a disservice. This race deserves an advanced breakdown.
Baseball Reference currently has 5 AL pitchers as having accumulated at least 5 WAR this season. That is a huge number.We are only half way through June and it is already only 1 behind the totals from last year and 2011, and as many as there were in all of 2010. Those 5 pitchers are Chris Sale, Felix Hernandez, Max Scherzer, Hiroki Kuroda, and Yu Darvish. All 5 have a case to be made, and I will present all of their cases 1 by 1.
Chris Sale
Chris Sale is the leader among all pitchers in WAR at 6.1. That right there should tell you all you need to know about his great season. It seems like every time out he produces. He has had a Quality Start in 83% of his starts this year, the highest number in the AL. He has done this despite having the platoon advantage in only 20% of his plate appearances, the fewest in the AL. One way in which he has done this is by not allowing extra-base hits. Only 26% of his hits allowed this year have been for extra bases, compared to a league average of 33%. He also is very good at keeping the ball in the zone. Currently 67% of his pitches have been strikes, tied for the 4th highest amount in the AL, and higher than any of his competitors.
Felix Hernandez
King Felix is the only pitcher in contention who has won a previous Cy Young Award. This season has been better than his 2010 award season. He has a career high 25.7% K rate. Also he has a career low 5.4% walk rate. This has led to a 2.54 FIP, better than any of his competitors. He has also the American League lead in innings pitched. His ERA is still 2.62 despite having the Majors worst defense behind him, according to UZR, and the Safeco Field fences being moved in, changing the hitting environment dramatically. The way he has done this is by keeping the ball on the ground. His 50.2% groundball rate is better than anyone else in contention for the Cy Young.
Max Scherzer
Scherzer is probably the front runner for the award, simply because of his 18-1 record. If voters choose to vote for him because of his run support that would be dumb. If they choose to vote for him because of the way he has pitched, that would be a completely logical decision. Scherzer currently leads the AL in WHIP at 0.899. No one else is under 1. His .317 slugging percentage allowed is the lowest in the AL. His .240 on-base percentage allowed is also the lowest in the league. He has done this by striking out 28.1% of batters, the 2nd highest rate in the AL, and by allowing only a 19% line-drive rate, far lower than any of the other pitchers listed. His 4.87 K:BB is the best group, barely edging out Sale, and Felix
Hiroki Kuroda
Hiroki Kuroda is, in my opinion at least, the most surprising player on this list. He has a league leading 2.41 ERA, and 167 ERA+. His 4.6% walk rate is better than any other player listed. Kuroda rode an insane July, to the top of the AL ERA lead. In July Hiroki threw 33 innings, and only allowed 2 runs. The 0.55 ERA is the lowest any starter has had in a month all season, with at least 30 inning pitched. Also despite pitching in Yankee Stadium, a park conducive to home runs, he has only allowed a home run in 1.9% of plate appearances, the 9th best rate in the American League.
Yu Darvish
Since coming over from Japan, Yu Darvish has struck out batters at a historic rate. In his career he has made 29.8% of batters strikeout, the highest ever by a starting pitcher with at least 300 innings pitched. This year he is having the 9th season in history where a starter has had a 33% K rate. My favorite Darvish stat of the season is that he has as many strikeouts in Houston this year as Astros starter Jordan Lyles(37). Also there has been 8 games this year where a pitcher has had 14+ K’s in a game, 5 of those games were thrown by Darvish. This has helped him to allow a league leading .189 batting average against.
This is a race that will surely come down to the wire. I was unable to simply decide based upon a gut instinct. To help me come up with a winner I have created a personal ranking system to decide whom I would vote for. My system takes all 5 players and ranks them in 5 categories. The five categories that I believe are the most important in determining a Cy Young Award winner are ERA+, Innings Pitched, K%, BB%, and FIP-. With these I gave each player a point for which spot they finish among the group, with best getting 5 and worst getting 1. Through this method I have determined that I would vote for Felix Hernandez to win his 2nd Cy Young award, who accumulated 17 points through my ranking system. The remaining results had Scherzer finishing 2nd with 16 points, Sale at 15 points, Darvish at 14, and Kuroda finished with 13. With a month and a half of 2013 remaining, and these results so jumbled, things could change any day now. Should be fun to see how it closes out down the stretch.
