Back in 2010, when it was Felix Hernandez vs. David Price for the American League Cy Young, the debate centered around whether or not Hernandez's won-loss record would hurt him in the voting. It ultimately didn't, and Hernandez ended up winning the award despite his 13-12 record.
I was in the Price camp. For a number of reasons. My main argument was that if you couldn't hold Hernandez's lack of wins against him, you couldn't hold the fact that Price had 19 victories for a Rays team that won the AL East against him. Obviously the voters saw it differently and Hernandez won the award handily, receiving 21 of the 28 first-place votes.
Fast forward eight years and I'm signing a different tune. Because, despite his 10-9 record, I think the Mets' Jacob deGrom should win the National League Cy Young this season. I'm not saying he will win (that 10-9 record will definitely give some of the voters pause). But deGrom's 2018 season is much different than the one Hernandez had in 2010. And it has nothing to do with the fact that the Mets scored a grand total of about 11 runs for him all season, either.
Mets fans will recite deGrom's stats for you ad nauseam. And a lot of them are impressive. His 1.70 ERA, in today's game, is absurd. So is the fact that he gave up more than three runs in a start only once all season...when he gave up four on April 10 (in his third start of the season). But those aren't the reasons I believe deGrom deserves the Cy Young, either.
Normally I wouldn't be backing a guy who had just 10 wins for a team that's going to finish below .500 for the Cy Young. But deGrom has been the best pitcher in the National League for much of the season. And it's an unusual season in that you don't have a guy from a contender jumping into the conversation as he pitches his team into the playoffs. In fact, the Cy Young winner is almost certainly going to be from a non-playoff team. Because it's going to either deGrom or Max Scherzer.
That's the difference. That's why I'm suddenly on Team deGrom. Without that playoff tiebreaker, there's very little criteria to separate the two main candidates. So it becomes deGrom's ERA against Scherzer's everything else. Scherzer leads the National League in wins (18), innings (220.2) and opponents' batting average (.188). And he has that gaudy 300-strikeout number that may very well swing the vote in his favor.
Scherzer wouldn't be a bad choice. I'd have absolutely no problem with him winning his third straight NL Cy Young. After all, the same things you're saying can't be held against deGrom can't be held against Scherzer, either. It's not his fault the Nationals underachieved spectacularly. Just like it's not deGrom's fault the Mets never scored on the days he pitched.
And I can see the 10-win thing being a problem, too. That would be the lowest win total, by far, for any starting pitcher ever to win the Cy Young. The current low is 13, shared by Hernandez and Fernando Valenzuela, but that one comes with an asterisk since it came during the 1981 strike season. In fact, there have even been two relievers who've won Cy Youngs with 13 or more wins.
So the 10 would be setting new ground. And as much as some people might want to discount pitcher wins, that's still a remarkably low number for a starter. Especially one who was active for the entire season. I also have no doubt that had deGrom not won his last start to finish 10-9 on the season, it would go to Scherzer hands down. Because, no matter how dominant his numbers might've suggested, a record at or below .500 would've suggested otherwise.
But deGrom did win his last start, taking the .500 thing out of the equation. So now it just becomes a preference between deGrom's ERA on a disappointing Mets team or Scherzer's strikeouts on a disappointing Nationals team. They were both dominant, but in different ways. DeGrom finessed you while Scherzer overpowered you. Either way, you couldn't hit either one of them.
It'll be fascinating to see what the voters prefer. If they value Scherzer's wins, he should be the favorite. If they don't think wins are as important, their vote will probably go deGrom's way. That precedent's already been set with Hernandez's win in the American League eight years ago. Although, it's worth noting that the voters are two writers in each National League city, so the voting pool is completely different than it was for the 2010 AL Cy Young.
Regardless, National League Cy Young will be the most intriguing vote of the eight major MLB Awards. Jacob deGrom's season is over. Max Scherzer has one start left. Then the debate will begin. My vote would go to deGrom. We'll see what the writers decide.
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