As the BBWAA awards reach their halfway point, we reach the two votes that have the least suspense of all. The winners of the Cy Young Awards both fall into the "Duh" category. The only suspense left is seeing who finished second and whether or not the votes were unanimous (like they should be).
The winners, of course, will be Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw. They were both the dominant pitchers in their respective leagues this season, and they both had the Cy Young locked up months ago. In fact, I'd be willing to argue that they both deserve to be in the MVP conversation.
We'll start with Kershaw. He was the Cy Young winner two years ago, when he won the pitching Triple Crown. Kershaw was even better this year, emerging as arguably the best pitcher in the baseball. (Is it too early to say he's the best Dodgers lefty since Sandy Koufax?) He had a 1.83 ERA. Let's let the ridiculousness of that sink in for a second. There were also the 232 strikeouts and 16 wins, which seems remarkably low for a team that won 92 games and reached the NLCS. The only reason Kershaw didn't start the All*Star Game was because it was at Citi Field and Matt Harvey was the right call.
So who's going to finish second to Kershaw? Well, it's either Rookie of the Year Jose Fernandez of the Marlins or the Cardinals' Adam Wainwright. I'd be inclined to say Fernandez had the second-best season of any National League pitcher. His 2.19 ERA was second-best in the Majors, behind only Kershaw, and he held opponents to a .182 batting average. Then there's the fact that the Marlins, who lost 100 games, were above .500 when he started. I think his season trumps Wainwright's. Wainwright tied for the NL lead in wins for a Cardinals team that had the best record in baseball en route to the World Series. Both of their seasons pale in comparison to Kershaw's, though.
Just like all American League pitchers seasons' pale in comparison to Max Scherzer's. The Tigers had the deepest rotation in baseball. They had Anibal Sanchez, the AL leader in ERA, and 2011 MVP Justin Verlander, the best pitcher in baseball over the last two seasons, and neither one was their ace. That was Max Scherzer, the only pitcher more dominant than Kershaw this season. He didn't lose until his last start before the All*Star Break and ended up 21-3. Even those sabermetric idiots who think wins are overvalued have to admit that's impressive. And Scherzer didn't just accumulate wins by pitching five innings and getting massive run support. He pitched 214.1 innings, held opponents to a batting average under .200, had a sub-1.00 WHIP, and finished among the AL leaders with a 2.90 ERA. By any standard, he was simply dominant. (And I'm sure if he has it to do again, Jim Leyland doesn't take him out in the seventh inning of Game 2 of the ALCS.) Scherzer was so head-and-shoulders above all other American League pitchers this season that I'd be surprised if this award wasn't unanimous.
Both of the other two finalists are Japanese, and (if they had any chance of winning) would be the first Japanese-born Cy Young Award winner. The first is the Rangers' Yu Darvish, who I think was the second choice. Darvish has proven to be worth every penny Texas spent on him in posting fee and salary. He struck out 277 hitters this season, by far the most in the Majors. Then there's Seattle's Hisashi Iwakuma, who, like Fernandez, was the best pitcher on a bad team. He went 14-6 and with a 2.66 ERA and an opposing batting average of .220. Solid numbers, but nowhere near the ones put up by Scherzer or even Darvish.
I don't want to say Fernandez, Wainwright, Darvish and Iwakuma are undeserving, but I think even they would admit their chances of winning are fairly minimal (provided they exist at all). There are years where there's the fundamental debate about how to judge a pitcher's value and how you can't rely strictly on traditional stats when determining Cy Young-worthiness of a pitcher. This year, though, there's no such debate. Because no matter what your criteria are, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer should both be runaway Cy Young winners.
Just for the record, here's how I would vote (in Cy Young voting, they get five spots):
NL: 1-Kershaw, 2-Fernandez, 3-Wainwright, 4-Craig Kimbrel, 5-Jordan Zimmermann
AL: 1-Scherzer, 2-Darvish, 3-Jon Lester, 4-Iwakuma, 5-Anibal Sanchez
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