Commentary on the Cy Young Awards

  The last award to come out that I am writing about is the Cy Young Award. I notice that this one is wrong a LOT of the time. Let's see if they were right on at least one of them, and, if there is a miracle, both of them.

NL:
Winner: Blake Snell
Runner up: Logan Webb
Third: Zac Gallen 
Fourth: Spencer Strider
Fifth: Justin Steele

    Is this even a contest? The player in the top five with an ERA closest to Blake Snell's is off by a massive 81 points! This happens to be number five, Justin Steele, who had a 3.06 ERA in his breakout 2023 campaign. While there were a key things that the 2-5 choices had (Logan Webb leading the league in innings pitched and shutouts, Zac Gallen tied in shutouts, Spencer Strider leading in wins, and Justin Steele with the second lowest ERA in the top five and a .762 win percentage), it's not even close. Snell had a 2.25 ERA, 234 Ks, and a league leading 182 ERA+. 

AL:
Winner: Gerrit Cole
Runner-up: Sonny Gray
Third: Kevin Gausman
Fourth: Kyle Bradish
Fifth: Luis Castillo

    While I really would have liked seeing Sonny Gray take this, it was also not very close. Cole won the ERA title with a 2.63 mark, led the league in winning percentage (.789) while playing for the mediocre Yankees, led the majors in shutouts (2), and won the WHIP title (0.981). Unfortunately, this one was also not much of a contest. 

    So, there you have it. The voters made the right call on both of these somehow and made an amazing 7 out of 8 of the awards right. Kudos to them. They did a good job this year.