Baseball season is in full swing, and we have had large enough of a sample size to begin the preliminary award prediction conversations. The MVP awards seemed to be locks now in both leagues as Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge continue to do impossible things on a nightly basis. The Cy Young race, however, is shaping up to be extremely competitive.
A favorite for the award has been largely agreed upon by members of the media and it seems most of the preliminary first place votes right now are going to Tarik Skubal for the AL and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the NL.
Well, no one asked Matty Wheelz for an official opinion. If they did, they would have been presented with an alternative option to each of those players, while also acknowledging that Skubal and Yamamoto have been lights out thus far.
Let’s start with the National League. Alongside Yamamoto, Paul Skenes is making a historical push and earning some first-place votes as well while perennial candidate, Zack Wheeler, is doing what he usually does.
Yamamoto has pitched to a 2.39 ERA in 67.2 innings while striking out 77 batters. Skenes has struck out 85 in 83 innings while pitching to a 2.05 ERA and 0.88 WHIP. Wheeler has a 2.96 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP while striking out 94 players in 74 innings.
All fantastic numbers, but no one is mentioning a key player.
Kodai Senga.
Senga has 59 strikeouts in 62 innings which seems less overpowering than the other guys, but I feel like that ship will right itself over the course of the season. I would also never say that he is a better strike out pitcher than Paul Skenes, but I do think he can keep up with Wheeler and Yamamoto.
He was limited a bit to begin the season as he eased back into regular season action after missing just about a full year of baseball, but he seems to be at full power now and he has pitched to a stunning 1.60 ERA which leads the National League. He leads the MLB in ERA+ right now with a whopping tally of 239. Skenes has pitched to a 203 ERA+ and Yamamoto to a 162.
Senga has a higher WAR (2.2) than Yamamoto (1.8) but is still behind Skenes (3.2) and is right on track with Wheeler (2.3). I personally like ERA+ as a better assessment of value and the significant lead he has there is more than notable.
If I am being totally honest, Skenes probably wins this award as it stands right now, and I am not quite sure why he is still tracking so far behind Yamamoto, who I think should be in 4th place. However, Senga has made a statement to the league that he is here too and while he may not throw 102 mph, he has a ghost forkball that will make any hitter light some candles in church before facing him.
The ERA does not lie, and while it is likely NOT sustainable, baseball is a wonderful sport that sometimes allows the unsustainable to become sustainable. You never know what to expect, but one thing is for sure, and it is that the NL CY Young race will be a nailbiter.
In the American League, Tarik Skubal is the overwhelming favorite at the moment and his recent Maddux performance (Complete Game with no walks allowed) only strengthened the case. He has pitched to a 2.26 ERA and a stunning 0.79 WHIP while striking out 99 players in 75.2 innings. I am in no way questioning the dominance and similar to how I predicted Skenes to pull out the win, it feels safe to say Skubal would win if the season ended right now.
However, as I did with the NL, I wanted to point out some names in the AL that no one is talking about. And I mean NO ONE.
Skubal is the clear favorite while Max Fried appears to be considered a comfortable runner up while Garret Crochet is predicted to be a threat to both all season. All are crushing it this year as Crochet has a 1.98 ERA and Fried has a 1.92 ERA. Crochet has struck out 101 batters in 82 innings while Fried has only notched 70 punchouts.
All three are phenomenal and should dominate all season, but what if I told you there were three other guys arguably outperforming them?
These three are Kris Bubic, Nathan Eovaldi and Hunter Brown and their stat lines look like this:
Bubic: 75.1 IP, 79 K, 1.43 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 286 ERA+, 3.5 WAR
Eovaldi: 69.1 IP, 73 K, 1.56 ERA, 0.81 WHIP, 243 ERA+, 2.7 WAR
Brown: 73.2 IP, 84 K, 1.83 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, 220 ERA+, 2.9 WAR
I mean…just insane numbers.
It is genuinely hard to pick a winner here, but the numbers at this current moment lean towards Bubic, who is the clear underdog in current voting polls. I would vote for Bubic over Skubal…RIGHT NOW.
Now, there is a ton of baseball left and Bubic does not have the track record that Skubal, Fried and Crochet have. Even Eovaldi has dabbled in this territory before. History tells me that Bubic should regress over the balance of the season, but as I said for Senga…what if he doesn’t?
If that is the case, Bubic will stun the league and coast to a Cy Young Award this year and you will think back to the time Matty Wheelz warned you about him. A 1.43 ERA is insane, and the same goes for Kodai Senga and his 1.60 ERA, so how could you NOT win the award if you are floating around that territory?
Simple. Other people CAN’T float around there with you. Bubic will need those 3 favored AL pitchers to raise their ERA and come back down to Earth a bit, and the same goes for Senga in the NL. Senga and Bubic will likely not be in the same realm as Skenes, Skubal, or Crochet in terms of strikeout totals, but ERA CAN’T BE IGNORED. They must maintain this level of run prevention and force the hands of all voters in the fall. The game has evolved so much and there is no longer a crystal-clear metric to look for in award winners, so all stats must be equally considered.
I also would like to point out that ERA is not the only stat I look for in pitchers, but it’s hard to look past it as it is the first clear sign of how a pitcher has performed thus far and it provides a surface-level view of a pitcher’s value in a specific sample size of innings. It just blew my mind to see the list of current favorites for the award and see that the ERA leaders in both leagues were completely left off the lists.
It has been super fun watching all these guys pitch and we can all agree that there is nothing more fun to watch in sports than a dominant pitcher.