By Josh:
Now that we are past the All-Star break I wanted to take a look at a couple of the awards races that are shaping up. Each of the last few years in the Cy Young awards their have been a number of players that you could make solid arguments for to win the award and this year is shaping up to be the same.
In the NL there are 5 pitchers with sub 3.0 ERAs. Only one of those five, Hyun-Jin Ryu, has a sub 2.0 ERA. Max Scherzer leads the group and all of the NL in strikeouts. Zack Grienke leads the group in innings and is 2nd in the NL. Clayton Kershaw and Luis Castillo round out the group of 5 that I think are in the discussion for Cy Young.
Some people might but Jacob DeGrom in the conversation but with an ERA over 3 I just don’t think he matches up with this group at the moment and especially not with Ryu whose ERA is 1.26 better than Degrom’s.
When I do my predictions and picks for the IBWAA awards I look at a final snapshot of stats to decide who I’m voting for, but I wondered what people who looked at things like this for a living thought.
When the NL Cy Young odds re-opened at the All-Star break, a scan of some of the sportsbooks listed in this website, that had been reviewed and ranked as trustable sources, came to find out that this was now a two-horse race between the Nationals’ Max Scherzer (-120) and the Dodgers’ Hyun-Jin Ryu (+160). Even though Mad Max has been on the shelf of late, he’s certainly still better value at those prices. The three-time winner has a lower xFIP, averages 4.5 more strikeouts per nine innings, and has pitched at least 200 innings in six straight seasons. Ryu has never hit 200 innings, and hasn’t pitched more than 126 since 2014. Regression is a lot more likely for Ryu than Scherzer.
I don’t think that Ryu is going to stumble down the stretch but it is hard to argue with a history of success like Scherezer has. I do think the one big thing that might affect this race is that the Dodgers and Ryu might begin to coast into the postseason with their 14 game lead, where as Scherzer and the Nationals are going to have to fight every day to keep in the hunt.
In the end my pick for the NL Cy Young right now is Ryu but August and September have been known to change minds before.