Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Kershaw, Scherzer Dominate Cy Young Voters Too

After the dust settled, the only thing left to do was tally the first place votes not given to Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer. Three. There were three voters who didn't participate in the Kershaw and Scherzer landsliding by the rest of the BBWAA. Anibal Sanchez, Chris Sale and Adam Wainwright supporters ruined the unanimanoty for the 2013 Cy Young winners.

I'm fine with the voting since I had Kershaw and Scherzer in my BBA ballot. And they also led baseball in Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement with a 6.5 fWAR for Kershaw and a 6.4 fWAR for Scherzer. So even most of the protractor wielding baseball fans can't complain too much. Plus, Scherzer led baseball with 21 wins and Kershaw led the same baseball with a 1.83 ERA. My grandfather nods approvingly of those stats while feeding a murder of crows that I'm sure will do his bidding soon. That's why I let him believe pitcher wins do matter.

Kershaw has been the best pitcher in baseball over the past few years and he was close to sweeping the first place votes. Over the past three seasons, only Justin Verlander has accumulated more fWAR than Kershaw (19.1-18.5) but Kershaw has led the Majors with a 2.21 ERA by a good margin during that span. The lone Wainwright first place voter was a Cincinnati beat writer. Which is fine but, at least, a little puzzling considering Wainwright gave up 29 hits and 19 earned runs in 22.0 innings against the Reds. His 7.77 ERA was, by far, the worst ERA Wainwright had against any team.

Scherzer crushed second place Yu Darvish by 110 points in voting. Darvish and his 432 pitch arsenal didn't garner a single first place vote but his baseball leading 11.89 K/9 landed him 19 second place votes. Scherzer was second with a 10.08 K/9, if your GM was wondering and considering trading for him since he's apparently available.

Hisashi Iwakuma finished third in the AL while his teammate, and better pitcher, Felix Hernandez finished eighth. ROY Jose Fernandez finished third in the NL, Matt Harvey finished fifth and the ghost of Christmas 2010, Francisco Liriano, finished tenth.

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