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.

Twitter Responds To The Yu Darvish Signing

The Rangers inked Yu Darvish to a six year, $60 million deal after paying $51.7 million to negotiate with him. It was a hefty price to pay for the Japanese pitching stud. I'm no scout so I turned to Twitter to get a better idea about the Rangers new ace. Here's what I learned...

@_BrilliantBrian: I bet Yu still tricking

Deception isn't part of his game but I suppose MLBers will be confused at first.

@RiiLEY_JOLiE: YU CUTE ON TWITTER BUT NOT IN PERSON

Easy RiiLEY, Yu has modeled nude before so some chicks might dig his long ball(s).

@_StuntDaily: retweet if YU thick #strapped

Uh. I'm not doing the research on this one so refer to the previous tweet.

@HelloKiaa: Can't make me jealous, if I don't care about Yu

Oh, Alex Anthopoulos, that's a nice try posting under HelloKiaa. The Toronto GM is quite savvy in social media.

@SomethinMajor94: gud think Yu kan spell

Hey, hey... There is a 98% chance Darvish is better at English than you, buddy. That one might be a hate crime but I can't find my decoder ring.

@drewskiiii: pretty chicks want Yu to hit them up, pay for the date, gas, and make them laugh. average chicks down wit Netflix

The Rangers would probably settle with a ton of innings and a high K/9 rate but George W. Bush and Nolan Ryan wouldn't mind if Darvish could teach them Netflix too.

@ImSwaggiin: I Jus Kno Yu Hoes Hoe For a Hobby LOL

Is that the end to the pimp version of "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?"

This was just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many people talking about "Yu" on Twitter. He might be the most popular player ever.