My Vote for 2016 N.L. Cy Young Award

As I stated in my American League Cy Young post, each season there are usually several pitchers from each league who have incredible seasons, making it difficult to choose between them for who most deserves the Cy Young award. This year was no different. Max Scherzer, Jose Fernandez, Tanner Roark, Johnny Cueto, Madison Bumgarner, Noah Syndergaard, Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks all had years worthy of recognition, but in the end only one can with the National League Cy Young award.

Admittedly, there are a few others with unbelievable stats from 2016 in the National League not included on my list, but I decided to begin the discussion with Tanner Roark, who is one of the eight pitchers in the NL with an ERA below 3.00. Roark’s 2.83 ERA over the course of this season is quite remarkable, but with so much competition, it quickly leaves him on the outside looking in.

Another pitcher in Roark’s position is Johnny Cueto, who had an unbelievable year but still didn’t do enough to earn the Cy Young. Even so, Cueto’s 18-5 record with a 2.79 ERA helped get the Giants into the postseason once again, despite some offensive struggles, and he will be a big part in their success moving forward.

Jose Fernandez is the next pitcher I’m taking off the list, which is truly unfortunate. With the stunning news of his untimely death coming back in September, it would be fantastic to see him win the award. However, while I’m all for honoring his memory, there are other candidates who deserve the award more when you take a close look at the stats.

Despite getting the Mets into the postseason for the second straight season, Noah Syndergaard won’t wind up with the Cy Young award when all is said and done. But his 2.60 ERA and 218 strikeouts certainly stand out on a pitching staff that saw a plethora of injuries, and Syndergaard will likely continue to be the ace of Queens.

Three-thousand miles away, out in San Francisco, Madison Bumgarner had yet another great season of what has become a great career to this point. Bumgarner managed to strike out 251 batters over the span of 34 starts this season, and combined with Johnny Cueto to make on of the best one-two punches in all of baseball, but won’t take home the award when the voting is revealed.

Speaking of one-two punches, John Lester made up one half of perhaps the best duo in all of baseball for the Cubs. His 2.44 ERA was second best in all of baseball, and his .211 opponent batting average definitely jumps out, but so does Lester’s less than one strikeout-per-inning, making him fall short of the Cy Young award.

It came down to a couple of aces this season. But while Kyle Hendricks and his MLB-best 2.13 ERA initially makes him the heavy favorite, I couldn’t select him to pick up the award. His strikeout numbers are subpar at best, and while that isn’t always a deciding factor in the voting process, it is in this case.

For that reason, I went with Max Scherzer to win the National League Cy Young. He has the worst ERA of all the players on my list, at a dismal 2.96, but it’s his strikeout numbers that give him the edge in my mind. The Cy Young award is about utter dominance, and Scherzer’s 284 K’s (including a 20-strikeout performance this season) makes him the number one choice. Striking out 114 more batters than my runner up Kyle Hendricks, I made the tough but correct decision for the award this season.

Royals Up Two Games Heading to New York City

The World Series is always an exciting time of the year for any baseball fan, no matter who you’re rooting for. With both teams having fought all season long, neither wants to give an inch in their quest for the title, and players from both sides usually step up in a big way for their respective teams. With that said, I’m not sure anyone could’ve predicted such a game as the one that took place on Tuesday night.

Matt Harvey received the start for the Mets, going up against the Royals’ Edison Volquez. Although you had to figure Harvey would be on top of his game, things didn’t start off that well for him. On the very first pitch of the game, Alcides Escobar drove a ball deep into the outfield, which Yoenis Cespedes was unsuccessful in tracking down. When all was said and done, Escobar had score with the twelfth inside the park homer in World Series history, and the first since 1929. Just like that, it was 1-0, Royals.

Neither team would score again until the fourth inning, as Volquez was able to match Harvey pitch for pitch to begin the game. But an RBI-single in the fourth by Travis d’Arnaud, followed by a Curtis Granderson homer in the fifth and a sacrifice fly by Michael Conforto in the sixth, made it a 3-1 Mets lead. It appeared they were starting to put the game away, especially with Harvey on the hill.

But just as quickly as they took the two-run lead, they lost it in the very next set of swings for the Royals. In the bottom of the sixth, a couple of timely hits tied the game up at three apiece and made it a new ballgame. Even so, the Mets were able to take the late lead in the eighth on a fielding error, putting them up by a run heading into the bottom of the ninth.

However, as history has shown, nothing is over until it’s over in the World Series. With one out in the bottom of the ninth against the Mets’ Jeurys Familia, Alex Gordon blasted a solo shot into deep center field to send the game to extra innings.

Due to outstanding relief work by both squads, the game would remain tied all the way until the fourteenth inning, when the Royals ultimately won with an Eric Hosmer sac fly that brought home the go ahead run to put the Royals up 1-0 in the seven game series.

After the longest game one in World Series history, you got the feeling that the entire Fall Classic would turn out to be much of the same.

The five hour and nine minute game one gave fans tons of excitement, as the back and forth lead changing between the two clubs made for a thrilling ballgame. With Jacob deGrom set to go against Johnny Cueto the very next game, things were sure to heat up in game two.

But while the expectation was a pitching duel for the second game of the World Series, it was Johnny Cueto stealing the show. With deGrom not being able to throw the ball past people the way he has in his previous starts, he struggled in this game overall, but Cueto settled in and really impressed a lot of people.

Although Cueto allowed the game’s first run in the fourth inning, coming from a contribution from Lucas Duda — he had been performing poorly throughout the playoffs until that point — Cueto really pitched well. Cueto wouldn’t allow another run in the game.

Jacob deGrom looked decent to start the game, but the wheels completely fell off in the fifth inning. RBI-singles from Alcides Escobar, Eric Hosmer (two RBI’s) and Mike Moustakas put the Royals up 4-1, and really gave them momentum with Cueto pitching the way he was (a complete game two-hitter). In the end, the Mets couldn’t mount a comeback and fell down two games to none in the series.

With the Royals up two games heading into game three in New York City on Friday, the Mets certainly have their backs against the wall. However, despite their poor odds, with Noah Syndergaard ready to pitch in game three and Steven Matz on the mound the next night, if the Mets can win at least one of those games, everything changes. Forcing at least a game five, the Mets would once again get Matt Harvey, then Jacob deGrom if they can extend it. Anything can happen after that.

This World Series is far from over.

Royals — Mets: World Series Predictions

I love making predictions. I’m absolutely no good at it (I picked the Blue Jays and Dodgers to be in the World Series), but I enjoy the process that goes into it, nonetheless. With that said, it is really difficult to predict a winner between the Mets and Royals for who I feel will win the 2015 World Series. They both have strengths and weaknesses, but in the end it’ll come down to which players can come through most in big spots, and that has proven time and time again to be unpredictable.

No matter what, with the Mets having not won a World Series since Bill Buckner’s infamous error in 1986, and the Royals experiencing a drought since 1985, history is guaranteed to be made for one of them sometime in the next couple of weeks.

The Mets have announced that their starting rotation is going to be Matt Harvey pitching game one, followed by Jacob deGrom (game two), Noah Syndergaard (game three) and Steven Matz (game four). Obviously, if the series goes beyond a fourth game (something that’s pretty sure to happen) then the rotation would simply begin again, with Harvey, deGrom, etc.

On the other side of the coin, the Royals haven’t yet announced their official starting rotation. There’s a lot of speculation as to whether Yordano Ventura or Edinson Volquez will get the ball in game one, with the other getting it for game two. It is also unknown whether game three would go to Chris Young or Johnny Cueto. With so much uncertainty, it’s difficult to try to predict games by looking at pitcher-pitcher matchups.

Even so, I feel like no matter who is going up against Matt Harvey, game one is likely to go to the Mets. Harvey has been great so far this postseason, and will likely even take things up a notch with it being the World Series. Going into game two, as with Harvey, anyone who matches up against deGrom is likely going to have a tough time. Although the Royals admittedly stand a better chance against deGrom than Harvey, I think the series will head back to New York for game three with the Mets up two games to zero.

Game three is where I see things turning a bit. Syndergaard has been great and is an unbelievable pitcher, but I think the Royals will get to him and win by a run or two. I see the same happening on the next night against Steven Matz. Another rookie, Matz has had a good year, but I feel the Royals will be able to tie things up at two games apiece.

I think the Mets will take the final game before heading back to Kansas City, as Harvey will be on the mound again. If they in fact have lost their first two games at home, I don’t see them allowing themselves to get swept the full three games.

Back at Kauffman Stadium, I predict the Mets will waste no time in taking the championship. Having Jacob deGrom on the mound is always a good thing, and he will inevitably pitch a good enough game to win the New York Mets the 2015 World Series.

But that’s all purely speculation, and just the way I see things unfolding. Whether or not the Mets win the Fall Classic is yet to be seen. But one thing is for sure: neither team will go down without a fight.

Things Heating Up As Trade Deadline Looms

Over the past week or so, trades and rumors of trades have been taking place right and left. Although things are still bound to happen, with the trade deadline not until Friday afternoon, here’s an overall recap (most of the trades, but not every one) of what has happened so far, with my thoughts on each:

Back on the 23rd, two of the first impactful moves were made. The Brewers’ Aramis Ramirez was sent to the Pirates in return for minor leaguer, Yhonathan Barrios, and the Astros acquired Scott Kazmir from the Athletics in exchange for Daniel Mengden and Jacob Nottingham. The following day, the Marlins moved Steve Cishek to the Cardinals for the addition of Kyle Barraclough.

For the most part, I felt all of those trades were productive ones. The Brewers are out of it this season, and sending Ramirez to the Pirates will likely benefit them moving forward as they push towards the hope of a postseason spot. The Marlins sending Cishek to another team makes a lot of sense to me as well, as Cishek used to be dominant for Miami, but has struggled somewhat this year. Hopefully a change of scenery will help him out.

Of the three deals, the Scott Kazmir one will undoubtedly be the one that has the most impact this season. With the Astros in first place, Kazmir could really be crucial in helping them hold on to make the playoffs for the first time since 2005.

But while those few trades were somewhat beneficial, a major move took place Sunday, with Johnny Cueto being shipped to the Royals in exchange for cash and minor league pitchers Cody Reed, Brandon Finnegan and John Lamb. After reaching the World Series last year, only to fall short in game seven, there are a lot of people who feel that Cueto can help them win it all this year. While that remains to be seen, Cueto will assuredly be a big impact for them the remainder of the regular season into October.

As far as what the Royals gave up from their farm system, Finnegan is the type of guy who is immediately ready to make an impact, even though he was sent to Triple-A. Finnegan came up big in the postseason for the Royals last year, and he, along with future impact pitchers Cody Reed and John Lamb, should be able to help the Reds turn things around in the years to come.

Tuesday turned out to be a big day as well in the trade market, as several impact trades took place.

On the lesser impactful side of things, Ben Zobrist was sent to the Royals for Aaron Brooks and future star Sean Manaea, with Jonathan Papelbon finally getting moved, sent to the Nationals for Nick Pivetta. The Zobrist move should help the Royals, as will the Cueto move, leading to another deep playoff run this season. In the same way, the acquisition of Papelbon as the Nat’s closer should help them be able to lock down games at the end, despite already having a good closer in Drew Storen, who now becomes their setup man.

However, while those were good moves, the one that had everyone talking on Tuesday was the swap of Troy Tulowitzki and LaTroy Hawkins to the Blue Jays in return for Jose Reyes, Miguel Castro, Jeff Hoffman and Jesus Tinoco. Of all of the trades thus far, I feel this is the one that makes the most sense for both sides.

Although the Jays supposedly needed a pitcher at the time, you can never complain when you pick up an impact bat like Tulowitzki and a veteran reliever in Hawkins. Likewise, the Rockies look to be headed in a good direction, as Reyes is a fine replacement for Tulowitzki, and all three prospects, especially the highly hyped Jeff Hoffman, will help them down the road.

But while most trades go through without a hitch, one deal went down on Wednesday that ended up falling through. The Brewers planned to sent Carlos Gomez to the Mets for Zack Wheeler and Wilmer Flores, but concern with Gomez’s hip (now reported as a financial issue, too) caused the deal to be called off. Obviously an unfortunate set of circumstances, as both teams would have benefited from the deal.

Nonetheless, trades continued to happen. Thursday saw a blockbuster, three-team swap that involved numerous players. The Dodgers picked up Mat Latos and Michael Morse from the Marlins as well as Alex Wood, Bronson Arroyo, Jim Johnson, Luis Avilan and Jose Peraza from the Braves. In exchange, the Marlins received Jeff Bringham, Victor Araujo and Kevin Guzman from the Dodgers, with the Braves getting Cuban star Hector Olivera, Zack Bird and Paco Rodriguez. The Braves also received a competitive-balance round draft pick from Miami.

To me, the trade doesn’t make a lot of sense to anyone but the Dodgers. For them, they made out with a ton of talent. But Miami merely picked up a few decent players, with the Braves receiving the same. Although time is the only thing that can tell whether a trade turns out to be a good or bad one, this trade seems to be one sided.

Another big deal went down on Thursday as well, with Cole Hamels (along with Jake Diekman) finally getting moved after months and months of trade rumors surrounding him. Hamels was sent to the Rangers in exchange for Matt Harrison and prospects Jorge Alfaro, Nick Williams, Jake Thompson, Alec Asher and Jerad Eickhoff.

In the short term, the Rangers should see an instant boost in their rotation, as Hamels has been one of the top pitchers around baseball for the past numerous years. In the long term, however, the Phillies could see the prospect they picked up helping to turn their current subpar squad into a postseason potential team once again. All five prospect are expected to be big time impact players in the majors, and they should all be able to help within the next few years.

Finally, one of the biggest trades of the day on Thursday saw David Price getting moved once again. This time, Price was sent to the Blue Jays in exchange for prospects Daniel Norris, Matt Boyd and Jairo Labourt. With Price being one of the best pitchers in baseball over the past several years, he will inevitably help out the Blue Jays, who are currently sitting at .500, seven games back of first place.

With around 24 hours remaining until the trade deadline arrives, things should continue to stay exciting, with a big deal having the chance of taking place at any given time.

Cueto Traded to Royals On Hall of Fame Sunday

In what was supposed to be a baseball day focused solely on the Hall of Fame inductions up in Cooperstown, New York, another news story broke that stole a little bit of the thunder.

Johnny Cueto, Cincinnati Reds’ ace starting pitcher, was traded to the Kansas City Royals in exchange for cash and Brandon Finnegan, John Lamb and Cody Reed. Although the move of Cueto was inevitable, it still came as somewhat of a shock to a lot of people.

Cueto has gone 7-6 with a 2.62 ERA in 19 starts this season so far, and holds a career mark of a 3.21 ERA. With a line such as that, a lot of people feel that Cueto can give the Royals a legitimate shot at a World Series title.

Without Cueto, the Royals have gone 58-38, holding a 6.5 game lead over the second place Twins in the division. Now that Cueto has joined the Royals rotation, he very well could be what’s needed to push them over the top.

But while Cueto stirred up what has so far been an uneventful time leading up to the trade deadline, there was also the aforementioned Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Craig Biggio, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and John Smoltz all received induction as part of the 2015 class, joining the 306 other members inducted before them. All gave memorable speeches, and will now be forever remembered for their amazing careers.

Only time will tell who the class of 2016 will turn out to be.

Kluber and Kershaw Win Cy Young Award

The Cy Young award — named after the Hall of Fame pitcher who died in 1955 — was first handed out in 1956 to Don Newcombe, with the goal of recognizing the “most valuable pitcher” from each season. The first eleven years of the award saw one pitcher per year receiving the honor, but in 1967 the Cy Young began being handed out to a pitcher from each league who was voted on as the best from the season.

Seventeen players who have won the Cy Young award have gone on to the Hall of Fame up until this point — several of those winners are still active players, however. The current record for most Cy Young awards is held by Roger Clemens, with seven, but sixteen total players have won multiple Cy Young’s in their career.

Voting for the award is fairly straightforward.

Two writers from each city of both the American League and National League make up the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) voters for the Cy Young award, making a total of thirty voters for each league (fifteen teams, with two voters per city). A first place vote earns a player seven points, a second place vote gets four points, a third place vote receives three points, a fourth place vote is worth two points, with a fifth place vote earning a single point. Once added up, the player with the highest overall total wins.

The 2014 Major League Baseball Cy Young award winners for both the American League and National League were announced Wednesday night on MLB Network. Here are the winners, along with my thoughts on each:

AMERICAN LEAGUE CY YOUNG

Original Pick: Felix Hernandez

Finalists: Felix Hernandez, Corey Kluber and Chris Sale

Winner: Corey Kluber

Thoughts On Corey Kluber Winning

I originally had Felix Hernandez winning the 2014 Cy Young award, and after seeing that he was one of the three finalists for the honor, I still held strong with my selection. However, in one of the closest votes in Cy Young award history, Corey Kluber took home the award for his terrific, breakout season.

Just edging out the win by ten points, Kluber received a total of 169 points and 17 first-place votes, with Hernandez getting the other 13 first-place selections totaling 159 points. Third place recipient Chris Sale got 78 points from the voters.

Never receiving a single vote for the Cy Young award before this time around, Kluber becomes the fourth player in Indians’ franchise history to win the Cy Young award.

Going 18-9 with a 2.44 ERA on the season, Kluber essentially came out of nowhere and posted some incredible outings on the season. Kluber was one of the absolute best pitchers in baseball after the All-Star break, recording back-to-back 14 strikeout games in September and notching the best overall ERA of any starting pitcher over that span.

Heading into next season, it’s hard to know what to expect out of Corey Kluber. Although he was superb in 2014, there have been plenty of cases where a pitcher breaks out for a season and never performs that way again. But despite that, Kluber will in all likelihood be one of the best pitchers in the game, even if he isn’t quite as good as the masterful year he had this past season.

NATIONAL LEAGUE CY YOUNG

Original Pick: Clayton Kershaw

Finalists: Clayton Kershaw, Johnny Cueto and Adam Wainwright

Winner: Clayton Kershaw

Thoughts On Clayton Kershaw Winning

After yet another historic season put together by Clayton Kershaw, there was no real debate over whether or not he most deserved the 2014 National League Cy Young award. Winning his unprecedented fourth straight ERA title, Kershaw’s stats simply blew away the competition, which saw the next closest N.L. ERA nearly half a run higher.

Kershaw’s unbelievable season netted him a unanimous vote for the Cy Young, with him receiving all 30 first-place votes and 210 points overall. Johnny Cueto, the second place vote getter only tallied 112 points, with Adam Wainwright finishing in third with 97 points. With the unanimous selection, Kershaw becomes the first to do so since Justin Verlander in 2011.

Tying Sandy Koufax for the most Cy Young awards in Dodgers’s franchise history, Kershaw’s back-to-back Cy Young awards make him the youngest in MLB history, and one of only nine players, to win three in their career.

Firing a 15-strikeout no hitter in June, Kershaw’s season was remarkable, as despite missing the first month of the season, Kershaw was able to record 21 wins to go along with a mere 1.77 ERA. With many already naming Kershaw as the predicted front runner for the Cy Young award again in 2015, barring injury, there’s a chance that Kershaw could challenge Roger Clemens’ all-time record of seven career Cy Young awards.

But before Kershaw makes a run towards reaching Clemens, he is looking to become the ninth player in history to win both the Cy Young award and the Most Valuable Player award in the same year. Although some people have Giancarlo Stanton taking the honor, with a few giving it to Andrew McCutchen, there’s still a good chance that Kershaw could win the MVP. In my opinion, he deserves it.

My Vote for 2014 National League Cy Young

As I stated in my American League Cy Young post, each season there are usually several pitchers from each league that have incredible seasons, making it difficult to choose between them for who most deserves the Cy Young award. This year, however, it really wasn’t all that close. Although Adam Wainwright, Johnny Cueto and Clayton Kershaw all had great seasons, one simply stands above the rest. Even so, I’ll take the time to go over each of them anyway.

Adam Wainwright put together yet another strong season, going 20-9 over the course of 32 starts for the Cardinals. While he didn’t overly dominate the competition, he kept them off balance for the most part throughout the year, holding opposing batters to a mere .222 batting average against. Having posted the lowest ERA of his career thus far, with a 2.38 on the year, you’d figure Wainwright would stand a good shot at the Cy Young. But the talent he’s facing is simply too great for him to do so this time around.

Yet another strong candidate for the Cy Young award that will inevitably miss out is Johnny Cueto. After getting off to an unbelievable start to the season, Cueto began to pitch so well that he earned a few more votes after each and every outing. Even so, despite striking out 242 batters and subsequently putting together a mere 2.25 ERA over 243.2 innings pitched, Cueto will have to try his luck again in 2015. The season he put together will likely wind up as one of the best ever recorded by a runner up for Cy Young.

For me, the only choice for the 2014 National League Cy Young award is Clayton Kershaw. Regardless of the fact that Kershaw missed over a month of playing time after making the start for the Dodgers down in Australia, causing him to record seven fewer starts than his closest competition, Johnny Cueto, Kershaw is in a class of his own.

For the fourth straight season, Kershaw lead all of Major League Baseball in ERA, posting an incredible 1.77 on the season. To go along with that amazing statistic, Kershaw was able to win 21 games, despite missing a month of starts, including one of which was of the no-hitter variety, in which he struck out a staggering fifteen batters. Keeping batters off the base paths, holding them to a .196 batting average for all of 2014, Kershaw is one of the best all-around pitchers the game has ever seen. And thus, after a great season, Kershaw should pick up his third Cy Young award of the past four years.

My Vote for National League Cy Young

This is the third in a series of four blog posts that I plan to type up between now and Friday; all of which will focus on who I feel should win the three major awards of Most Valuable Player (MVP), Cy Young and Rookie of the Year (ROY). (If you haven’t read my posts on who I think should win the AL MVP, NL MVP and AL Cy Young, go ahead and check those out now.)

If you’ll remember back to my post on American League Cy Young, I tend to rely purely on stats when making a pick for which player most deserves the Cy Young award. In fact, there were SO many good candidates for National League Cy Young that I ended up letting the stats make the decision for me.

I took the National League starting pitchers with ERA’s below 3.00 (seven pitchers in all) and compared them from 20 different statistical angles. (I chose to use so many different stats to compare them because I felt that using Wins, ERA and strikeouts alone didn’t tell the whole story of how good a particular pitcher was.)

My method works as follows: The pitcher with the best numbers in a given category receives 1 point; with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., place pitchers receiving the corresponding point amount. (The occurence of a tie in a particular category results in the tied players receiving the same point amount.) In the end, the pitcher with the lowest combined total would be my pick for the Cy Young award.

It took me awhile to crunch all of the numbers, but once I finally finished, this was the result:

(I realize it’s a bit blurry. You can click it for a clearer look.)

For those of you that still can’t read the chart (even after clicking on it) here are the results of the comparison:

Clayton Kershaw: 1st place-with a total of 61.

R.A. Dickey: 2nd place-with a total of 69.

Matt Cain: 3rd place-with a total of 72.

Gio Gonzalez: 4th place-with a total of 77.

Kyle Lohse: 5th place-with a total of 82.

Johnny Cueto: 6th place-with at total of 84.

Jordan Zimmermann: 7th place-with a total of 91.

As you can see, Clayton Kershaw came out on top, thus making him the statistical winner (and my pick) for the 2012 National League Cy Young award. (This would make his second straight Cy Young; as he won it in 2011.)

Though Kershaw’s record of 14-9 would argue against it, he had an outstanding year; leading all of MLB starting pitchers in ERA. While we’re on the subject of the win-loss record: I feel it can be a bit misleading.

Though 15 other National League pitchers had more wins than Kershaw (with Gio Gonzalez recording 21) the win-loss record is one of those stats that’s out of the pitcher’s hands for the most part. As the pitcher, you can go out there and throw a gem of a game–giving up only a couple runs–but if the lineup isn’t clicking on that particular day, you’re not going to get the win.

So, while it would appear at first glance that Kershaw didn’t have a Cy Young worthy year, if you take the time to look closely you can clearly see that Kershaw was the NL’s best all-around pitcher of the season; and as such, is my pick for 2012 National League Cy Young.

Do you agree or disagree with me?

As always, feel free to leave a comment below.