Astros left-hander Dallas Keuchel and Cubs right-hander Jake Arrieta have won the Cy Young Awards in their respective leagues, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced tonight.
Keuchel placed in the top two on all 30 ballots (22 first-place votes, eight second-place), earning a total of 186 points. (Weighted seven points for first place, four for second, three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth.) David Price came in a reasonably close second place, landing 21 second place votes and eight first place votes (plus one third place) for a total of 143 points. Sonny Gray, the only other recipient of a second-place vote, finished third with 82 points. Rounding out the ballot were Chris Sale, Chris Archer, Wade Davis, Felix Hernandez, Collin McHugh, Corey Kluber, Marco Estrada, Andrew Miller, Shawn Tolleson, Carlos Carrasco and Dellin Betances, in that order. (Full voting breakdown here.)
The 27-year-old Keuchel was fighting for a rotation spot as recently as Spring Training 2014, but his remarkable transformation into a bona fide ace atop the Houston rotation was completed with a dominant follow-up to a breakout 2014 season. Keuchel led the AL with 232 innings (trailing only Clayton Kershaw’s 232 2/3 innings for the MLB lead) and worked to a pristine 2.48 ERA with 8.4 K/9, 2.0 BB/9 and an AL-best 61.7 percent ground-ball rate. While pitcher wins are no longer as significantly emphasized as they once were, Keuchel’s 20 victories likely still held some weight with many voters (as evidenced, perhaps, by teammate and 19-game winner McHugh receiving votes despite logging a 3.89 ERA).
In the National League, voting was even closer, as most would expect. Arrieta’s 169 points narrowly edged out Zack Greinke’s 147 points, with Clayton Kershaw coming in third with a total of 101. Rounding out the ballot, in order, were Gerrit Cole, Max Scherzer, Madison Bumgarner, Jacob deGrom, Mark Melancon and John Lackey. (Full voting breakdown.)
Arrieta delivered a strong first half of the season but ratcheted things up with an historic second half, yielding a breathtaking four earned runs in his final 88 1/3 innings. Arrieta recorded an 89-to-14 K/BB ratio over that dominant stretch and shrank his earned run average from 2.62 to 1.77 in the process. He also led the Senior Circuit with 22 wins, four complete games and three shutouts.
There was a split camp between Arrieta and Greinke, the latter of whom posted a 1.66 ERA — the lowest earned run average since Greg Maddux 20 years ago. Greinke recorded 19 wins and averaged 8.1 strikeouts per nine innings against just 1.6 walks per nine in 222 2/3 innings with the Dodgers this season and also enjoyed an otherworldly run of 45 2/3 scoreless innings over the middle portion of the season. Incredibly, Greinke allowed just 19 runs over his first 19 starts this season.
Has there ever been a team to have Moy, ROY, and Cy young in same season?
I don’t know about those awards but the last team to win 3 awards in the same season was the mariners 2001
With one player taking two of those awards. Too bad Rizzo didn’t bop a few more HRs might of had a chance at a 4th.
No bryce was just too good 40 hr and a .320-.330 avg with the amount of walks he had plus his baserunning skills
But how valuable was he? They were the 7th best team in the NL and had probably one of the best rotations. IMO Arrieta should be taking home both CY Young and MVP honors. 12 starts, 11-0, 0.41 ERA, 0.62 WHIP, 1 HR allowed, 4 ER. That’s the best stretch run any pitcher has ever had…… EVER. His spotless WHIP was higher than his ERA…… that’s hard to do…. usually impossible when the WHIP is 0.62.
Rizzo was the anchor of a 97 win team. No he didn’t do the best offensively across the league, but he was the constant steady force in that lineup all year. 31 HRs, 101 RBI, and 17 SBs…… pretty friggin good. While Harper was on a team that finished 4 games over .500, missed the playoffs, despite having Scherzer, Strasburg, Zimmermann, and Gio Gonzalez for a rotation. Rizzo and the Cubs had Lester and Arrieta. Rizzo led that team of offensive rookies like an MVP would.
Votto had a solid season to….. but the Reds were the second worse team in the NL. So how valuable was he really.
Goldschmidt had another solid season. But he too was on a sub-.500 team so again, how valuable was he? IMO if any of these 3 deserve it it is Goldschmidt because he had the least amount of talent on his team and they still finished near .500. Imagine how bad they’d be without him.
Honestly though the true most VALUABLE player was Cespedes when he went to the Mets. He jump started that mediocre offense. 17 HRs, 44 RBIs, .287 BA, and .942 OPS in only 230 ABs to help push the Mets into the playoffs and ultimately the WS. But since he didn’t even play 60 games for them he shouldn’t get the NL nod.
My 3 finalists would actually be Arrieta, Rizzo, and Greinke.
That’s right. No Harper. Despite ALL that talent on that team they failed by a mile to live up to expectations. So how valuable was anyone on that team this year? Rosenthal on the Cardinals should get more votes IMO than Harper. But in typical fashion the MVP will go to the player with the best offensive season, which in no way makes a player the MOST valuable in the league. If it did then Albert Pujols should have way more than just 3 NL MVP awards in his career and should have more like 7.
But that then limits players on contending teams to win the MVP. That is so silly. The MVP should be given to the Most Valuable Player. Harper had the best season out of them all, so therefore, he should be the Most Valuable Player. Had Harper not been on the Nationals they would’ve been a much worse team. So just because his team didn’t make the playoffs doesn’t mean he wasn’t the best player in the league. He can’t help the fact that some of his teammates weren’t playing up to their capabilities.
Only one other: 1983 White Sox. LaMarr Hoytt, Ron Kittle and Tony LaRussa
White sox in 93 I believe
83
Yet, the Cubs still can’t win the big prize. Wait till next year!!
There is always one
Feels good to have those words sound like a legitimate threat for once though.
The Royals are going to win 0 of these awards. But do you know what they did win?
83 White Sox
No there hasn’t. Cubs are the first
Yes there has. Cubs are the first since 2001 Mariners
So dumb, in all three cases of Arrieta, Greinke and Kershaw, each pitcher was not categorically better than the other two. Why not just give out 3 awards?
..because that isn’t how awards work?
Nobody denies it was a tough choice, and really there was no wrong answer. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t still be a winner.
There are two wrong answers in the voting though. Someone gave Kershaw a 4th and another a 5th place vote. Nonsense.
Only one can win. They all deserved it but Arrieta’s clutch 2nd half got him the award.
Down vote! that sounds like why kids are so entitled these days, “everyone gets a trophy” just makes me puke. Either ya get it or ya don’t.
I’m surprised you had time to type this comment with how busy you stay yelling at the neighborhood kids to stay off your lawn. When you’re done grandpa, can you tell me the stories about how you had to walk to school uphill in the snow again. I just love that one. It really drives home the point about how tough you guys were when you were kids.
Don’t worry guys, he’s just another fan
I’m the biggest dodger hater ever but I want Kershaw to be nominated every year just to see his posse!!
Whomever voted for McHugh, Estrada, or Tolleson should no longer have a vote. Absolutely rediculous…
Think people voted for McHugh just because of the amount of wins he has
I agree. While the top 3 were fine IMO (I would’ve had Sale over Gray but I can understand Gray), Carrasco, Archer, Quintana, or Kluber were easily ahead of Tolleson, McHugh or Estrada I think
Same for the 2 guys who gave Kershaw a 4th and 5th place vote.
I think that the 5 guys who gave Kershaw a 1st or 2nd place vote should lose their voting priviledges. Great pitcher, possibly the best in the game…. and despite putting together a season which might have been good enough to win the award most years, he was quite a distant third behind Arrieta and Greinke. Sad thing is, they were probably LA homers whom might have cost Greinke the award.
This can’t be a real comment, can it?
Advanced stats would say Kershaw was the best out of the three. I don’t think you can blame someone for giving him a first place vote if that is the kinda stuff they like to use to evaluate a player’s season.
It was hard for me to see Kershaw beating Greinke or Arrieta due to the ERA differential (specifically that Kershaw’s wasn’t below 2), but he still would have absolutely deserved it he had won. I don’t envy any of the voters this year for that ballot alone.
They each recieved 4th and 5th place votes and thats certainly valid position to take with those pitchers. What is ridiculous about that? No one voted for them to win the award…
Then make the case as to how any of these guys was one of the 5 best pitchers in the AL
Tolleson and McHugh were especially egregious. I suppose a case could be made for estrada…
AL Relief pitchers better than Tolleson this season… A Miller, W Davis, D Betances, Z Britton, D Robertson…. Dan Haren, Wei yin Chen, and Jordan Zimmerman had better staistical seasons than McHugh.
I don’t think there is anything ridiculous about writers in each town having a different top 5 out of the top ten pitchers in a league. Is it really ridiculous that a couple of Houston writers who saw him pitch 30 times gave him a 4th or 5th place vote? I don’t need to make that case, I don’t vote, but I can certainly see the rationale behind some of these voters choices, its not like any of the questionable players had a 1st or 2nd place or even a third place vote, ‘sometimes these writers like to give their favorite players a bone. Its not a perfect science but a lot of writers take a stance that it won’t affect the out come anyways, whats wrong with old Colin getting a vote or two. He’ll use it in arbitration to get a few more dollars…’
Mchugh was far from a top 10 pitcher in the AL. He had a 1.28 whip… If a professional writer doesnt have enough objectivity and professionalism to vote for who he feels is actually most deserving and is blinded by his home teams success, than they shouldn’t have votes… And Tolleson wasnt even a top 5 reliever in the AL, let alone a top 10 pitcher.
Disagree, Price, Keuchel and Gray, had 95% of all 1st-3rd votes, no one was being egregious in their choices. All professional choices. Have a great day, you just want to be right about complaining about a few 4/5th place votes that have no bearing on the outcome of the award. Strange thing to latch on to, but good luck with that.
If you’re using your vote to “give your favorite players a bone” you shouldn’t have a vote. This is exactly what is wrong with HOF voting. If you don’t take it seriously, turn over your vote to someone who will.
that’s speculation on my part, why its in quotes. I think once you get in the 4th and 5th place you can expect quite a wide variance in opinions in players, and to expect every writer to line up with your views is taking a long road in life.
I wouldn’t expect every writer to have the same views. I would expect someone that gets paid to follow baseball for a living to at least have a clue about who the better pitchers in baseball are. Go with old school metrics if you want, they’d still be terrible 4th and 5th place votes.
Sorry but hometown bias has always been a fact of baseball awards, and I don’t think its out of the norm for a guy/gal (both houston writers) to give a guy you saw pitch 30 times over a guy you may have seen 2 or 3 times, the other writers to give Colin a vote was a Minnesota writer. He had 19W and a high 3 era I’d say old school metrics might of been the case with Borzi the Minnesota writer and Ginsberg an AP guy in Baltimore.
Thats a stupid argument. “(Insert dumb old tradition here) has always been a factor in an award.” You cant blaim a supposedly educated person for continuing said dumb tradition…. Also just because it may “not be out of the norm” again doesnt justify anything. Once again giving an award to someone because you have seen them more is also not a good argument… especially in this day and age, this isnt 1915 where writers only see their home teams, and have to read print articles and box scores to keep up with other players. We have tv, radio, internet… If they, or you truly believe they were top 5 pitchers, I question their judgement. I really believe that they are really just homer’s or completly out of touch. And I dont see why you are taking up for these writers so much… seems like a strange thing to latch on to… Finally, I will argue that it does slightly matter, and both will present it at arbitration hearing and in free agency.
Happy for Arrieta as a Cub fan, but I would’ve voted Kershaw personally
You would vote to give the award to the guy who was a distinctly distant 3rd best in the NL, rather than one of the two guys who actually deserved the award this year?
I disagree that he was a distant third. By ERA yes, but he also led the league in strikeouts and innings pitched. I understand your point, and I get the case for Greinke and Arrieta (3 of the top seasons in recent memory by a pitcher), but I use strikeouts and FIP as a measure of a pitcher’s individual dominance, and Kershaw was far better in those categories
Just my personal opinion though and what I choose to prioritize. They could’ve realistically been ranked 1-3 in any order, and I would’ve understood
Why are people so in love with FIP? If it only takes strikeouts, walks, and homers into account then how is that a legitimate measure of a pitchers performance? It seems like pitchers FIPS are always either higher or lower then their ERA, but never actually all that close to it. Just my take that it’s a measure of how good a pitcher is at 3 things, but not the whole picture.
Understood, and I don’t use it as an end-all be-all. No stat is perfect though, and Strikeouts to me are most indicative of a pitcher’s dominance, which FIP accounts for. I still liked Keuchel in the AL though even though his FIP wasn’t stellar, it doesn’t do everyone justice
Doesn’t matter what a player does all season long. Get on fire, have a great second half & win an award.
First half of the season doesn’t count but the All-Star game does.
The award is for the 2015 season. Not the 2015 second half of the season.
Yes, I know that. Simply saying that it seems that Arrieta’s great second half was the lone reason he won the award, while Greinke was great all season long.
Too bad that Arrieta had an excellent 1st half as well, huh? Going into the AS break, he was the 3rd-rated SP in the NL… barely behind Kershaw. He was also one of the most ridiculous AS snubs over the past decade.
I highly doubt that the 3rd-rated SP in the NL gets ridiculously snubbed for the AS game
just that greinke had an even better first half…hell he started the All-star game….
I think the main reason that Arrieta won was his 2nd half. By far the best 2nd half out of any player in the MLB that season. Remember when Cubs and Giants and Mets/Nationals kept fighting for the 2nd wildcard spot? Arrieta’s hot 2nd half skyrocketed the Cubs above those teams to clinch the wildcard. I think Grenkie would have won statisticwise but Arrieta brought much more to the table.
It was close, stat wise. Arrieta had more wins and more Ks. Greinke had a better ERA and WHIP. Good call on Arrieta’s impact on the outcome. It was a catalyst for the Cubs.
“Good call on Arrieta’s impact on the outcome. It was a catalyst for the Cubs.”
As I understand it, Arrieta beat out Greinke b/c Kershaw was better than Lester?
Yeah the second half dominance is probably what made several voters give him their first place vote. I would have voted Greinke, but there’s nothing wrong with Arrieta winning it. All numbers are close (except Kershaw and his K’s)
Greinke had 0 CGs. Which means he had no shut outs, nor a no-hitter. He also failed to pick up 20 wins on a playoff team with the MLB leader in wins as a finalist.
Add in Arrieta’s MLB leading 4 CGs, 3 SHO, 22 wins…. and of course the no-no… and I think that’s where the tipping point lies.
Kershaw shouldn’t even be in the discussion, to be honest. He had a great season, but nothing compared to Arrieta or Greinke.
Arrieta’s second half was absolutely amazing, but he did have an excellent first half to build a foundation for his season.
In the end, I think the fact that Arrieta had 4 CG, 3 SHO, and a no-hitter… plus lead the MLB in wins is what won him the award. If the Dodgers could have given Greinke 1 more win, and if he could have racked up 1 SHO and 2 CG… then he probably takes home the award easily.
Greinke’s ERA never went above 2.00, the whole season.
You need to stop commenting.
I thought jake peavy should’ve won the cy young
Lol
False, definitely Mike Bolsinger
As a Cubs fan, I’m happy that we got ROY, MOY, and the CY Young, but really, it doesn’t mean squat.
Winning is all they judge you by. We didn’t win the WS. All the individual awards don’t mean a thing without the World Series trophy.
A team that wasn’t really expected to be any better than .500 this year, that consistently rolled out 3-5 rookie position players all season, that fielded a starting rotation with a major lack of back end quality all year, that had a pretty inconsistent bullpen for 2/3 of the season, somehow managed to win 97 games and make the NLCS, while bringing home a bunch of individual accolades and awards in the process. It was a very successful year, and the groundwork is in place to build upon it for years to come. You should never, ever take it for granted of course, but the window looks like it’s just starting to open, and there’s legitimate reason to believe that it might just be a matter of time now…
Should’ve gone to Matt Duffy
Yeah he had a 0.00 ERA this year, its astounding he didn’t win.
there is one thing we can take away from tonight that is inarguable : Everybody digs a good beard.
Fact of the night
Kershaw should have won but I’m not at all surprised that he didn’t. ERA is still the be all end all star for a lot of voters. And I mean, Arrieta and Greinke both had great years anyway, just not as great as Keshaw.
Since when does 300 strikeouts not win a cy young in this era?
Well, It’s hard to say. The only people who have done it since 1990 are Randy Johnson, Pedro, Schilling, and Kershaw.
the same could be said for the ERA & WHIP leader
It’s weird isn’t it? Each of these guys had historic runs of their own. Greinke never having an ERA above 2.00 at any point in the season. Arrieta’s astounding second half and no-hitter. Kershaw’s 300 Ks. Not to mention that throughout the season each of these guys were just dominant in general.
The 84 Cubs won Cy, mvp, moy…
I’m laughing, Kershaw sets career highs in K’s and shutouts and has his lowest polling in the Cy Young vote since 2010.
He didn’t get a single vote that year if you were wondering.
Congrats to both Keuchel and Arrieta. Both well deserved awards.