Baltimore Orioles: Snell, deGrom win Cy Young awards

As Baltimore Orioles fans are focusing on potential new hire Mike Elias, many MLB fans are focused on award season with the American and National League Cy Young awards being handed out on Wednesday evening

The Baltimore Orioles might soon have something to celebrate as the organization moves closer to announcing their new head of baseball operations. Earlier this morning baseball Twitter, and Orioles Twitter in particular, was busy exploding over a Bob Nightengale rumor (hopefully eventual fact) that the team will be hiring Mike Elias to head their organization.

But as Orioles fans remain focused on the front office situation in Baltimore, many MLB fans were busy arguing over the 2018 Cy Young awards. On Wednesday evening, the Rays’ Blake Snell and the Mets’ Jacob deGrom took home the AL and NL trophies, respectively.

This year’s Cy races have sparked debate throughout the baseball community as the award winners’ track records are vastly different than the winners’ before them have been. Up until recently, the swath of old-time baseball writers in the BBWAA have leaned toward a certain style of thinking, toward certain statistics in award and Hall of Fame voting that are outdated and don’t paint a full picture of a player’s performance.

A few weeks ago, Michael Wilbon made it very clear on Pardon the Interruption that he didn’t think deGrom deserved to win the Cy because he only had 7 wins at the time, despite a league-leading 1.81 ERA and a 32% strikeout rate.

Unfortunately, while newer members of the BBWAA appreciate and understand the benefits of advanced analytics, many older writers in the BBWAA share Wilbon’s sentiment. Heading into Wednesday night, there was some uncertainty about whether the outdated mindset that pitcher wins are a valid measurement of pitcher performance would prohibit deGrom from winning the award. However, with deGrom winning, we can see the voter pool moving past those old methods of thinking.

Scherzer certainly had an outstanding season, just missing out on a third straight NL Cy Young title. He posted a 2.65 FIP with a league-leading 300 strikeouts. But deGrom was better, finishing the 2018 season with a 1.70 ERA and a 1.98 FIP in 217 innings and a 32.2% strikeout rate; good for 269 K’s. He posted as many bWAR as actual wins (10) en route to his first Cy Young award.

The race was tight in the American League as well, with Justin Verlander and Blake Snell leading the pack.

Verlander finished the season with a 2.78 FIP, 290 strikeouts and 6.3 bWAR in 214 innings. He made 34 starts and helped lead the Astros to an AL West division title.

Snell posted a 2.94 FIP, 221 strikeouts and 7.5 bWAR; he made 31 starts but threw just 180.2 innings. Snell was slightly better on a rate-basis, but this was a very close race to the end. Snell ended up winning his first Cy Young title with 17 first place votes to Verlander’s 13.

I would’ve leaned toward deGrom in the NL if I had a vote, but the AL is a bit tougher for me to decipher. My brain says Verlander because of the innings gap; in today’s MLB, those 34 innings are significant. However, Snell was more than deserving of the award.

The Orioles have had 6 Cy Young winners in franchise history, but unfortunately it’s been 38 years since Steve Stone last won the award with a 3.23 ERA and 149 strikeouts in 250.2 innings. Stone was far from the best pitcher in the American League in 1980, in fact he wasn’t even in the top 25 in fWAR in the AL (!), but his 25 wins were the most in baseball. It just goes to show how obtuse the voters used to be, and how that seems likely to change as we head into the future.

With any luck, the Orioles can get a new front office in place that’ll do a much better job developing the pitchers in the system. Maybe DL Hall will be in this discussion a few years from now; we can only hope.