The Cy Young Awards were handed out on Wednesday night, and for the 20th straight year, a Yankee did not win.
Gerrit Cole finished second in the American League voting while Toronto lefty Robbie Ray took home the award. Cole received the lone first-place vote that did not go to Ray. Lance Lynn finished third, with Nathan Eovaldi and Carlos Rodon rounding out the top five. Each of the top-five finishers would have been a first-time winner. For Cole, it’s the fifth top-five finish of his career. His best finish was in 2019 when he came in second to his then-teammate Justin Verlander.
Among American League pitchers who threw at least 150 innings, Cole had the best strikeout percentage (33.5%), second-best FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement (5.3), fifth-best ERA (3.23), and was tied for second in WHIP (1.06). He also led the AL in wins — a largely outdated metric — and complete games, a statistical feat that pitchers rarely accomplish anymore. Cole’s 5.6% walk rate was the lowest of his American League career, edged out only by the 5.3% he put up in 2015 with the Pirates.
Ray, who is now a free agent, had the second-best strikeout percentage (32.1%), eighth-best Wins Above Replacement (3.9), and was second to Lynn in ERA at 2.84. No one in the American League had a better WHIP or ERA+ than Ray, though, who also had the league’s most strikeouts and innings pitched. Milwaukee Brewers’ breakout stud Corbin Burnes picked up the National League award, narrowly beating former Met and current Phillie Zack Wheeler.
Cole’s season hit a patch of turbulence toward the end that he was unable to pilot himself out of. After injuring his hamstring during a Sept. 7 start against the Blue Jays, Cole posted a 6.35 ERA in his final four regular-season starts, which came against Baltimore, Cleveland, Boston and Toronto. Batters hit .304/.360/.554 off him in those four starts, far above Cole’s season averages of .223/.267/.372.
The lasting image of Cole’s season was a negative one. In the American League wild-card game at Fenway Park. Cole melted down against the Red Sox, getting just six outs and allowing three earned runs, four hits and two walks in the Yankees’ loss. After the game he said he felt “sick to his stomach”.
Ballots were submitted by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America before the start of the postseason. Cole did not call in to the MLB Network show that revealed the results, while Lynn and Ray did. And with another season devoid of a Cy Young, the Yankees’ last winner remains Roger Clemens in 2001.
