{"id":60297,"date":"2023-08-10T07:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=60297"},"modified":"2023-08-09T22:01:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T02:01:23","slug":"al-cy-young-award-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/08\/10\/al-cy-young-award-race\/","title":{"rendered":"AL Cy Young Award Race: It&#8217;s Still Wide Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/07\/14\/2023-al-cy-young\/\" target=\"_self\">no clear front runner<\/a> for the American League Cy Young Award. If the season ended today, more than three pitchers would have first place. But, let&#8217;s talk about Shane McClanahan first. He was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/06\/06\/al-cy-young-race\/\" target=\"_self\">an early favorite<\/a> for the prestigious award before the All-Star break. Since then, he was moved to the 15-day IL last week. It seems he may be out well beyond those 15 days as manager Kevin Cash said it&#8217;s &#8220;highly unlikely&#8221; he will return this season. It certainly destroys his Cy Young case, but he gives other contenders a chance to keep it going. Here&#8217;s what the race looks like now.<\/p>\n<p><em>Editors note: Statistics are through August 9<\/em><\/p>\n<p>[metabet_core_side_odds_tile query=&#8221;bbm\/mlb_al_cy_young&#8221; size=&#8221;350&#215;300&#8243; site_id=&#8221;lastwordonsports&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h2>AL Cy Young Race Candidates<\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Kevin Gausman<\/strong><\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kevin Gausman has the lowest Run Support Average in the American League this season (3.45)<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SNstats\/status\/1687186657743663104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 3, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Gausman is a significant reason why the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/08\/09\/danny-jansen-blocking-artist\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> starting rotation has been consistent. He&#8217;s the Fangraphs leader in pitcher WAR with 4.1 in the AL. But, he&#8217;s given up 44 earned runs through his 21 starts in 127 2\/3 innings. 21 of those runs have come over his last three appearances. It should be noted that Gausman had been exceptional between his two rough starts. He went 6-2 with a 2.73 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and 113:25 K:BB across 85 2\/3 innings during that stretch. Then, he posted 11 games with one earned run or fewer walked, and seven with ten-plus strikeouts. He&#8217;s on pace for the best season of his career as he has a strong chance for a top-five Cy Young voting finish. His 3.04 ERA trails only the 2.81 mark he posted in the 2021 season.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Framber Valdez<\/strong><\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">After throwing a no-hitter last week, Framber Valdez has already given up 5 runs through 2 innings.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been pretty common for pitchers to struggle following a solo no-hitter.<\/p>\n<p>Carlos Rod\u00f3n was the last pitcher to win his next start following a no-no in 2021. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Xq98qm5JGn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/Xq98qm5JGn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Chris Jastrzembski (@Chris_Jast) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Chris_Jast\/status\/1689061636114399233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Valdez continues to headline the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/06\/24\/astros-pitcher-j-p-france\/\" target=\"_self\">Houston Astros<\/a> rotation and has the stuff to be considered one of the league&#8217;s top starters. He Valdez doesn&#8217;t rack up strikeouts, but he can average half an inning more per start. He has worked at least six innings in 16 of his 21 starts while giving the Astros a chance to win. Valdez found himself throwing a no-hitter against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/08\/07\/cleveland-guardians-prospects-mlb\/\" target=\"_self\">Cleveland Guardians<\/a> on August 1. However, he fell back to Earth in Baltimore, tying his season highs in runs and hits allowed. Outside of the no-no, Valdez has allowed four or more runs in four consecutive starts. He&#8217;s struck out fewer than five batters three times during that stretch.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Gerrit Cole<\/strong><\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Most starts this season allowing 3 or less runs:<\/p>\n<p>21 \u2014 Sonny Gray<br \/>\n20 \u2014 Gerrit Cole and Blake Snell<br \/>\n19 \u2014 CLARKE SCHMIDT <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/7PSCKjhwag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/7PSCKjhwag<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 YankeesMuse (@YankeesMuse) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/YankeesMuse\/status\/1689098796133711872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 9, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nCole is still looking for his first Cy Young win. The six-time All-Star has finished in the top-ten of AL Cy Young voting six times, including each of the last five years. He&#8217;s even putting up quite the performance for an inconsistent <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/08\/05\/domingo-german-out-of-chances\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Yankees<\/a> team. He&#8217;s carried the team on his back while giving up 15 home run balls over 150 1\/3 innings. Last year in 219 innings, he gave up 36, including three in the postseason. Cole still holds an excellent 2.75 ERA and 1.04 WHIP on the campaign. He&#8217;s punched out 160 batters over the course of the season. Although, he lags behind in most advanced metrics, ranking seventh in xERA (3.65), eighth in FIP (3.38), ninth in K%-BB% (20.1%), and eleventh in xFIP (3.70). He might be the favorite of the average voter, but some might be inclined to vote for someone else.<\/p>\n<p><em>AL Cy Young Award Honorable Mentions: Luis Castillo, F\u00e9lix Bautista, Nathan Eovaldi, Sonny Gray<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n<p>Players\/managers Mentioned:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mcclash01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-08-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shane McClanahan<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cashke01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-08-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Cash<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gausmke01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-08-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Gausman<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/valdefr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-08-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Framber Valdez<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/colege01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-08-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gerrit Cole<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=castilu03,castilu02,castilu01,castil020lui,castil018lui,castil027lui,castil025lui&amp;search=Luis+Castillo&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-08-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luis Castillo<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bautife01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-08-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">F\u00e9lix Bautista<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/e\/eovalna01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-08-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nathan Eovaldi<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/grayso01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-08-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sonny Gray<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s no clear front runner for the American League Cy Young Award. If the season ended today, more than three pitchers would have first place. But, let&#8217;s talk about Shane McClanahan first. He was an early favorite for the prestigious award before the All-Star break. Since then, he was moved to the 15-day IL last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3686,"featured_media":60370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,2],"tags":[5662,2359,611,2236,1331,922,2119,2003,650],"class_list":["post-60297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-featured","tag-felix-bautista","tag-framber-valdez","tag-gerrit-cole","tag-kevin-cash","tag-kevin-gausman","tag-luis-castillo","tag-nathan-eovaldi","tag-shane-mcclanahan","tag-sonny-gray"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}