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MLB Awards Watch: Top Five AL Cy Young Candidates

By Matthew Lively

Apr 10, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Corey Kluber (28) poses with the Cy Young Award before the game between the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 10, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Corey Kluber (28) poses with the Cy Young Award before the game between the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports /
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The MLB regular season is coming to an end, which means it’s time for you to read a million awards prediction articles. I’ll break down the top five AL Cy Young candidates.

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports /

The season ends in just 28 days and there are still so many questions left to be answered. The AL East is going to come down to the last day, a dark-horse candidate could possibly win the MVP and the race for the American League Cy Young is wide open. There are five realistic AL Cy Young candidates.

The candidates for the Cy Young have moved up and down the totem pole all season long. At one point, it looked like Chris Sale would take home the hardware, but he declared himself a seamstress and created one of the weirdest off-field disruptions in history. Now it looks like he may not even finish within the top six or seven.

Michael Fulmer seems like he could be a top option, but he currently isn’t in line to have the top ERA due to qualifying reasons. He has the best AL ERA but must pitch 162 innings to end as a qualifier; he currently has 125.2 under his belt.

There has been no real standout among pitchers to take home the award. Most have struggled when put in the position to run away with the award, and there hasn’t been an absolutely dominant pitcher yet.

There are a lot of things to look at when it comes to who deserves to be a Cy Young. The award is handed out to the best pitcher in each league, and usually goes to the pitcher who helped their team the most in the midst of a playoff push or division race. The award is voted on by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

There are numerous sites that predict the outcome of the Cy Young award and give the probabilities after each outing. We will use the help of those sites and break down the top five candidates for the AL Cy Young award.

Next: Running Through the Six

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