MLB Awards Watch: Top Five NL Cy Young Candidates Through May

Honorable Mentions

• Amazingly, every Cubs pitcher should make this article in some way or another.  Only one made the top five, but the other four also deserve credit.  Jason Hammel (2.09), Jon Lester (2.29), Kyle Hendricks (2.84) and John Lackey (3.16) all rank in the top 25 in ERA, and land in the top 20 in both FIP and WAR. Remember, these are the ones that aren’t being included at the top of the list. Cubs starters hold a 2.38 ERA, easily the best in all of baseball.

• Joe Ross often gets overlooked when talking about Washington Nationals starters due to his young age and relative inexperience, but voters will be talking about him soon enough. The former first-round pick of the Padres has been brilliant this season, taking a 2.37 ERA into the summer months. His 5-4 record hurts him, but it’s more about his team than anything else, as he’s lost three times while giving up three earned runs or less.

• When Jose Fernandez returned from Tommy John surgery last season, many thought he would not be the same pitcher he was in 2013 and the early part of 2014.  They might be right – he’s even better. After putting up an insane 2.1 WAR in just eleven starts following his return last year, he’s pushed past even that with 2.3 in his first eleven of this season. He’s third in strikeouts and has a solid 8-2 record, and really should be in the mix if it weren’t for some outstanding performances ahead of him.  Again, at only 23 years of age he’ll be in the conversation for the next decade.

• Johnny Cueto was actually set to hold the number 5 spot on this list until a teammate’s performance Thursday night knocked him off. Since that actually happened on June 2nd, we’ll give him a tied-for ranking.  The enigmatic former Cincinnati Red has taken quite well to his return to the National League, sitting second in the league with 81.2 IP on the back of three complete games. His 2.31 ERA is marvelous and, like Fernandez, really deserves to be higher up the list.  If he can continue his dominance in the Bay Area, one slip up from anyone above him will see him take over – it’s that close.

Next: You Mad Bro?

Wouldn’t you know it, Cueto’s teammate is the one to knock him out of the top five. Madison Bumgarner was already having a great season, pairing with Cueto and Jeff Samardzjia to form one of the most dominant trios in MLB. After putting up back-to-back seasons with sub-3.00 ERAs, ‘MadBum’ as the fans call him has decided to go supersonic this year.

Thursday night he threw another 7.2 scoreless innings, allowing just four hits while striking out eleven.  That dominance pushed him to top five rankings in WAR, strikeouts, innings pitched and ERA and cemented his place on this list.  He even made sure he got the win by blasting his second home run of the season and thirteenth of his career off Braves rookie Aaron Blair in the fifth inning.

The southpaw already has three World Series rings, a World Series MVP and two Silver Slugger awards, and after placing in the top-10 of Cy Young voting the last three seasons, he’s looking to climb to the very top of that mountain as well.

San Francisco is 34-22 on the season and if there is anything to the even-season magic (the Giants have won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014 in recent history), Bumgarner will get another chance to show he’s one of the biggest clutch performers in the game right now. The fact that he has some competition in the Giants rotation just seems to have motivated him further.

Next: Thunder and Lightning

How can a player pitch to a 1.95 ERA, with 47 strikeouts and only five walks in a month possibly move down in the rankings? Well, it’s mostly because of this:

Whether Noah Syndergaard meant to throw at Chase Utley or not, he got ejected after just 2.1 innings and cost himself most of a start. Even with the recent bullpen outing, Syndergaard fell behind in the inning and strikeout races and with the performances of the pitchers ahead of him that’s all it took to knock him down a peg.

Now, don’t think that he won’t climb right back up next month if he doesn’t have any more trouble with umpires. Syndergaard still ranks second in WAR, third in ERA and first in FIP and at 23 looks like he’s going to be one of the best right-handers in the league for the foreseeable future. His fastball average now sits at 98 mph and he’s touched 102 on occasion. His slider, unbelievably, has clocked in at an average of 91.4 mph, which is quicker than the average fastball of 22 qualified NL starters.

The most amazing thing about Syndergaard though isn’t the video-game stuff, it’s his command that any pitcher not named Kershaw would envy. The Mets ace has issued just nine walks this season, giving him a nine-to-one K/BB ratio.

Somehow, even with all of that excellence he only has a 5-2 record on the year, and though most should be able to see through it, older voters will still hold it against him. With the Mets struggling to stay in the NL East race they’ll need the offense to help out what is an outstanding pitching staff and start piling up wins for Syndergaard and Co.

Next: The $175 Million Dollar Man

Another repeat offender on this list, Stephen Strasburg moves up a spot after another perfect month, going 5-0 in May. While he trails Syndergaard in WAR, he makes up for it by ranking ahead of him in wins, strikeouts and innings (and a thousand sabermetricians cried out in pain). Until he loses, the voters will keep putting him on their ballot near the top of the list.

The Nationals seemed to agree, as they came to a seven-year extension with the 27-year-old for a whopping $175MM that will take him through his age-34 season. Like other Nationals signings before him, Strasburg agreed to deferred money which will keep him on payroll (earning $10MM annually) until 2030, well after he has retired.

He’s proving to everyone that he’s worth it, as he has the lowest ERA and FIP of his career, and is striking out batters at an even better rate than ever. Much of it might have to do with the increased use of his slider.  Only having thrown 40 of them as a big leaguer prior to this season, Strasburg has now thrown 175 this year, his second most used pitch.  Though it’s not quite Syndergaard fast, he’s averaging 89 mph on the pitch and it’s resulted in his changeup being even more devastating.

After Washington announced they’ll be bringing up Trea Turner to slot in at shortstop now that his service clock has turned over, the Nationals have filled one of the only holes on their team. Already at 33-21, this team is destined for great things in the NL East and Strasburg will be a big part of that.

Next: A Bearded Bear

When we did this last month, Jake Arrieta was undefeated, had a 1.00 ERA and a recent no-hitter under his belt. We couldn’t justify knocking him out of the top spot that he came into the season with as the reigning Cy Young winner.  After another outstanding month, where he was still perfect and actually lowered his FIP, he’s been dropped down with reluctance.

Even though WAR puts Syndergaard and Strasburg ahead of the Cubs ace, it’s all those other things that makes him a shoe-in for a big number of votes this season.  He’s (tied for) first in ERA and wins, still has the only 2016 no-hitter, and is the leader of the best team in baseball. The Cubs don’t seem to want to lose, going 37-15 in the first two months and look like they deserve to be in a league higher than everyone else.

Last month, we marveled at the fact that Arrieta hadn’t lost in 18 starts. Well now it’s up to 24, as he didn’t falter this month either.  The Cubs are 23-1 in those games after the team couldn’t hold on to his latest seven-inning, two-hit performance. Until he does lose a game, he won’t drop further than second on most voter cards, and even then it’s taken an all-time performance to get him down that far.

Next: The GOAT?

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what order the other pitchers in the National League are listed – no one is going to take this award from Clayton Kershaw.

Seemingly deciding that he’s never going to walk more than a batter a week, Kershaw has now issued just five walks through his first eleven starts. Hitters should probably just stop swinging altogether, as he’s struck out 105 batters on the year. That’s a 21-to-1 ratio for those keeping score at home, easily the best ratio of all-time (the single season record was actually set just two years ago by Phil Hughes at 11.6-to-1).

His 4.1 WAR not only puts him on pace for the greatest pitching season of all-time (currently Pedro Martinez‘ 11.6 in 1999), but ranks him ahead of the entire rotations of all but ten other teams. It doesn’t only put him at the top of the pitching ranks either; he leads all of baseball in WAR, giving him the inside track at the NL MVP vote as well.

Next: Top 5 NL MVP Candidates Through May

At this point, when opposing managers see Kershaw penciled onto the lineup card, they might as well just invite some local kids to play that night. It’s not like they’d do any worse, and heck – they might even have more fun doing it.