Red Sox ace Chris Sale among AL Cy Young finalists
Boston Red Sox ace Chris Sale has been named one of the three finalists for the AL Cy Young Award. How does he stack up against the competition?
Major League Baseball has revealed the ballot of the three finalists for the American League Cy Young Award, which includes Boston Red Sox left-handed pitcher Chris Sale.
Joining Sale among the finalists is Cleveland Indians right-hander Corey Kluber and New York Yankees right-hander Luis Severino.
Your 2017 AL BBWAA #CyYoung Award finalists:
— MLB (@MLB) November 6, 2017
Corey Kluber
Chris Sale@LuisSeverino94 pic.twitter.com/nyOj23fIRX
The Cy Young Award is annually given to the best pitcher in each league. The award is voted on by a panel of members of the Baseball Writer’s Association of America with one representative for each team.
Since 2010, the writers ranked five pitchers in each league and used a formula to weight votes based on how high the pitcher’s appeared on each ballot. The process has been changed this year to limit voting to a ballot that includes three finalists.
Last year the award went to Red Sox pitcher Rick Porcello, who narrowly edged out Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander by a score of 137 – 132. Kluber finished fourth on the ballot, while Sale was sixth. The results will be a bit different this year with only three finalists to vote for, yet we could still see another tight race.
How does Sale stack up against the competition? Let’s take a look at the contenders.
Luis Severino
This year’s AL Cy Young ballot boils down to a two-man race, but since three are required for the list of finalists we have Severino included.
That’s not to say that Severino isn’t worthy of some consideration. The young Yankees ace is coming off an outstanding breakout year, ranking third in the league with a 2.98 ERA and 1.04 WHIP. He was fourth in the AL with 230 strikeouts and his 5.3 WAR ranked fifth among AL pitchers.
After showing flashes of brilliance in an abbreviated rookie year in 2015, Severino struggled with inconsistency the following season, bouncing back and forth between the Yankees rotation and bullpen. He ended with an underwhelming 5.83 ERA in 22 appearances, including 11 starts.
The 23-year got back on track with a career year in 2017, making his first All-Star appearance while setting career-highs in virtually every category. Severino dramatically lowered his walk rate to 2.4 BB/9 and increased his strikeout rate to an elite 10.7 K/9. Combine that with his 3.08 FIP and we can see that his improved ERA is no fluke.
Severino clearly has a bright future as one of the top pitchers in the league. His inclusion on the ballot is warranted, but he remains a tier below the top two aces on this list – at least for now.
Chris Sale
Through the first four months of the season, it appeared that Sale would run away with this award. He was even garnering attention in the MVP debate. He entered the break with a 2.75 ERA and was named the AL starter for this year’s All-Star Game.
Once the calendar flipped to August we began to see some signs of Sale unraveling. While he still mixed in some dominant outings to prove he hadn’t completely lost it, there was an uncharacteristic number of rough outings that torpedoed his hold on the Cy Young race.
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Sale was lit up twice by a Cleveland Indians team that seems to have his number, surrendering 13 runs over two starts against the Tribe in August. He also gave up five runs over five innings in his final start of the regular season to a Toronto Blue Jays team he had historically dominated. Not the way the Red Sox wanted to send their ace into the postseason.
Despite a rocky finish, Sale still finished among the top two in the league in virtually every category. He led the majors with 308 strikeouts and a 12.93 K/9, while making a valiant run at Pedro Martinez‘ single-season franchise strikeout record.
Sale ranked second in the league with a 2.90 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, and 6.0 pitching WAR. His 17 wins were fourth in the league and only one short of the league-leading total.
While he’s never won a Cy Young before, Sale has finished within the top-six on the ballot in each of the last five seasons. The closest he came was a third-place finish in 2014. Sale should get a step closer by finishing second, but ultimately his second-half fade will cost him the hardware.
Corey Kluber
Sale finished an impressive second in the league in many categories, but it was Kluber who finished first in most of them.
While Sale faded a bit down the stretch, Kluber only got stronger. He posted a spectacular 1.79 ERA and struck out 142 batters in 110 1/3 innings after the break. It seemed that Sale would run away with the award, but Kluber’s dominant second half allowed him to overtake Boston’s ace.
Kluber finished with a league-leading 18 wins, 2.25 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 1.9 BB/9, 6.2 H/9 and 8.0 pitching WAR. His 265 strikeouts and 11.71 K/9 were second only to Sale, while his 7.36 K/BB ratio gave him a slight edge for first in the league.
A brief stint on the disabled list limited Kluber to only 29 starts, yet he still finished with a workhorse innings total of 203 2/3, which ranked fourth in the league. The additional workload is a feather in the cap for Sale, but the gap isn’t large enough to make a significant difference given that Kluber still managed to top the 200 innings mark. Kluber made up for some of that lost time with a major league-leading five complete games, including three shutouts.
Kluber already has one Cy Young under his belt from 2014 and is on the verge of adding another. ESPN’s Cy Young Predictor gives him a comfortable lead over Sale by a margin of 199.2 to 173.7. Severino is a distant ninth by their scale, coming in with a score of 134.6.
Next: Free Agency offers bullpen solutions
Sale’s first season in a Red Sox uniform was everything the team could have hoped for, but it wasn’t quite enough to put him ahead of Kluber in this race.