Former Oriole “bust” Jake Arrieta (This is how I will ALWAYS refer to him) now of the Cubs and current Astros Dallas Keuchel were given baseball’s highest seasonal pitching achievement tonight, being named Cy Young winners for their respective leagues.
Dallas won the voting with 22 first place votes and 8 second place votes over David Price’s 8 first place, 21 second place, and 1 third place votes. Sonny Gray came in third.
Keuchel was the only one of the three finalists to reach the exalted threshold of 20 victories, but he did a lot more than that on the statistical front. Keuchel finished 2015 with a 20-8 record, a 2.48 ERA, 216 strikeouts in an AL-high 232 innings and a 1.02 WHIP. He also didn’t lose a single game at home, with a 15-0 record and 1.46 ERA at Minute Maid Park.
The race in the NL was a little closer as Jake won it with 17 first, 11 second, and 2 third place votes. Zach Greinke was second with 10 first, 17 second and 3 third place votes. Clayton Kershaw was third.
Arrieta doesn’t have to do much building if he repeats what he did in 2015. He led the Majors with 22 wins, only lost six decisions and posted a 1.77 ERA that was second only to Greinke’s 1.66. Arrieta’s second-half ERA of 0.75 was the lowest in Major League history, and he added 236 strikeouts in 229 innings, a 0.87 WHIP, and a no-hitter over the Dodgers.
Fan Interference 
3 for 3…ROY, MOY, and CY. Hard to be mad at that.
Only thing left to do is guess how many down-ballot votes Rizzo and/or Bryant will get for MVP. I think Rizzo will get a chunk of top-5 votes, and Bryant should get a decent handful in the 5-8 range.
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The Cards’ scouts just programmed a billy goat emoji into the MVP vote tabulation computer! 🙂
Otherwise, well done … but, no better done than that!
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Greinke was better but the best one doesn’t always win. Arrieta was no slouch either.
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Your choice was Great or Also Great. And, frankly, Kershaw was Pretty Darn Great. Always a problem with giving awards on statistics that give wiggle room.
Correa vs. Lindor was another good example.
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Chicago got a LOT of love in the voting this year.
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Earned it. None of the choices was bad.
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I still think winning 20 and getting the no hitter is what won it for Jake. Voters aren’t always rational people. They like the sexy stats.
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Now that I really think about it, Voters have a very short memory, and Arrieta had a crazy second half, which is probably what pushed him over the edge.
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