AL Cy Young Debate

     Chris Sale, Jered Weaver and Justin Verlander all are on the bump tonight for their respective teams. That raises the question, who is the favorite in the AL Cy Young race heading into September and who will end up winning that battle? First, here are your contenders. There are those three guys I mentioned above and then the other two are David Price and Felix Hernandez. If the award was given today, it would be extremely difficult to hand this award out because all five pitchers have been outstanding in their own right, but the award would go to Felix Hernandez by a slim margin. Hernandez is 13-5, equaling his win total from when he won the Cy Young award a couple years ago along with far fewer losses heading into the final month of the season. Hernandez leads baseball in innings pitched, confirming his case as a workhorse pitcher that the Mariners can consistently rely on to pitch late into games consistently while he is also second in the majors in strikeouts behind Verlander, showing that he remains one of the nastiest and most dominate pitchers in the league. On top of that, he leads the majors in shutouts with five, three more than the second most in the league as well as the perfect game very recently against the Rays that will sit in many voters minds come award time.
     While I believe Hernandez deserves the award in one of the tightest award races in many years, you could ask ten different people and no more than three of them will all agree on the same guy being the winner if the season were to end today. So the race will come down to the final month of the season. The pitcher that is most likely to fall out of this race is Jered Weaver and it is due more to his teams failing performance. While Weaver is a terrific 16-3, he has far less strikeouts than the other guys he is competing against and his ERA is also the highest among the other four pitchers. I predict that because the Angels will ultimately fall a little short in the end, Weaver's campaign will fall with it, even though I think he will win at least 19 games.
     The next determining factor will be how the AL Central race plays out. If the White Sox hang on, it will most likely be because of Chris Sale holding off the Tigers. On the other hand, if the Tigers were to catch the Tigers and win the Central, guaranteed it will have something to do with Justin Verlander leading the charge. I believe Verlander will be outstanding in September, but the Tigers will fall just short. Chris Sale will have another strong month as well, furthering his case for the Cy Young.
     Finally, we have David Price. His Tampa Bay Rays sit in possession of the final and it has largely been because of Price's superb season. My prediction is that the Rays capture a wild card behind Price continuing to pitch like an ace.

    With Weaver out and Verlander not having enough of a case, the race comes down to Chris Sale, David Price and Felix Hernandez. Sale's lack of dominant performances including no shut outs up to this point put him slightly behind Price and Hernandez, narrowing it to a two horse race. Price and Hernandez is a pick him, both are deserving. But voters will not overlook the raw numbers. Forget the fact that Hernandez plays for a pedestrian Mariners team, his lead in strikeouts, shut outs, innings pitched and ERA along with his stellar record with few losses will give him his second Cy Young Award over David Price after a thrilling month of September.