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On a year-to-year basis, you know exactly what you are going to get from Max Scherzer: a sub 3.00 ERA, a sub 1.00 WHIP, 15-20 wins, over 200 innings and at least 250 strikeouts. His stat lines from each of the past six seasons have been astonishingly similar. But 2018 may have been his best season yet. He failed to win his third consecutive National League Cy Young award due to the historically great season that Jacob deGrom had, but from a roto perspective, Scherzer’s year was better. This is the fifth time in the past six years that Scherzer has finished in the top five of this league’s Cy Young vote and the second time he has come out on top. Kings starting pitcher Max Scherzer is the 2018 DTBL Cy Young award winner.
It is hard to pick out Scherzer’s best career season, but I would make the case that 2018 is the new leader. He posted the highest PAR of his career, a league leading 14.0. He easily set a career high in strikeouts, finishing at exactly 300. (As an aside, I was in the park for his 300th strikeout. It was a pretty cool moment in an otherwise extremely disappointing Nationals season.) He is the sixth different pitcher to record a 300 strikeout season in DTBL history. Among qualified pitchers, his 2.53 ERA ranked seventh and his 0.911 WHP was third best. Three other pitchers were ahead of his 18 wins. In addition to PAR and strikeouts, he also led the league in innings pitched with 220 2/3.
The Kings acquired Scherzer in a trade with the Jackalope back in 2010. That trade continues to pay dividends for the Kings, who have now won three championships with Scherzer on the roster. This is the second time that he has won both a DTBL Championship and the Cy Young award in the same season, repeating what he accomplished in 2016. The Kings won the title this year mainly on the strength of three players: Scherzer, Mookie Betts and Justin Verlander. While Scherzer faced stiff competition for this league-wide award, you could make a decent case that he wasn’t even the best pitcher on the Kings staff as his and Verlander’s numbers were nearly identical across the board. Scherzer won a couple more games and had ten more strikeouts, but Verlander had the slight edge in ERA and WHIP. They combined for 27.0 Pitching PAR, which was an incredible 75% of the team’s total Pitching PAR of 36.1. Needless to say, the Kings would not have been champions without either of these guys.
As expected, the Cy Young vote was kind of all over the place as there were a whole bunch of players who made compelling cases. Scherzer did win by a decent margin, but was far from unanimous. He received seven first place votes, two seconds and a third for a point total of 89. He was the only pitcher to appear on all ten ballots. Finishing second was Cougars lefty, and 2018 DTBL Rookie of the Year, Blake Snell. Snell received nine votes, including two firsts and two seconds, for 53 points. The league’s win leader had quite a rookie campaign and now adds a second place finish for the Cy Young to his resume. Verlander finished right behind Snell. He was the third and final player to receive a first place vote (one) and had a pair of second place votes as well. Like Snell, he appeared on nine of ten ballots and totaled 42 points. Coming in fourth was the most interesting case of the year, Darkhorses ace Jacob deGrom. I think most people would agree that deGrom was the best pitcher in baseball this season, compiling a ridiculous 1.70 ERA, which was the fourth best mark in league history. But wins do matter in fantasy baseball and he only had 10 of them. He received a second place vote and racked up 32 points. Those four were well ahead of the rest, but several other pitchers received strong consideration as well. Moonshiners reliever Edwin Diaz only received three votes, but two of them were second place nods, so he finished fifth in the voting with 15 points. Diaz appeared to be well on his way to breaking the league’s single season save record. But his pace slowed a bit down the stretch and he finished with 57 saves, falling five short of Francisco Rodriguez’s total ten years ago. 57 did put him in the second spot on the single season saves list though.
Click here to view the full voting results.
On Tuesday, I plan to announce the third and final award: Most Valuable Player. Like the Cy Young, there appear to be plenty of strong contenders for MVP, so expect to see a similar scattering of votes. Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend.