With the infusion of three DTBL rookie pitchers who immediately became stars, the pool of players who were serious contenders for the Cy Young award became even deeper. However, those guys still have some work to do to topple the gold standard in the league today. Moonshiners lefty Tarik Skubal rode a truly dominant 2024 season to a unanimous Cy Young selection. In his follow up campaign, he nearly replicated his ’24 numbers, making him the man to beat again for this award. While it was not unanimous this time thanks to his new teammate, Tarik Skubal is the 2025 DTBL Cy Young award winner.
It is quite remarkable how similar Skubal’s 2024 and 2025 seasons were. This year, he led the league with a miniscule 0.89 WHIP and finished second with a 2.21 ERA and 241 strikeouts. All three of those numbers were slight improvements over a year ago. His 14.3 Pitching PAR also led the league, but was down a hair from ’24 mainly because his win total dropped from 18 to 13 this year. Skubal continues to be an enormous outlier in baseball with his ability to strike out hitters without sacrificing control. He only walked 33 batters, the lowest total in the league among qualified pitchers. His 7.3 K/BB ratio was nearly two points higher than the next best pitcher. In the years for which PAR has been calculated (2005-present), Skubal is just the third pitcher to accumulate 14+ Pitching PAR in consecutive seasons, joining Clayton Kershaw (2014-15) and Justin Verlander (2018-19). Nobody has ever done it three straight years, so that is something for him to shoot for in 2026.
Skubal’s path to the Moonshiners has been well documented at this point. His two years with the team have transformed them into one of the league’s top staffs after a few years of inconsistency. The back to back years of first round selections of Skubal and then Garrett Crochet have set them up to dominate the pitching categories for years to come. The Moonshiners ran away from the field in strikeouts this year, whiffing 132 more hitters than any other team. They trailed only the Darkhorses in total pitching points this season on their way to their second consecutive second place finish. Presumably, they will be able to focus their attention on the offense in next year’s draft unless another pitching gem falls to them again.
Skubal did not quite repeat as a unanimous selection for the Cy Young award. He received nine of ten first place votes, plus a second, for 97 out of a possible 100 voting points. The only first place vote he didn’t receive went to his Moonshiners teammate Crochet. The 2025 DTBL Rookie of the Year probably would have doubled up with the Cy Young award as well if Skubal didn’t exist. Crochet led the league in strikeouts and was just 1/2 point behind Skubal in PAR. In addition to the single first place vote, Crochet also garnered seven second place tallies and a pair of thirds for a total of 69 points. This is the first time teammates have finished 1-2 in Cy Young voting since Choppers hurlers Shane Bieber and Trevor Bauer topped the 2020 vote. Behind them is another DTBL rookie, Cougars fireballer Paul Skenes. It is kind of shocking that a pitcher with a league leading ERA under 2 (1.97) would not receive a single first place vote for Cy Young. However, the competition for this award was incredibly stiff. Skenes got a pair of second place votes and seven thirds to comfortably finish third with 52 points. This year’s National League Cy Young winner figures to have plenty of future opportunities to win the award in the DTBL. There was a bit of a gap after those top three. The fourth place finisher is one of this season’s breakout stars. Choppers righty Bryan Woo emerged as the ace of a loaded Mariners staff. The sixth round pick from ’24 has already soared past expectations for a mid-round selection. He appeared on eight of ten ballots and finished with 21 points. Rounding out the top five is veteran righty Nathan Eovaldi, who wasn’t even on an active roster until May. The Diamond Dogs picked him up a quarter of the way into the season and all he did was shove. His 1.73 ERA easily would have led the league, except he was 20 innings shy of qualifying due to his late start. He still managed to accumulate 11 Pitching PAR in 3/4 of a season. Eovaldi accumulated eight total points in this vote. The depth of pitching in the league was quite impressive this year as many others outside of the top five had strong cases as well. In total, 11 different pitchers received at least one vote.
Click here to view the full voting results.
Two awards down, two awards won by the Moonshiners. With Shohei Ohtani looming, can they make it three for three with tomorrow’s Most Valuable Player announcement? The reigning MVP has some pretty stiff competition to win the award again this year.