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The 2017 season got off to a rough start for Demigods ace Corey Kluber. He managed to win three of his first six starts, but was far from his usual dominant self, posting a 5.06 ERA before hitting the disabled list for nearly a month. Apparently the time off served him well, because he was the best pitcher in baseball for the final four months of the season. Those four months of dominance were enough to make Kluber’s full season numbers as impressive as any other pitcher in baseball. Corey Kluber is the 2017 DTBL Cy Young award winner.
Kluber is the definition of a workhorse. Despite missing a month of the season, he still managed to record 203.2 innings, exceeded by only two other DTBL pitchers. He has thrown over 200 innings in all four of his seasons with the Demigods. But it wasn’t just about quantity of innings for Kluber. The quality was unsurpassed as well. He easily led the league in ERA (2.25) and WHIP (0.87) and tied for the most wins (18) as well. His 265 strikeouts ranked third in the league. In terms of PAR, he was also the best pitcher in the league with a mark of 13.2. He did all of this while pitching in the hitter friendly American League. He is the first American League pitcher to win the DTBL Cy Young award since David Price in 2012.
The Demigods drafted Kluber in the 10th round of the 2014 draft. Needless to say, that pick has worked out quite well for them. Kluber won the DTBL Rookie of the Year award in 2014 and has been a Cy Young contender pretty much every season since. He has struck out over 225 hitters in each season and has never posted an ERA above 3.50 or a WHIP above 1.09. This season was probably his best to date, but there hasn’t been a bad one yet. He already sits in the top five in Demigods franchise history in all relevant categories. Amazingly enough, this season marked his first DTBL All-Star appearance. I would say that is a sign of how dominant Kluber tends to be in the second half of seasons, because his full season numbers have been All-Star worthy in all four years of his DTBL career. The Demigods pitching staff was a bit of a disappointment as a whole, keeping them from being a serious championship contender. But that obviously wasn’t Kluber’s fault. He easily led his team in ERA, WHIP, wins, strikeouts and PAR.
Plenty of pitchers had great 2017 seasons, but Kluber won this award pretty easily. He received eight of the ten first place votes, and was ranked second on the other two ballots for a total of 94 points. Chris Sale looked like the favorite to win this award at the All-Star break, but he continued his career trend of fading down the stretch, creating quite a contrast to Kluber. Nonetheless, the Choppers lefty still led the league in strikeouts with 308, the highest single season total since Randy Johnson’s 334 in the 2002 season, 15 years ago. Sale received one first place vote and eight seconds for a 69 point total. There was a very close race for third place. Last year’s Cy Young winner, Kings ace Max Scherzer edged out Mavericks star Clayton Kershaw. Scherzer received a majority of the third place votes (7) and accumulated 44 points. This was just enough to beat Kerhaw’s 40 points that included a first place vote. Finishing near the top of the Cy Young vote is nothing new for this duo. Scherzer has now finished in the top four in four of the past five seasons. Amazingly, this is Kershaw’s seventh straight year in this elite company. He won the award in 2013 and 2014. There was a huge gap after these four, but Mavericks closer Kenley Jansen took the fifth spot thanks to four fifth place votes.
Click here to view the full voting results.
Two down, one to go. The Most Valuable Player award, which figures to be the most hotly contested of the three races, will be announced on Wednesday.